Durham's new lucky mascot

Inevitably seeking the last of the summer wine, we looked in again at 3.10pm on Wednesday, Glamorgan 210-3 and giving it what fettle (as probably they say in Taffs Well.)

By four o'clock, the Welshmen were all out. "You'll have to come every match," they chorused on Critics' Corner.

The Usual Suspects were out in large numbers, if only - until the column's catalytic conversion - to pay their last disrespects.

"If there's a hell, a place of awful retribution, I'm sure it'll be full of Durham cricketers," said Mr Mervyn Hardy JP, never one to damn with faint praise.

There also was Surreal Neil, the Marske gentleman who collects telephone exchanges, lamenting that through the indisposition of his friend Tony "Jesus" Day there was no one with whom to commute between the ground and Relton Workmen's Club, 400 yards distant. "That's the trouble with cricket," he said, "we're not bringing through enough youngsters."

(Neil had also had an unaccustomed haircut, apparently in the hope of winning the heart of a lady who'd featured in the News of the World for setting light to her husband's more flammable personal parts. "It's the Duran Duran look," he said.) As is customary on these end-of-season occasions, rumours - chiefly concerning Mr Dominic Cork - ran swiftly round the boundary. Circling it more gently was Dave Griffiths, one of the last of the travelling post office men - the mail trains are all redundant in January - and programme editor for Bishops Stortford Swifts FC.

Drinking £1-a-mug tea in the members' lounge - "disgraceful," they said as one, and the tea was pretty poor as well - Dave revealed that he's writing a piece about Albany Northern League tea huts and sought guidance.

We directed him towards Tow Law Town, where the hot pork sandwiches (with home made stuffing) are presently beyond compare. Their own refreshment concluded, Durham reappeared and were 11-3 after three overs. "How come we're always grumbling when you're here?" said Mervyrn.

"Because you never do nowt else," said his mate, ungrammatically.

Thereafter, however, Collingwood and Pratt regularly rattled the boundary boards. As light faded towards autumn, it ended 142-4 and the mascot was reinstated. There could be honorary life membership yet.

Fred Lightfoot, among those in the members' seats, is a former national president of the Referees' Association. We put to him the curious case of Mr Andy Hassenthaler, player/manager of Gillingham Town.

After 40 minutes on the bench last Saturday, Hassenthaler was ordered to the stand for misconduct. At the start of the second half, he came on as a substitute.

Right or wrong?

"Wrong," said Fred. "The first effective red card should have ended his participation in the game."

Others find it hard to agree. Former FIFA referee George Courtney, another Spennymoor lad, theorised, agonised and damn near lobotomised before concluding that the referee was right.

Another ten seconds. "On reflection," said George, "I think he was wrong."

Former Football League ref Terry Farley, happily recovering from his recent heart bypass, was also caught somewhere in the middle.

"The referee might well be right but I reserve the right to change my mind," said the elderly secretary of the Bishop Auckland referees' Society.

He changed it a few moments later, concluding that the referee was wrong. "I blame the operation," said Terry.

Premiership referee and Middlesbrough fan Jeff Winter, interviewed in the Sunderland fanzine A Love Supreme, denies Everton manager David Moyes's suggestion that he's a "big time homer" who spends all his time on the sun bed. "My sun tan comes from going abroad. There's a lack of sun on Teesside."

An hour between close of play at Chester-le-Street and kick-off at Washington v Penrith, where a copy of that night's Carlisle News and Star had come over on the team bus from Cumbria.

Brooks Mileson, it revealed over most of the back page, was investigating a possible rescue mission for beleaguered Oldham Athletic.

Brooks is the Sunderland-born former four-minute miler who heads the Peterlee-based Albany Insurance group - "insurance and construction tycoon" said the News and Star - and who recently became a major benefactor to Scottish third division Gretna.

Oldham is the mill town whose football team was in the inaugural Premiership, but which may now be better known for car batteries.

Brooks admits that he's had representatives "looking at" the club after Athletic's administrators asked Gretna for permission to speak to him.

"It's just very preliminary talks, but at the moment it seems a bit of a lost cause," he tells the column.

There've been other rumours, too. "Every time I'm seen at a football ground it seems I'm going to buy the club," he says.

If he were to invest in Oldham, he insists, it won't affect Gretna. "I'll carry on funding them, just as I am now."

And finally...

The only Durham player to bowl a maiden in this season's Twenty20 competition (Backtrack, September 16) was Ian Hunter.

