You say Linlith-go I say Linlith-gow

Mr Peter Sixsmith, for whom the excursion was a sort of cross-border bereavement counselling following Sunderland's recent misfortunes, insisted that the town is pronounced Linlith-gow, as in Grumpy Gow.

(Grumpy Gow, it will be recalled, was the bloke who lived next door to Our Wullie and who was always confiscating the poor bairn's ball when it smashed his cucumber frame.)

Everyone else supposed that it was Linlith-go, as in get-up-and-go. Seriously and serially outvoted, Mr Sixsmith resumed his seat.

Twenty miles west of Edinburgh, Linlithgow is perhaps best known as the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots - 462 this year, had she lived to tell the tale - and for the church of St Michael, a handsome building which Edward I used as an equipment store and in which Oliver Cromwell, the great philistine, kept his horses.

The Four Marys pub, named after the Scottish queen's ladies in waiting - why are dinky little cakes called "maids of honour", incidentally - was also home to the Waldie family. David Waldie, its most famous son, discovered in 1847 the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.

That it remains a sleepy little town may be assumed from one of the main stories in last week's Linlithgow Gazette, about a little girl's rabbit which allegedly had been stolen but was subsequently found, hopping mad, about five yards away.

"Rachel reunited with rabbit" ran the headline across six columns, the crime considered so heinous that it even warranted the principal piece in the Gazette's comment column.

"We hacks are supposed to be cynical and hard bitten," it read, "but I have to say this is one of the most heartless things I've heard about in many a long day."

Still, Linlithgow Rose were blooming, as another headline had it - and perhaps had had it since the football club was formed in 1889. A win on Saturday against Hill of Beath (where stands a statue to the great Jim Baxter) and they'd all but be champions of the East of Scotland League for the first time.

A defeat, and they'd have to dig out the alternative headline. Withered on the stem.

The day was delightful, Oliphant's scotch pies decidedly superior to Morrison's, the beer in fine fettle, rugs - tartan rugs, of course - spread out in the sunshine behind the goal.

Only Linlighgow vice-president and local pub owner Colin Sinclair - 203 midfield games for Darlington in the 1970s - was excused, a family wedding or some such.

Among those who were in attendance was Mr John Dawson, the former Hartlepool postman who by virtue of a heart by pass 14 months ago has only seen 182 matches this season - "I have to take it steady," he said - and who had triumphantly completed his Central Midlands League set at Selston.

The linesman had been 78. "See you next year," he'd said.

Also among the pipes and bums of the massed regiment of ground hoppers was the chap known as the Blackpool Tram - who must touch both crossbars before the game "counts" - and Mr Brian Hird from Melsonby, near Richmond, who after a three day trek to Dingwall had completed his Scottish League set the previous week.

In England, Linlithgow would be non-league, in Scotland they play "junior" football, which is by no means to say that they're we'ans. Given the constant cacophony of swearing, these games should really be adults only, or after the nine o'clock watershed, or with a note from the crowd's mam.

The spectators are worst. They swear for Scotland, these boys, fecklessly and furiously, though it seemed a mite unpatriotic for a chap in a Heart of Midlothian shirt to attack the referee as a cheating Scottish so-and-so.

Things got worse when Hill of Beith (for whom Jinky Jimmy's nephew was playing) took the lead mid-way through the first half and held it until well into the second. Linlithgow were by all accounts unrecognisable, Rose by some other name entirely.

Just when even Grumpy Gow might have discovered new depths to the Scottish language, however, the home side scored twice and now need to lose their final game about 16-0 not to take the title.

Expletives deleted, it had been a good day and a lovely afternoon. If there were another game in Cardiff, none had spared it a thought.

Long rumoured to like the odd half in Yarm on a Saturday night, former Middlesbrough manager Bryan Robson addresses the drinking culture in the latest FourFourTwo magazine - where a questioner suggests that his record consumption for one night was 34 bottles of Budweiser. "I never counted," says Robson, "but 34 would probably come close."

Just a week after his wife Lesley died from cancer, Alan Ball spoke at Trimdon Juniors dinner - already poignant - on Friday night.

"I never hesitated over coming," said the high pitched hero of the 1966 World Cup, "though it's about the only part of the country I would have come to in the circumstances."

Trimdon have had losses of their own, the minute's silence remembering Owen Willoughby, great founder of the feast, plus George Hardwick and Frankie Baggs, who never missed it.

Ball, little big man, stood on the chair to speak, talking chiefly about his affection for his father. "I am," he announced, "your after dinner squeaker."

Clean bill of health, clearly, Surtees Dynamos from Ferryhill have won the 100-year-old Durham Hospitals Cup for the third successive season - prompting an enthusiastic e-mail from Ralph Petitjean.

The Surtees played Elm Road WMC from Shildon in the final, trailed 2-0 in the second half, equalised through Jason Catteral in injury time and then won through Paul Robinson's extra time golden goal.

The Dynamos first goal - and this is where it gets tricky - had come from Nigel Milner, whom Ralph describes as the Mainsforth cricketer. He scores more goals than runs, Ralph adds, and it was his first goal of the season.

Anxious to avoid calumny, we checked Mainsforth's score card on Saturday - and though Nigel again failed to trouble the scorers, it should be stressed that he was defiantly not out.

Black over Bill's mother's (part 397). Jack Chapman in Hebburn reckons he always credited David Lloyd with the sporting weather forecast - "I'm surprised that people thought the epicentre was over Kingsway, Bishop Auckland. Readers of The Times, following last Tuesday's note, have claimed it universally. The outlook remains decidedly uncertain.

National disgrace, and all that, last Tuesday's column also reported anger at the suggestion on A Question of Sport that Co Durham lad Brian Fletcher was the "least known" of the jockeys who'd ridden Grand National winners for Ginger McCain.

Mrs D Webstell in Bishop Auckland shares the feeling. Back in 1996 she wrote to Derek Thompson at Channel Four Racing when they, in turn, seemed to be turning Fletcher into an also ran.

Thompson was conciliatory - "I always give Brian a mention". Mrs Webstell is unconvinced. "Tommy Stack always seems to get the accolades, none of the Channel Four team ever mentions Brian. It gets me very annoyed."

And finally...

The well known author who played football for Portsmouth and cricket for the MCC (Backtrack, May 21) was Arthur Conan Doyle. Elementary, or what?

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the only player to score two penalties in an FA Cup final. The answer, spot on, on Friday.

Published: 25/05/2004