A silver lining for Coates

It might be said that he put his back into it.

Just two weeks before the event, in Vienna, the 35-year-old Durham City Harrier had suffered an agonising spinal spasm during another duo-decathlon in Holland - while making the tea.

"It's an old pole vault injury, I missed the pit and took a chunk out of my spine. Every now and then a nerve gets trapped and it goes into spasm.

"I'd trained 15 sessions a week for 18 months with no real problem, and then it goes when I'm stretching over the hotel bed for the kettle. I thought I was an absolute goner for the world championship."

Despite the handicap, he finished the first day in Holland before abandoning the event.

"I saw him when he got back and he could hardly walk, let alone run. I'm amazed and absolutely delighted," says Harriers official Brian Mackay.

The problem was resolved by a physiotherapist at the Maiden Castle sports centre in Durham.

"It was probably a blessing in disguise. There was an Australian who completed the first event and was still absolutely shattered by the second," says Peter, who lives in Consett and works for the Land Registry in Durham.

The silver lining, he insists, was a major surprise. "The standard goes up every year, and halfway through the first day in Vienna I was thinking of packing up all athletics, never mind that event.

"At the start I'd have been happy to finish in the top ten and over the moon with a top five finish. A medal was seen as a huge bonus."

Going into the last event, the 10,000 metres, he was in bronze medal position. By twice lapping the athlete in front of him, he finished second.

A week later, the aches are still there - just like the determination to carry on.

Next year's world championship will probably be in Gateshead. Twenty-twenty vision, the duo-decathlete dreams of going one better.

"I came late to athletics but if my back behaves I enjoy it," he says. "Maybe I've found my niche."

Since he's had a bit of a rotten press of late, it should be reported that 50-year-old former Newcastle and Hartlepool United star Alan Shoulder made his Over 40s League debut for Ferryhill Greyhound at the weekend - and scored with his second touch. "The first was to trap it," reports our man at the match, "the second to blast it into the net."

On Saturday to Marine, alight at Blundellsands and Crosby on the Liverpool to Southport line, for the FA Cup third qualifying round tie with Dunston Fed.

Ten years ago Marine had reached the third round proper, non-league survivors alongside Marlow and Yeovil.

"Marlow got Spurs, Yeovil got Arsenal and we got bloody Crewe Alexandra," grumbled an ancient Mariner, the ill starred one of three. They play at Rossett Park, the sort of name - a mixture of the surreal, the unreal and the arboreal - with which house builders like to hedge about their developments.

They'd have described this as compact, or possibly bijou, a three-sided ground so small that it fitted into its immediate surroundings like corned beef into a tin. Once they packed in 4,000, a 1949 match against the barefoot Nigerians still affectionately remembered in Bishop Auckland.

They're in the top half of the Unibond premier division, include Kevin Keegan's nephew Michael - still doing the frizziness - and sell proprietary meat and potato pies advertised as "Still as good as ever."

That was the alarming bit.

The other difference may have been in the number of workers. Whilst there are Albany Northern League clubs (alas) where the chairman is also groundsman, tea boy and magic sponge operative, this lot listed 18 in the "programme team" alone.

The underdogs scored in eight minutes, again after 55. Though Keegan's free-kick offered late consolation - "the only time I had to dive," observed Dunston goalkeeper Stuart Dawson, the Monopod of Tow Law's Wembley days - the Tyneside lads held on for their first appearance in the last qualifier.

Shildon, also £5,000 richer, tread that heady stage as well. Both at home on October 25.

The Mariners, sunk, were sporting in defeat. "Come into the boardroom for a drink," they invited Fed chairman Malcolm James after the final tense ten minutes.

"After I've changed my trousers," said Malcolm.

The squad, having backed themselves at 6-1 with £100 from the players' pool, were staying back for the England match and might then, they supposed, have another couple on the way home.

"There's a seat on the bus," said Big Bobby Scaife, the triumphant manager. On reflection, it seemed wiser to head back to the station.

John Aldridge, £1,000-a-time speaker at Dunston's sportsmen's dinner last Thursday, also has a column in the Liverpool Echo pink. "Sorry England fans, but you'd better get ready for the play-offs," it began. Rubbish forecaster? By common consent, he was a rubbish speaker, too.

Back in the Over 40s League, the Dagmar from Sunderland were holding Hartlepool Navy Club to 1-0, despite playing the first 45 minutes with nine men.

At half-time, however, the two players who'd got lost appeared like the cavalry over the horizon - and clearly it made a difference.

Final score: Hartlepool Navy Club 9 Dagmar 1.

The Midnight Cowboy rings, three minutes after the witching hour but an hour-and-a-half after lights out.

"I've been phoning all night but you weren't in," pleads Mr Bayles, desperately.

The upshot is that West Auckland FC plan a special clubhouse night on November 8 to mark Norman Ayton's 50 years continuous committee service. He joined in June 1953, expecting to help for a year.

"It was an honour in those days, there were lots of candidates," says Norman, also a long-serving Durham FA councillor.

An FA presentation is also expected.

All friends and former players are much welcomed, says Allen Bayles, but particularly they'd like to contact lads like Albert Mendum and Stan Skelton, in the West team which reached the Amateur Cup final in 1961.

Allen's on (01388) 833783. Best before 10pm.

Talk in Friday's column of the immortal Dixie Dean reminded Peter Murphy in Evenwood of his own footballing days with RAF Fazackerley.

"We were on the way home from a match and looked for a drink into the Dublin Packet in Chester where to our surprise Dixie - big bloke by then - was the landlord.

"Unlike some of the present day superstars, he was only too happy to talk to us and for us to try on his England caps."

Though outstanding with RAF Fazackerley, it was the closest to an England cap that Peter ever got.

The three Scottish League clubs which Alex Ferguson managed before moving to Manchester United (Backtrack, October 10) were East Stirling, St Mirren and Aberdeen.

Since we've been on the Cup trail, Fred Alderton in Peterlee today invites readers to recall the last non-league team whom Sunderland played in the competition.

We return, up for it, on Friday