Bill Moore, hovering round Critics' Corner at the Riverside, today invites readers to name the 11 English cricketers still playing who at the start of this season had taken at least one Test wicket but no more than five.

That'll sort them out. The column returns on Tuesday.

Cooper's last leave proves unforgettable

Alan Cooper was on his last leave as a National Serviceman - "in the parlance of the day I was demob happy" - the night that West Bromwich Albion thrashed Newcastle 7-3 at St James's.

It was 50 years ago this week, recalled in Tuesday's column, over 58,000 squeezed into the ground for a Wednesday evening 5.45 kick-off.

"All I can say is that an awful lot of people must have got out of work early or was there a surfeit of grandparents' funerals on Tyneside that day?" muses Alan, a retired Darlington newsagent.

The same thought had occurred to Hails of Hartlepool, but not to his lifelong pal Albert Kelleher, who still insists that the match was on a Saturday.

"I might have been on shifts, but Uncle Albert has no excuse," says Ron Hails, not least because they'd both had an hour at the Minor Counties cricket at Gosforth before heading into town.

"One thing we do agree on is that West Brom were rampant and Ronnie Allen was supreme," and Albert Kelleher still reckons it the finest team performance he's ever seen.

Alan Cooper had travelled up on the United - "National Service pay didn't run to British Railways" - and particularly remembers how the Newcastle fans cheered off the visitors at the end.

Amid memory's roseate hues, however, he also recalls the match he'd attended four days earlier - Sunderland 7 Arsenal 1 - after deeming it a better bet than the St :Leger, unexpectedly won by Premonition.

The Gunners were first division champions, Sunderland had finished ninth. Before a 59,808 crowd, Arsenal suffered their heaviest defeat for 26 years.

"The Sunderland attack was very satisfactory," observed The Northern Echo, a little parsimoniously.

Trevor Ford hit three - "he and Shack must have been on speaking terms that day," says Alan - Tommy Wright two and Shackleton and Billy Elliott, his first since transferring from Burnley, one each.

Two days later, Sunderland were at Aston Villa. They lost 3-1.

Steve Smith, the column's ever tuned up Throstle, recalls that the St. James' Park floodlights had been inaugurated on February 25 1953 - 41,888 in for a friendly with Celtic - but mistakenly supposes that the 7 -3 match was one of the first league games under lights.

They weren't allowed until February 22 1956 when the Magpies were indeed involved - but at Fratton Park, Portsmouth, victorious with goals from Bill Curry and Vic Keeble.

Whilst the floodlights proved effective, however, a blown main fuse left the rest of the ground in darkness - and the crowd outside - until ten minutes before the scheduled kick-off. It began just five minutes late.

"It was a great game and a fair result," wrote the Echo's special correspondent, without disclosing how much he'd actually seen.

As Steve Smith points out, the first FA Cup tie between Football League clubs was at St James's - a first round second replay between Darlington and Carlisle United on November 28, 1955 in front of 34,257 spectators.

Quakers won 3-1 after two goalless draws, but readers have been enlightened on that one before.

Ronnie Allen, described in his West Brom obituary as "one of the true English greats", died in a nursing home in 2001.

He was 72, had scored 276 goals in 637 Football League games, played in all five forward positions but is best remembered for season 1953-54, when he scored twice in Albion's FA Cup final win over Preston.

He twice managed West Bromwich, was also in charge of Atletico Bilbao, Sporting Lisbon, Wolves and Walsall and was also Saudi Arabia's soccer adviser. Scandalously overlooked, said the obituary, he won just five England caps.

World Masters track cycling championships

Ever the bridesmaid, our old friend Steve Davies has again returned from the World Masters track cycling championships with silver, but not gold.

Ferryhill Wheeler and Darlington insurance broker, 52-year-old Steve had been favourite for the pursuit after reigning champion Ian Hallam retired. He qualified fastest for the final, knocked three seconds off his personal best - 2km in 2 mins 23.128 seconds - but lost in the final to an Austrian.

The amazing Mr Davies also reached the sprint final for the first time, having three times fallen in the semis, but was second between two Japanese.

The sport's huge in Japan, he says, phenomenal amounts of yen gambled on the outcome.

He did manage to win the 5km Alan Geldard trophy race with what British Cycling's website calls a "blistering finish" - alas, it was non-championship event.

Published: 19/09/2003