Sssshhh! It's the book club

On Tuesday evening, the column joined Durham County Cricket Club scorer and historian Brian Hunt and The Far Corner author Harry Pearson - non-drivers, all three - for a talk-in on sports writing.

They'd hoped for 100, attracted about 25, blamed Newcastle United for being on the television.

There was a gallant band from Tudhoe Cricket Club, though, apologies for absence from Durham County Cricket League chairman Peter Metcalfe and a familiar sounding story from the incomparable Mr Pearson.

After The Far Corner's acclaimed appearance, his first public "reading" was to be in Newcastle - "the streets were thronged with people, I thought they must all be coming to see me," said Harry.

In truth they were off to see Newcastle v Atletico Bilbao. The attendance at the reading was five, all members of his family.

They went to a Chinese restaurant instead.

In Durham we persevered, answered questions about media manipulation and "tribalism" and things, grabbed a few nibbles and retired in good order to the Market Tavern.

It was there that Mr Patrick Conway, revisiting tribalism over a pint of Eighty Shilling ale, recalled the fearful story of the Great Battle of Leadgate, described in The Northern Echo 113 years ago as "a rather serious riot".

Though it may not be his precise title, Patrick is Durham County Council's director of libraries and similarly cultural carryings on and is an avid Sunderland (and Grimsby Town) supporter. Leadgate, all the emphasis on the second syllable, is a village near Consett.

He'd been researching John Campbell, who on October 25 1890 at Bolton became the first Sunderland player to score a Football League hat trick. Events at Leadgate that day were to prove more memorable yet.

Leadgate Exiles were a Catholic team, left footers among a large Irish population. Leadgate Park, their fierce local rivals, were principally Protestant. When they were drawn together in the second round of the Durham Challenge Cup, 4,000 spectators - the same number as watched Bolton Wanderers play Sunderland - crowded onto Park's ground on Durham Road.

"For the past week the tie had been the principal topic of local conversation, bets being laid freely on the result and the utmost enthusiasm prevailed among the numerous patrons of each club," said the Echo.

A good deal of badinage was indulged in both before and after the match, we added, but at 10.30pm in the Bradley Arms - the Exiles headquarters - enthusiasm turned into insurrection and badinage into a bloodbath.

Police led by Sgt Nicholson had arrested and handcuffed Joseph Carr but Carr's brother armed himself with a stout stick, completely smashed up the front of the pub and ran off, the polliss in pursuit, towards Dipton.

In the Bradley Arms, the mayhem continued. The officer guarding Carr was beaten and thrown to the ground. Carr, still handcuffed, escaped with his accomplices.

"The disturbance still increasing, several fights occurring on the main street, word was despatched to Consett and Inspector Benzies and three or four constables hastened to Leadgate," said Monday's paper.

"They found a great deal of disturbance and excitement in Front Street and some of the back thoroughfares, the yells and shouts which rent the air being really deafening."

The female portion of the community, we added, appeared in that respect to be the worst offenders.

"The police made several charges on the turbulent mob and eventually succeeded in dispersing the crowd. Two of the ring leaders, Wheatley and Curry, were taken to the Consett lock-up."

The Bradley Arms, rather ironically, is now the Sportsman's. Leadgate Exiles and Leadgate Park, who lost to Stockton in the 1897 FA Amateur Cup semi-final, are long defunct; the different churches get on famously.

"That sort of conflict might have been a factor in the past, but we're very proud of our ecumenical activities now," says local councillor Bill Stockdale, president of the Leadgate Historical Society (to whom thanks for the team photographs) Locals, adds Bill, still talk about the former rivalry - "but they've probably forgotten the riot and the real trouble which football can cause."

Leadgate Exiles had won that match 2-1. What they had helped prove, was that there's nothing new under the sun.

Elsewhere on October 25 1890, Bridget Conley - "commonly known as Biddy the Muf" - made her 43rd appearance before Middlesbrough police court and was given a month's hard labour, a lion tamer at Buffalo Bill's circus in Stockton came before magistrates after hitting a bairn of whom he claimed to be frightened and Haughton-le-Skerne Bible Class beat North East Swifts 3-1. Bolton Wanderers v Sunderland didn't warrant so much as a mention.

