Eleven years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, courageous Kevin Cooper has been named the North-East Over 40s League's manager of the year.

"It's one of the most wonderful football stories I've ever heard," says League secretary Kip Watson.

It's also a remarkable example of managing with MS, of walking stick and of sticking in, and may be the first time the 43-year-old has been in the paper since the curious business of Spot the dog.

The only goalkeeper ever to be voted the Crook and District League's player of the year, Kevin was playing in 1977 for Howden-le-Wear WMC at Tindale Crescent. ("You know, Jackie Foster and them".)

"One of our defenders passed back to me and this dog, Stan Thexton's it was, ran on, dribbled past me, and stuck the ball into the net."

The referee awarded the goal. Not entirely surprisingly, Kevin recalls that there was hell on. "Afterwards the ref agreed that he might have been wrong, but it was a bit late by then.

"The dog really was called Spot. The papers were full of Spot the ball."

His playing career long ended by illness, Kevin took over Crook Town Over 40s at the start of the season. Champions of the D division last year, they seem certain to be promoted again after winning the last seven games with a goal difference of 34-4.

"It would be easy to sit around the house feeling sorry for myself, but I'm not that sort of person. There are plenty of times when you get down, but I don't like to show it.

"Before this season they'd just been picking the team among themselves and it doesn't work. It's about getting the right sort of player in, keeping everyone happy, making full use of the squad.

"I'd played with most of these lads for years and I'm thoroughly enjoying being involved again."

For Kevin, however, it could be his first and last season in the dug-out. "I've been active all my life, you name it and I've done it, but I can't work any more, I can't really drink any more, I can't walk any distance, I can hardly climb steps and I find it difficult to get to some of the games.

"The lads understand and it doesn't bother them. If they want me, I'll do my best to carry on, but I'm struggling a bit now."

Stephen Buddle, chairman of Crook's Albany Northern League club, said that Kevin had turned the Over 40s from a good side into a very good side.

"He never complains about his terrible illness, he just gets on with life. He's a great lad, a lesson to us all and a true local hero. I'm very proud to call him by friend."

Just 11 days to the golden jubilee of the Amateur Cup's most epic final - Bishop Auckland v Crook, twice replayed - and what of Alf Bond from Middlesex, the one armed referee who had control of all three games.

Short of the fact that he died in 1986 and refereed Wales v Scotland in 1952 and Scotland v Northern Ireland in 1954, we have been able to discover little.

How did he book folk? How did he whistle and signal simultaneously? How many times, even in the 1950s, was he accused of being a bandit?

There may be more of this on Friday - but surely not even the Elderly Secretary of the Bishop Auckland Referees Society can remember whistling Alf Bond?

First footing 2004, the column on January 9 reported a trip to Telford United to see team manager Mick Jones, a much travelled Sunderland lad for whom All Around the Wrekin might have seemed but a walk to the paper shop.

The once struggling Conference club had been transformed by self-made millionaire Andy Shaw, a 39-year-old former carpenter. We described the new Bucks Head ground as "sumptuous" and "palatial" and could still have been arraigned under the Understatement Act of 1973.

Shaw's investment was put at £20m. He was a hero worshipped, hands-on chairman who drank with the supporters, operated the crane, cut it with the boys.

Telford were due to Millwall in the FA Cup fourth round the following week, Bucks Fizz headlines popping like corks at a christening.

Wages were high but it didn't seem to matter. "Andy rewards success, not failure," said the admirable Jones, 57.

Last Thursday, Shaw announced that his business empire had crashed. The club is losing £16,000 a week and is on the verge of receivership, the chairman is on the brink of bankruptcy.

The Bank of Scotland has called in a loan agreed to complete the stand and adjoining hotel and sports complex, the police are owed a kidnapper's ransom, the last available figures showed that Telford were carrying a debt of £2.29m.

Saturday's FA Trophy semi-final first leg against Canvey Island went ahead at the last minute, only after Jones had agreed to work unpaid until the end of the season and the players had agreed to a 50 per cent wage cut.

Though talks continue, there is no guarantee that the second leg - or any other Telford games - will ever take place.

"This shows the danger of having a single benefactor at a club," says Conference chief executive John Moules.

Telford, the former ironmasters' town in Shropshire, is getting on 200 miles away; supporters in these parts may nonetheless find all this fearfully close to home.

Ron Hails - "among the common or garden mourners" - adds a last PS on Frankie Baggs, a lovely, lively man and a wonderful entertainer whose funeral last Thursday we had to miss.

Over 1,000 did make it, the service in St Paul's parish church, Hartlepool relayed to the nearby St Joseph's Roman Catholic church, which overflowed just as greatly.

Footballers, cricket men, golfers, bowls players and boxers - Franie was also a popular MC - united to remember him. Police sealed off the roads - "Frankie would have loved that" says Ron - and Billy Watson, a Critics' Corner colleague at Park Drive, read a fitting poem.

As the cortege left, they played one of Frankie's favourites: This Is a Lovely Way To Spend an Evening. It was a memorable morning, too.

...and finally

Friday's column invited the identity of four Yorkshiremen who'd achieved the cricket double of 10,000 runs and 1,000 wickets and should really have added "for Yorkshire".

The intended quartet was Wilf Rhodes, George Hirst, Schofield Haigh and Ray Illingworth and the poor chap who got stuck on 9,994 was Phil Carrick.

Alf Hutchinson - a Darlington Tyke, like Ted Scotter who put the question - also nominates Ted Wainwright, who represented Yorkshire from 1888-1902 and may also have earned county colours for curmudgeonliness.

"The sort of feller who didn't suffer wise men gladly, never mind fools," says Alf. Anthony Woodhouse's white rose history thought him "a true Yorkshire character", Christopher Martin-Jenkins wrote of a man "blunt of tongue", Bill Frindall considered him the deadliest bowler in the country on a sticky wicket, though his five test matches brought no reward.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the last club to reach the FA Cup final at Wembley for the first time.

The column returns on Friday.

Sad loss of Helen Willis

Helen Willis, the rock upon which her husband Peter devoted a lifetime to refereeing, died at the weekend.

"She probably knows more about referees and refereeing than I do," Big Peter told the column in 2002, retiring after 18 years as unpaid national president of the Referees' Association.

"She was a lovely lass and an incredibly supportive wife who'd travel the length and breadth of the country with him," recalls Terry Farley, a former Football League colleague.

When Peter went solo, Helen held the fort with immense charm and remarkable patience. The spare bedroom of their home in Meadowfield, near Durham, had become - "much to her disgust" - his overflowing office.

When occasionally he answered the telephone in the bath, the likelihood was that Helen was scrubbing his back.

Peter, a former Co Durham policeman, refereed the 1985 FA Cup final and many other big games. Whether it was West Auckland or Wembley, Helen would always be there when he got home.

He retired, ironically, so that they could spend more time together. The tragedy is that they had so little.

Published: ??/??/2003