No eviction for Stanley

Months of uncertainty over the future of one of the region's oldest and best known clubs have ended with a fair bit of furniture shifting but with United's name still above the dressing room door.

After almost 100 years, however, the club has resigned its full membership of the FA - doubled, as we reported the other day, to £235-a-year.

It means, because clubs like Stanley aren't VAT registered, that they pay more than Arsenal and Manchester United for the privilege.

"They've been trying to find a way of getting rid of the little clubs for some time," says Vince Kirkup.

"They want an elite. They're not bothered about the likes of ourselves."

Unable to find officials, the club resigned from the Wearside League at last Thursday's annual meeting and were ordered to pay £585 for leaving it so late.

"We accepted it with good grace," says Vince, whose resignation after 27 years as manager and much else precipitated the problem.

Vince, however, had already brokered a deal for Crook Wanderers of the Crook and District League to move up the hill, become Stanley United and play in the club's traditional red and white stripes with black shorts.

Team manager Lee Nelson, whose parents still live in the village, played for United as a 16-year-old.

"If people wanted to play football up here, they had to become Stanley United. Winning or losing isn't important, what's important is that Stanley's name continues," says Vince, who remains a trustee after negotiating the ground sale from the NCB in 1990. It cost them £1.

The club, United after the amalgamation of Stanley Albion and Stanley Nops in 1890, has always played on the windswept ridge next to Wooley Terrace Methodist Chapel - the Little House itself is reckoned 100 years old.

They last played in the Crook and District League in the 1890s, best remembered in the Northern League where they won three post-war championships.

"My fervent hope was always to get back into the Northern League, but it won't happen now," says Vince.

"It'll be the best ground in the Crook and District League. I'm just glad that there'll still be a Stanley United."

By the kind of coincidence which keeps these wheels turning, Martin Birtle in Billingham sends a copy of the programme for the 1957-58 Northern Counties Amateur Championship - Lancashire played Northumberland at Old Trafford.

Familiar Northumbrian names included Bobby Patterson in goal, Eddie Alder, Bobby Elwell and at centre-forward, 19-year-old Geoff Strong from Stanley United.

Now 65, Strong subsequently scored freely for Arsenal and Liverpool, then moved to Coventry, where in 33 matches he didn't score at all. He lives in Southport and ran a carpet fitting business.

Martin also suffered something of a chemical reaction to the opposing centre-half Ian Cheadle of Chloride Recreation - "a misplaced cousin of Billingham Synthonia, I assume."

Working well, Martin Birtle also encloses a 1968 edition of the Football League Review - price one shilling. The old firmament on the front are the Ayresome Angels.

"We have received scores of letters about them...described as the best behaved bunch of lads and lasses in modern football," says the editorial.

Boro secretary Harry Green told the Review that the Angels in short trousers were always supportively on their shoulders; AA club chairman D Graham claimed that their motto was loyalty. "Many of the Angels sacrifice holiday, overtime and even their wage packets to keep the promise."

Martin reckons the picture "priceless". Whatever became of the Ayresome Angels, he wonders, and are any of the loyal lads on the picture still blowing the Middlesbrough trumpet?

Still flying at 51, our old friend Steve Davies - Ferryhill Wheeler and former Heighington cricketer - reports winning four golds in the British Masters Track Cycling championships at Herne Hill.

"Makes a change from all those silvers," says Steve, familiarly behind the back wheel of Dr Ian Hallam, who has now retired.

Bespoke, he won the sprint, 500m time trial, 2000m pursuit and 15,000m points race and is now gearing up for the World Masters in Manchester in September.

"Just one gold," he insists, "will do."

Someone having purloined the papers from the office recreation area, Steve Smith fell to reading Kate Adie's autobiography - unscathed through Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and umpteen other war zones but not quite so lucky at Crook.

Kate, it may be recalled, learned her microphone technique at the embryonic BBC Radio Durham in the 1960s.

The radio car, a "disembowelled" Hillman Hunter with a pole stuck through the roof, was often mistaken for a television detector van and also had a battered door panel which read Radio Dur m.

It happened, Kate recalls, after a "nasty encounter" with Crook Town's goal posts.

"I misjudged reversing around the pitch and the posts didn't seem all that well embedded - or so I told the goalkeeper as I hurtled off down the drive."

How she got the car down the terracing behind the goal is another matter. Someone may remember it.

Malcolm Dickenson from Sedgefield Cricket Club reports that he has signed Shoaib Akhtar, the Rawalpindi Express - though Durham County League batsmen can temporarily rest easy. "It's not for Sedgefield, though I'm still trying, but for my health club, Bannatyne's in Durham."

First time in ages, we were unable to attend the Crook Darts League's annual presentation. They continue as an example to others.

The Market in Willington, first division winners, gave the value of their trophies to Macmillan Nurses. Belle Vue WMC, runners up, exchanged them for a donation to the children's ward at Bishop General.

The column's old friend Doug McCarthy, Crook and England, picked up the pairs trophy with Jeff Sneath and the three-a-side with Jeff and Bobby Lauder, but needless to say he won nothing at dominoes.

Donations from second division winners all went to the Teenage Cancer Unit at Newcastle RVI in acknowledgment of the care given to local 15-year-old Frank Gibbon. With other help from Frank's family and friends, the nursing station now has a Playstation, too.

And finally...

Esh Winning's 1991 professional whose 134 league wickets remains a record for Durham club cricket (Backtrack, June 27) was Nadeem Ghauri.

Today, back to Stanley Hill Top. Whilst Geoff Strong is probably United's best remembered player, another former Stanley man had a distinguished top flight career after the war, winning England B and Football League honours.

Readers are invited to name him. Like the Grand Duke of York, we shall again be marching them up to the top of hill on Friday.

Published: 01/07/2003