Brian Hunt, who makes Leslie Welch the Memory Man resemble an absent minded professor by comparison, came back to the boozer, too.

"Ah, Leadgate Exiles," he said. "The goalkeeper was Joe Crowther, had seven bairns, died in a dynamite explosion in 1915, in the paper at the time."

There was an astonished pause, broken finally by Brian himself.

"Those seven bairns," he said. "Make it eight."

So what of Johnny Campbell, the Sunderland centre forward who inadvertently started all this? One of the so called "Scottish professors", he was signed from Renton in Dumbartonshire in 1889 and hit 150 goals in 215 appearances as Sunderland won three championships in four years. His brother Robert was Sunderland's manager from 1896-99. He was transferred for £40 to Newcastle United in 1897 but retired the following year after taking a pub, which was against club rules.

Just 36 when he died, Campbell - who actually scored four against Bolton - remains the fifth highest scorer in Sunderland's history, and may for a little while yet.

It was also at the Durham do that Henry McLaren, former Durham County and Sunderland all rounder and Brancepeth farmer, enquired which former Durham cricketer's World Cup record was finally broken this year.

The answer is Winston Davis, the West Indian whose 7-55 against Australia at Headingley in 1981 was successively overtaken by Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee, seven for rather fewer.

Davis made 15 test appearances and also played for Glamorgan, Northants and Tasmania. His Durham career was rather less spectacular. While Sunderland's 21-year-old pro in 1980 he was chosen for the county against Scotland B at Selkirk, didn't bat, claimed 1-93 over two innings and was never asked again.

He now lives in Worcestershire but, sadly, is confined to a wheelchair after suffering severe injuries when falling from a tree.

Back up in north-west Durham, nine votive candles burn in the bar of the Grey Horse in Consett. Like the green bottles, they began with ten.

It's a sweepstake. "It started when Sunderland had ten games left. Every time they win or draw a candle stays lighted, every time they lose a candle is extinguished," says Rose Conroy, the landlady.

Rose, a Sunderland fan, has her money on eight lighted candles at season's end. "It's getting a bit worrying, but I'd like to think Mick McCarthy is the man to save us," she says.

Others disagree. A Newcastle supporting customer has added a picture of St Jude to the little shrine. Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes.

Tommy Spencer's ghost still walks. Seven and a half years after we reported the international cricket umpire's death, the day after we teased The Cricketer magazine for a somewhat belated obituary, The Times also tweaked The Cricketer's tail on Wednesday.

The magazine had claimed that long delayed notification of Tommy's passing was "perhaps a sad reflection on modern sport and perhaps on modern society in general."

"The outrage," said The Times, "didn't wash with a columnist on one of the country's leading regional newspapers."

Tommy, who lived in Seaton Delaval, near Whitley Bay, stood in 17 Tests and was awarded the OBE for services to cricket. He'd love to have lived to tell the tale.

Tuesday's column on Bishop Auckland Cricket Club's 150th anniversary mistakenly identified Harry Smurthwaite as club secretary. John Russell took over the post last year. Apologies.

We also said that Peggy Lee had sung Hard Hearted Hannah - don't ask - in the 1950s film Pete Kelly's Blues. It wasn't says Don Wilson in Durham - a man not to be trifled with - it was Ella Fitzgerald.

the eight English test cricketers born between Tyne and Tees (Backtrack, March 11) are Jim McConnon and Colin Milburn (both Burnopfield), Simon Brown (Cleadon), Peter Willey (Sedgefield), David Townsend and wicket keeper Dick Spoonor (both Norton-on-Tees), Bob Willis (Sunderland) and Andrew Ernest Stoddart, born in 1863 in South Shields.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today wonders what the Scottish football clubs Queens Park, Cowlairs, Rangers, Partick Thistle, Renton and 93rd Highlanders have in common with the Irish clubs Linfield, Crusaders and Distillery.

More cross-border co-operation on Tuesday.

Published: 14/03/2003