Wicketkeeper Allen March was back where he belonged at the weekend - a week after claiming a last over hat-trick as a bowler after taking off the pads.

Halfway through Saturday's game against Langley Park the Crook keeper was again asked to bowl, however, taking 2-50.

Allen, 38, hadn't bowled for six years until asked to turn his arm over against Esh Winning - but Durham County League secretary Roy Coates reckons it's not now unusual for wicketkeepers to change ends following a rule change which restricts the league's professionals to 12 overs in each 45 innings.

"The pros were bowling 23 overs and local lads weren't getting a look in. People who were packing the game up are starting to come back again."

Allen agrees. "The pros used to bomb out lads like me. Now we have a chance."

He began as a bowling all-rounder, but became Crook's second team wicketkeeper after the regular stumper bought a Newcastle United season ticket and the first-team keeper when the incumbent's knees went.

"I suppose bowling is like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it, but I still think there are better bowlers than I am at the club," he insists.

No one has yet discovered if a player who started the match as a wicketkeeper has previously claimed a hat-trick as a bowler. March of progress, it is probably unique.

En route to Northampton v Darlington - "it was a referee I hadn't seen" - John Dawson looked in with programmes from his recent travels.

There was Petershill and Percy Main Amateurs, Graham Street Primitives and Gedling Miners Welfare. The Hartlepool postman had also watched ten games in Ireland at places like Comber Rec, Donegal Celtic and Chimney Corner.

"I've always wanted to go to Chimney Corner," he said, and a constant thunderstorm made it a bit of a black hole, an' all.

It was to a pre-season friendly at Cliftonville, however - they whose home is Solitude - that our attention was particularly drawn.

Cliftonville - billed as "the Ulster cracks" - played Partick Thistle, and not for the first time. In 1886, noted the programme, the two sides met in the English FA Cup - though for some reason it didn't note the score, which was 11-1 to Thistle.

Partick, who competed in the Scottish Cup the same season, then beat Fleetwood Rangers at home - admission threepence, ladies free - before going down to Old Westminsters.

In the following 117 years, added the programme, "the trophy engravers of Solitude and Firhill have never been in danger of being overworked."

Not even the redoubtable Mr John Briggs has been able to discover if it is the only instance of an Irish side meeting a Scottish side in the English FA Cup. Others may fare better.

And Solitude, where the club shop advertises "double-sided scarves"? John's philosophical. "You're never alone at a football match."

Clearly the 1886 FA Cup was an amazing competition: it was the year that Redcar made the quarter-final.

We recalled it early in 1993, asked which six North-East clubs had reached the last eight of the Cup, anticipated Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead and half expected Gateshead.

Only Stan Wilson, now living near Thirsk, remembered Redcar. "You pinched my party piece," he protested.

Other FA Cup entrants that season included Hartford St Job, Oswaldtwistle, Wednesbury Old Alliance, Bishop Auckland, Crosswells Brewery, Caernarvon Wanderers, Witton West End and Cowlairs.

Redcar's team of fisherman and foundry workers played on the cricket ground at Coatham. In the first round they beat Sunderland 3-0, saw off Lincoln Lindum in the second, had byes in the third and fourth and, before a 1,000 crowd, defeated Middlesbrough in the fifth.

In the last eight they lost 2-0 to Small Heath Alliance in Birmingham. In the other quarter finals, Blackburn Rovers beat Brentwood, South Shore lost to Swifts and West Bromwich Albion beat Old Westminsters 6-0.

Neither Partick nor Cliftonville appear to have made the cut.

A Coke also - the poor chap is temporarily on the wagon - with Brooks Mileson, Sunderland born former four minute miler, Albany Group chairman, Gretna FC majority shareholder, philanthropist and animal lover.

Earlier this year, it may be recalled, he named a strikingly unlovely baby ostrich Amos in deference to the Albany Northern League chairman. The bird, alas, died young.

Three more ostriches have now been hatched at his sanctuary in Cumbria, one of which will be called Amos Too. "First of all," says Brooks, "we have to work out which one is the male."

Newcastle Benfield Saints, perhaps the only football club with a halo on its crest, played their first ever Albany Northern League game on Saturday, at the Sam Smith's sports ground. Those with a Rechabbite approach to such things will be happy to learn that the Sam Smith in question isn't the commendably inexpensive Tadcaster brewer. It's the chap who founded Rington's Tea,.

Yesterday morning to West Auckland v Shildon, where a canny crowd included former FIFA referee George Courtney, still active in international football but so happy to take charge of schoolboy games around Spennymoor that he's just paid £9 for a new whistle.

"I already have around 70 whistles, but most refs like a new one at the start of the season," he said.

These days Geirge, 61, calls the shots on something called a Fox Forty, the legendary Acme Thunderer having been (as it were) blown out. "Not the same quality of pea," cautions George, confidentially.

The cask conditioned lads at Tow Law FC stage another marquee based beer festival and whisky tasting this weekend - Friday from 6 30pm, Saturday from 4.45pm.

On Sunday from 1pm there's a family fun day, including a children's five-a-side and more inflatables than a decent sized balloon factory.

On there's free entertainment from the Moorcock Ceilidh Band and on Friday evening a karaoke and talent competition. Though the column plans an early doors' appearance, we shall be homeward - alas - before search for a star begins.

Among those who knew that Terry Venables was the "football luminary" who co-wrote They Used To Play On Grass (Backtrack, August 22) was Patrick Conway, Durham County Council's director of libraries and things. "I expect I'm precluded," he said.

Ken Lyons in Stockton today seeks the identity of the ten goalkeepers used by Middlesbrough in the Premiership. Finders' keepers? The column returns on Friday.