An Ord day's night for Dickie

Time's called, ways and wages changed. Dickie Ord, new landlord of the Royal George at Old Shotton, near Peterlee, may be the first top Premiership player to have his big name, licensed to sell, above the tap room door.

"It's not because I needed the money, it's because I was bored," he admits with the uncomplicated honesty which made the Under 21 international a Sunderland legend, a combative captain and central defender who wore red and white not just on his back but on his heart as well.

In truth, however, he'd have been happy just to have been thought a canny lad in Murton, the former east Durham pit community where in 1984 he skipped off school in order to watch the riots.

"I know it's got a bad name all over the county but they're lovely people, really lovely," he insists.

"I think it's the old pit camaraderie, everyone just sticks together. It's always been hard to drag myself away from Murton."

Though the Royal George, named for some reason after an early Hackworth locomotive, must be almost five miles from home, he has taken to it like steam to standard gauge - and though you can take the lad out of Murton, it's never for very long.

Broth Monday in the Village Inn at Murton is one of life's great occasions, he muses, wholly unsurpassable unless it's by pasty Tuesday.

No expert summaries? No puffed up personal appearances? No Armani and the man?

"I never was much of a speaker, never went in for talk-ins and that sort of thing. I leave that to Kevin Ball who goes on for hours - half his stories are about me, anyway."

Reckoned as able at cricket as at football, he made his Sunderland debut as a 17-year-old in a 7-0 win over Southend in 1987.

At first, playing out of position, he struggled to win over the fans. "It was a really bad time until one of my mates just said that I should be whacking people more.

"Out of the aggression came confidence, that's how it started really. The Sunderland fans have always loved a battler."

Though plagued by knee and back injuries, he made a further 282 first team appearances - and the fans made a record called Who Needs Cantona When You've Got Dickie Ord? - before, 11 years later, an ill-starred move to Queens Park Rangers.

"I never wanted to go, but I had nowt else to prove at Sunderland and I was talked into it by Ray Harford, who'd also been in charge of England Under 21s." The fee was a reputed £675,000, the experience wretched.

"I've always been a home bird and I absolutely hated it," says Dickie. "I hated being away from home, I hated London and probably I hated that it just wasn't Murton.

"It was the worst decision I've ever made, to be honest."

It hardly helped that in his first QPR appearance, a pre-season friendly, he aggravated a long-standing knee injury, tried to play in the first League game - at Sunderland - and lasted just four minutes.

Five operations followed. "After the third, the surgeon warned me that if I had any more I could be crippled, but I've never been a quitter. I wanted to try to prove that I could do it; unfortunately I couldn't."

A coaching job promised by Sunderland manager Peter Reid failed to materialise. Characteristically, he has no ill feelings.

"We all know the problems Reidy had and I got on very well with him, a man's man who liked a drink and called a spade a spade.

"Football's all about jobs for the boys, always will be. I've never been a crawler and I never will be, either."

Eventually he joined Durham City in the Albany Northern League, played for a couple of seasons until the pain became too much - the knee is always at the back of his mind, he says by way of anatomical mixed metaphor - and is now coach there.

"People said that I wouldn't be able to hack the Northern League but the standard's a lot better than they imagine.

"We played at Esh Winning on Tuesday night and the pace was frightening. It's got faster and better even in the time that I've been involved. I'd really love Durham to win the league, for the sake of all the real friends I've made there."

While his wife ran a hairdressing business, Dickie stayed at home to look after their son Liam, now eight, and boy and girl twins. Now the four-year-olds are at school, living with their mum and a divorce is in process.

Being with Durham City has also afforded little time to watch Sunderland, though he and Liam went last season - for the infamous match with Charlton when Sunderland contrived to score three first half own goals.

"After 25 minutes Liam asked if we could go home, but I made him stay.

"The new stadium is magnificent, but I don't really like the atmosphere. I was always a Roker Park boy, loved everything about it, even the smell of it.

