Chaplain Rice ready to hand over Pool duties

Unlike United, blessed poor, the minister for sport will remain on his knees, however.

He has also been chaplain to Durham County Cricket Club, to police and fire departments in Chicago, to local government workers on Teesside and to Cleveland Fire Brigade, to the Speaker of the House of Commons and - every summer for nine years - at Billy Butlin's in Skegness.

"We were ranked like generals. I was a five star chaplain promoted from judging glamorous granny to Miss Lovely Legs," he recalls.

"Nothing you ever study at theological college teaches you to mark lovely legs out of 40."

His friends included Ken Dodd and Rolf Harris. There's a picture of him and old Rolf somewhere, reunited at Sir Billy's.

At Hartlepool, always in his dog collar - "it tells people where I stand" - he has been as familiar in the dressing room as in the board room, on the terraces as amid the turmoil.

"There was once a bit of trouble when John Smart was chairman and I went into the middle of it and stood beside him, smiling like an idiot.

"Basically, though, the Vic is a bit like Butlin's, you're among people out to enjoy themselves. It's a terrific missionary opportunity.

"I always use the word congregations, not gates. At Hartlepool my congregations have trebled."

Once described in the programme as "The Ref Brian Rice", he also visits the referee's room before every match. One referee asked to see him afterwards because his wife had just been diagnosed with cancer - "we ended up talking on Seaton Carew beach" - another sought counsel after issuing his first Football League red card.

"The referee was far more traumatised than the player he sent off," says Brian.

When he went to Hartlepool, there were around a dozen football club chaplains. Now there are 200, from Bangor to Ballyclare Comrades.

He prays for each by name every Saturday morning in the season - "to remind God where they are" - but never that his own team might prevail.

"There are enough things to pray about as it is," he says, recalling that his most difficult sermon was in Norwich Cathedral on the weekend of the Hillsborough disaster. His text was the Bible's shortest verse: Jesus wept.

As an 18-year old national serviceman he became one of the British army's youngest officers - "top out of 125 cadets" - and was bullied, he believes, as much for being the colonel's blue eyed boy as for being a Christian.

At 20 he supported Norwich City, went to Cambridge University and joined Belgrave Harriers, a promising middle distance runner. "I always tell my Manchester United friends that we were the Man United of athletics, and I was partnered with some tremendous runners, but I was always well behind."

After a year in Chicago, which he still visits three or four times annually, he was ordained, served three curacies - highly unusually - and in 1972 became the Church's director of education in Birmingham.

It was there, at a school prize giving, that he met Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis, usually known as Deadly.

Since Villa were playing Norwich that weekend, Ellis offered him seats in the directors' box. The Deadly encounter began a continuing friendship.

"Doug's a great guy," he insists. "The true mark of big people is how they deal with little people. He's always been very kind to me."

Soon he was a familiar face on many first division grounds. In 1984 he moved to Cleveland to become the Church's social responsibility officer - 30,000 town hall workers, 500 councillors - and was invited to become chaplain at the Vic.

Stony ground? "Billy Horner, the manager, took me into the dressing room, told the players that this was their new chaplain, walked out of the door and left me to it.

"It was a heck of a start but you try to get onto their wavelength as quickly as possible, try to convince them you're a man's man.

"I think I get on with them. They might tell me that my stuff is boring, but I remind them that I've been to mid-table, end of season matches which are twice as long and twice as boring.

"I always suspect that footballers think you've never been their age and don't know about the pressures and stresses. I sometimes tell them that when I was 18 I was commanding troops."

He reflects, briefly. "Ah yes," says Brian, "I was lethal in those days."

Now he's 71, has had Parkinson's disease for six years, lives in the attractive village of Kirklevington, near Yarm, and still plays village hall table tennis each week.

"I pray that God will make me a good loser," he says.

In the absence of a parish priest, he has also conducted 117 church services in the last 18 months, including the children's service where he told them how he still rides with Engine No 4 in Chicago.

"It's a little boy's dream. They've just promoted me to work the sirens and hooters and it's fantastic, but I've seen some horrendous things at fires."

Retired, he hopes still to watch Hartlepool, impressed by the ground improvements and delighted at the team's recent success.

"The Vic was very primitive when I came, a bit of a culture shock. Directors and staff at lower division football clubs are my saints, it's wonderful how they struggle to keep things going."

