Basher looks to stay in the swing

Perthes, which affects the hip joints, meant that the little lad had spent 11 months with his legs tied to a special bed, a familiar sight being pushed around Darlington.

"We'd be breaking our hearts and he just got on with his life," his mother, Jean, had said. "He'd wave to folk from the bed as if it was royalty going past."

Adam recalls little. "All I remember is not being able to move."

Basher Bates is 16 tomorrow and still not taking life lying down. It is at golf not rugby, however, that he now punches his weight.

Already he is senior champion at Stressholme municipal golf club in Darlington and junior champion at Blackwell, across the road. He plays for Durham County under 16s, was runner up in the North Yorkshire and South Durham amateur championships and second last week in a major Weetabix sponsored competition in the Midlands.

This week he's playing in the North of England juniors at Pannal, near Harrogate. "We still remember 11 or 12 years ago," says Steve, his dad. "All we hoped for then was that one day he might be able to get up the stairs on his own."

In Stressholme clubhouse they reckon him "absolutely awesome", talk of British Open qualification a few years hence, buy his copious Coke. They've also an answer when asked the lad's first big win.

"That fiver he took off me."

He'd given up rugby just a couple of months after last we talked - "he'd started to struggle," says Steve, "his hips just weren't up to it" - began serious golf with an 18 handicap and now plays off two. Scratch, he hopes, will come next year.

Only old friends and Darlington Rugby Club teammates still call him Basher. To Stressholme he's Pugsley - a joshing reference to an Addams Family youngster - to some on the golf circuit he's Little Woosie, because of a perceived resemblance to the great Welshman.

Ian Woosnam could be a bit pugnacious, too.

Adam has left school, two days the right side of the deadline. His dad has "retired" to act as his chauffeur.

"I thought it would be easy going after he gave up rugby but this is worse than ever," says Steve. "It's costing me a fortune, but the satisfaction is in just seeing what he's achieved and knowing what he can still do.

"I'm having to turn down competitions for him because he just hasn't any more free days. It's about rewards, and they're all Adam's."

He usually completes two rounds a day, admits to feeling the effects of Perthes after the second, is determined to stay in the swing.

The incentive, says Adam, is those 11 months tied to a bed - and no one pushes Basher Bates around now.

Former Bishop Auckland FC chairman Steve Newcomb has loaned a pristine programme from the 1949 meeting between the Bishops and the Nigerian FA - a treasure for which long he had sought and a match still recalled in the town.

It's among several gems unearthed in a friend's attic including, a year earlier, the programme from Bishop Auckland v Stade Francais - "champions of all Paris."

What made the 1949 match most memorable was that the Nigerians, or most of them, played barefoot. "They are real footballers for they disdain the use of pads, cotton wool and boots," observed the programme.

"It will surprise anyone to note how really hard they kick a ball in bare feet."

The Echo's match reporter agreed, observing that the tourists - the programme called them "skilful colonials" - astonished the crowd.

It was Saturday September 3, 54 years ago. Shildon British Railways band played, a collection was taken for the Empire Day Fund and Nigeria included a player called Kannu, whom Steve reckons could be related to the latter day Arsenal man of similar spelling.

"It doesn't half look like him," he insists.

Thirteen thousand watched the Bishops win 5-2, four from Ken Murray and the fifth from Jack Major. "They didn't stand on ceremony," added the Echo - or, it was to be hoped, anything else, either.

September 3 1949? Jackie Milburn hit a "masterly" hat-trick in Newcastle United's 3-2 win over Aston Villa, Bobby Owens scored five in Stanley United's 6-2 against South Bank and Middlesbrough missed George Hardwick and Tommy Blenkinsopp in losing 5-1 at home to Portsmouth. On the cricket field, Dean and Chapter clinched the Durham County League and in the NYSD, Stockton's G W Brook claimed 8-8 against Billingham Synthonia. "It was," said the Echo a little modestly, "one of his best performances."

That bowling hat-trick by Crook wicketkeeper Allan March (Backtrack, August 26) was by no means the first in cricket. Alan Stewart reckons it wasn't even the first at Crook.

Allen, it will be recalled, had removed gloves and pads before taking a last over three-in-three against Esh Winning.

It's twice been achieved in first-class cricket, by Probir Sen for Bengal against Orissa in 1954 and by Warwickshire's Alan Smith - to become the TCCB's first chief executive - on August 6 1965.

Essex, batting last at Clacton, needed 203 to win. A C Smith, summoned first change from a crouching position, dismissed Geoff Smith, Keith Fletcher and Gordon Barker - he who married a West Auckland girl - with successive deliveries and the great Trevor Bailey soon afterwards.

At the time his figures were 5.4-5-0-4. He finished with 4-36; Essex, nine down, held out for a draw.

Smith became Warwickshire's secretary for 11 years, was a Test selector and is now a pitch inspector. He may have been a better cricketer than communicator, however.

He became renowned, wrote Bill Frindall, for his ultra-careful statements. "No comment - but don't quote me" indicated one of Smith's forthcoming moods, said Frindall.

Alan Stewart, Crook's fixtures secretary, is certain he umpired an Under 13s match with Brandon in which Mark Boughey - now at Willington - also claimed the feat.

"Or perhaps," muses Alan, "he did the hat-trick first and then went out of the way behind the wicket."

August 6 1965? Colin Cowdrey hit 105 against South Africa, 5,000 Celtic fans were arriving for a pre-season friendly at Sunderland - ground four shillings, main stand 11 shillings - Middlesbrough FC's annual meeting heard criticism of the players' fitness and of 19-year-old centre-forward Arthur Horsfield and in the annual groundsman's benefit match between Darlington cricket and football clubs, Norman Watson had taken 5-10 for the cricketers when rain washed away their hopes.

Two days after his little contretemps with the Manchester United manager, Premiership referee Jeff Winter - on the wrong end of the most visible lip reading in history - was in the humbler surroundings of Northallerton on Bank Holiday Monday. Craig, his son, is the Albany Northern League club's centre-half. A fellow spectator, reports a gentleman signing himself Kieron de Communite, asked Jeff if he'd yet got over Sir Alex. "I think," replied the fourth official in an instant, "that he was trying to get over me."

The ten goalkeepers used by Middlesbrough in the Premiership (Backtrack, August 26) have been Stephen Pears, Ian Ironside, Andy Collett, Brian Horne (on loan), Alan Miller, Gary Walsh, Ben Roberts, Mark Schwarzer, Marlon Beresford and Mark Crossley.

Alan Smith, recalled for his hat-trickery, kept wicket six times for England on the 1962-63 tour of Australia and New Zealand. Readers are invited to suggest whom he temporarily replaced.

Keeping canny - and with a reminder that it's Tow Law FC's beer and whisky festival tonight and tomorrow night, and Whickham v Hebburn in the FA Cup tonight - the column returns on September 9.

Published: ??/??/2003