Keegan lends a hand on his Newcastle return

A few miles away at St James's Park, thousands queued for the midnight release of the Magpies' new strip, but might better have waited for Saturday's Evening Chronicle which revealed that at £40, the shirt was £5 more expensive at the club shop than anywhere else in the city.

KK, the man who helped start the revolution, continued amiably long after others had gone to bed.

Not bad, we all supposed, for a man who professed to have left school with just two O Levels - in art and scripture. "There wasn't much demand for religious paintings in Doncaster, so I turned to football instead," he said.

The dinner, stowed out, was for the Toby Henderson Trust, a centre near Morpeth which helps address the needs of autistic children. Cajoled by Stanley boxer Glenn McCrory, the charismatic Keegan appeared without charge.

MC and former Premiership referee Alan Wilkie used an Acme Thunderer instead of a gavel, and as usual to good effect.

The evening raised over £27,000, the auction around £10,000, the raffle - rather curiously - £3,972 and twopence.

Auction prizes ranged from a day's roebuck shooting (£400) to a Commonwealth Games vest autographed by Jonathan Edwards (£350).

A bottle of champagne signed by sundry England managers added £600, a painting of Alan Shearer £1,800, a pair of boxing gloves signed by Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton - or Ricky "the Hatman" Hitton, as an exhausted auctioneer supposed - £700.

Keegan, good cause himself to be jiggered, hadn't so far homeward as some.

Feet well beneath the Manchester City table, he still lives on the Wynyard estate, near Billingham.

Still the ghost of Tommy Spencer OBE haunts the national media. Seven-and-a-half years after the Backtrack column reported the great man's passing, four months after Wisden and sundry other cricket publications realised that Tommy had left us, the Sunday Telegraph - running late, as it were - finally carried the story at the weekend.

Tommy, who lived at Seaton Delaval, near Whitley Bay, was among cricket's best umpires and most memorable characters.

The 2003 Wisden, the Telegraph notes, includes his obituary on a page intended for those who died in 2002.

"You have to admire the disdain for standard journalistic practice. It is stylish, if wilfully eccentric."

The great cricket almanac, it adds, is as "charmingly batty as ever."

Happily still with us, Shildon FC manager Ray Gowan - featured in Sunday's Non-League Paper - is determined to do a Bobby Robson, it said, and to enjoy success at 70.

Ray's 11 years Sir Bobby's junior. Though the comparison might seem outlandish, concedes the NLP, both men began their careers in Fulham and both are now in the North-East.

Like the Magpies' manager, Ray's aiming high. "We could easily be a Conference side," he says.

The seniors continue to make milestones in the Over 40s League too. In the Ironside Cup match between Spring Gardens of North Shields and Gateshead ex-Servicemen's Club the Spring Gardens goalie had to go off after colliding with another player.

Doubtless a stranger to such duties, his replacement was ordered off soon afterwards for handling outside the area.

In the second half, the Ex-Servicemen's keeper also handled outside the box and was similarly cashiered.

The five different goalkeepers - "A record?" asks league secretary Kip Watson, not unreasonably - had conceded eight between them before the match went to penalties. Spring Gardens won 7-6.

Sheffield United's appearance in yesterday's first division play-offs prompts recollection of the Blades' Northern League days - by more than 50 miles, the most southerly club to play in the world's second oldest football league. They joined from the Midland Counties League in 1891, adding a footnote to history in their first game - away at Sunderland Albion on September 12.

Though the North-East papers reckoned the score 4-3 to United, Albion's third goal had been a penalty.

After the match, the referee decided that the offence had been outside the area and, without benefit of video evidence, disallowed it.

Though the Echo reckoned the game "capital", there was no reference to how long the Yorkshiremen had taken to get to Sunderland.

Around 7,000 watched the first Northern League match at Bramall Lane, a 7-1 win over Darlington on September 26. Other results that day included Summerson's Juniors lesson for Haughton Bible Class, Stockton Butchers making mincemeat of Stockton Co-op, Shildon Heroes falling to the Wagon Works apprentices and Tow Law beating Hunwick despite, then as now, a "rather troublesome" wind.

Six months later, United players Harry Lilley and Mick Whitham became the only full England internationals while playing Northern League football. Though the Blades joined the inaugural Football League second division the following season, they remained in the Northern League - and attracted bigger gates there - for another 12 months.

The Northern League, which had had only six members in 1892-93, invited Liverpool, Rotherham United and Gainsbrough Trinity to make up the numbers. For some reason, they all declined.

Among the other events on September 12 1891 was the formation of the Middlesbrough Centre of the National Cyclists Union. "There were some racing cyclists who got into the hands of bookmakers and were guilty of mean tricks which ought to be put a stop to," the Echo reported, a little long-windedly.

On the same day, a foot race took part at Tudhoe Park for £25 a man and a five mile cycle challenge was held on the new track at Leadgate, near Consett, the bookmakers conspicuous by their presence.

The other feller's back tyre having punctured on the third lap - mean tricks, or otherwise - J Jackson of Leadgate went home £40 richer. The Northern Echo cost a ha'penny.

...and finally

Back to Friday's carefully worded question: "He never took a wicket in his country cricket career but he managed a hat-trick for England. Who was he?"

The answer, as no-one appeared to know, was Geoff Hurst - who made just one first class appearance for Essex, but did rather better in the 1966 World Cup final.

Since we've been talking Kevin Keegan, Tim Duncan in Darlington today invites readers to name two other England captains who played their football for Scunthorpe.

Any old Iron? The answer on Friday.

Published: 27/05/2003