When Garry Gibson moved the directors' box behind the goal, Brian invited Alan Smithson, the then Bishop of Jarrow, as his guest and made headlines in the local paper after Hartlepool striker Lenny Johnrose blasted a shot wide.

"It was heading straight for the bishop until I stuck up a palm and deflected it. It didn't half sting, but it would have knocked the bishop's head off.

"Garry shouted that it was the first time I'd saved anyone on a Saturday. It brought the house down."

It was also Garry Gibson who asked him, on the way back from former manager Cyril Knowles's funeral, to sum up his god in 30 words that he, the chairman, could understand.

After a pre-season friendly on another occasion, a Hartlepool player asked him to tell them about the god in which he believes. The chaplain was happy to oblige.

"We had a wonderful evening. The chaplain to the England team once told me to get my supporters to pray that people would ask questions; it makes things so much easier."

And Garry Gibson? "I used words like friend, father, judge and saviour. It was a wonderful challenge."

Success, inevitably, can't be quantified. "You don't always say the right things, you're often dealing with apathy and indifference but to me the check is being faithful.

"I've never been a vicar but I've always been in the front line. Sports chaplaincy has given me some wonderful opportunities; I feel I've been greatly blessed."

* Brian Rice was Durham County Cricket Club chaplain for the last of the Minor Counties campaigns and the first three seasons in the County Championship.

"International players like Ian Botham and Dean Jones were used to having chaplains about. It was a big help," he says.

After scoring three successive one day ducks, what might be called Never on Sunday, Jones asked the chaplain to bless his bat - and thereafter equalled the one day record with six successive fifties.

The former Australian captain tells the story in his after dinner speeches, but with the variation that after the blessing he again had a nought for his comfort.

The chaplain still laughs at it. "Ah," he says, "there's gratitude."

Old Bailey certainly no stranger to world of sport

Judge John Bailey, presiding in the George Reynolds case yesterday, is no stranger to the sporting arena (if not to the Reynolds Arena.)

Now 63, he played cricket for Hartlepool and for Durham County between 1961-71, captaining the county - right hand bat, left arm medium - in his last four seasons.

He made 99 appearances, scored 2,500 runs, took 82 wickets - best 6-42 against Staffordshire at Feethams - and played first class cricket for the Minor Counties against the tourists between 1968-71.

David, the judge's brother, also played for Durham between 1961-67 before several big hitting seasons with Lancashire. He's now a solicitor in Cheshire.

Judge Bailey - "as nice a man as you'll ever meet," says an admirer - maintains the family connection with Durham County cricket. His son James is in the marketing department at the Riverside.

Much given on match days to listening to free Sunderland match commentary on-line, John Briggs is aghast to discover that the service has been withdrawn. It's a long story but basically, inevitably, about money.

The Football League's provider is insisting that Sunderland pay a large sum in transmission rights. "In the current financial climate it is impossible to consider such a payment," says SoL communications director Lesley Callaghan.

The Wearside Roar, Sunderland's highly acclaimed and superbly produced fanzine, is marking its 50th issue with a look back from the roller coaster. Begun and still run by Tom Lynn and Brian Leng, it richly reflects a passionate affair. Monthly, £2.

Darlington Referees' Society, to whom we spoke on Monday, seemed to have two members aged about 12.

Would swearing - in context - be permissible?

"If they're referees, they've heard it all many times before," we were assured. Tuesday's e-mail from Tony Sharkey was too late for them, but may be tested before a bigger audience.

A six-year-old and a four-year-old agree that it's about time they started cussing. "When we go down for breakfast tomorrow morning," says the six-year-old, "I'm going to say 'hell' and you say "ass'."

Next morning, mother asks the six-year-old what he wants for breakfast. "Aw hell, mum, I guess I'll just have some Cheerios," he says.

Mum whacks him, chases from the kitchen, chases the tearful child up the stairs while belting his backside at every step.

She then returns, looks sternly at the four-year-old and demands: "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man."

"I don't know," he blubbers, "but you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios, anyway."

...and finally

THE last English managers to lift football's major trophies (Backtrack, January 22) were Howard Wilkinson (League, 1992), Joe Royle (FA Cup, 1995) and Brian Little, League Cup, the following season.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today seeks the identity of the former Manchester United player who scored seven goals in an FA Cup tie and still finished on the losing side.

More winners and losers on Tuesday.

Published: 23/01/2004