"It was brilliant. I'd grown up there as a Sunderland fan so it was a dream come true for me, but I'd have been happy just to have played one game for Sunderland. I had almost 300 and was their captain; that was just incredible."

He runs the Royal George with Paul Kirby, a former chef at an Italian restaurant in Jesmond - "a massive Sunderland fan, but temperamental like all chefs" - who has now brought a Mediterranean flavour to Old Shotton.

Though there is little obvious acknowledgment of the landlord's illustrious past, he's even had Newcastle fans in - "just to give me a bit stick.

"The first few weeks I was working 11 to 11 and I was shattered, but there's a great atmosphere here and I'm really enjoying it.

"I like the pub business, I like the social side, I like a drink myself. I even tried to play football for the pub team, but had to jack it in."

Already, though, he's buying another house in Murton. What if the Village Inn, blissful venue of broth Monday and of pasty Tuesday, were to come onto the market?

He pauses, expert summariser. "It would be half a million quid now, but if I could ever afford it, that would be paradise on earth."

Backtrack briefs...

Darlington v Southend on Tuesday, the chief disappointment that the lady in Neasham Road who sells Taylor's pies over the front gate - parasols in the garden, too, they reckon - had decided against a night shift.

The stadium is stupendous, if echoing, the main foyer overseen by a vulture (pictured below) from what appears to be George Reynolds's considerable gallery of up 'em and stuff 'ems.

It was going to be a pig playing a piano, apparently, but someone pinched the piano.

George, hospitable as ever, was happy to explain the bird's predatory presence. "I'm going to hang a sign round its neck saying...."

Oh well, readers can work out that one for themselves.

First time in a Quakers kit for more than 30 years, Feethams legend John Peverell poses in the programme for a Darlington Building Society ad.

Pev, second in the all-time appearance list behind Ron Greener, admits there's been leg pulling. "I'm only glad," he says, "that it wasn't on page three."

From vultures to buzzards, prey. "Myself and three friends were waiting to tee off on the third hole when a big black rat fell from the sky," e-mails Bill Johnson from West Auckland.

It's something, he adds, which you don't see very often.

The quartet - Bill, Billy Boyd, Gary Parkin and John Black - were on holiday at Golf del Sur, Tenerife. The unfortunate rat had been dropped by the buzzard, aforesaid.

"It was a great shiny thing, much bigger than West Auckland rats," adds Bill, knowledgably.

Though the rat was still alive, it had seen better days. After recovering from their astonishment, the West lads continued with their golf - and the cheeky buzzard returned to reclaim its lunch.

Signs of the times, no sooner had those placards promoting Shildon's FA Cup replay with Frickley Athletic appeared around the town (Backtrack, Tuesday) than the council wrote to club chairman Gordon Hampton demanding he take them away again.

They worked, nonetheless. Queues formed halfway to the Hippodrome, kick-off delayed 15 minutes to let everyone in, a crowd of 664 - biggest for donkeys' years - and the cavalry sent to Cockfield for reinforcements after the beer dried up whilst toasting the 5-1 thrashing of the Unibond premier division side.

Chairman Hampton, it might be said, had few regrets about his roadside manner. "Clearly it pays to advertise," he said.

Old, old story, Over 40s League secretary Kip Watson takes a senior moment to report a triumph for experience.

Pushed to raise a team last Saturday, Marsden Veterans included 65-year-old Tommy Swinbank, Tommy Bewick - two years younger - and man of the match Kenny Clark, 59.

Three others, including 58-year-old former Hartlepool United director Austin Elliott, were over 50. "It's probably the biggest aggregate we've ever had," says Kip.

Undeterred, the old sweat Vets beat Horden Comrades 4-3.

And finally...

former England cricketer David Sheppard (Backtrack, September 30) played for Sussex and became Bishop of Liverpool.

Pinched from Darlington's programme on Tuesday, readers are today invited to name the Football League club which plays at the Pulse Stadium. The finger where it should be on Tuesday.

Published: 03/10/2003