Barmy Army live to tell the tale

Mad for it? "The trip probably cost £3,500 and was worth every penny," says Martyn Brown, aged 40 and known as Big Joe for reasons to do with armies marching on their stomach.

Big Joe and his drinking mates Neil Rowley and Steve Miller flew the flag in Australia both for English cricket and for the Caledonian pub in Darlington. All, unsurprisingly, are single.

Up to 20,000 others joined the Barmy Army air force, including 26-year-old Angela Brown, last in the news as Tow Law Town's physio in the 1998 FA Vase final at Wembley.

Angela travelled alone. "I'm young, I'm a nutter and I love cricket," she says. "As a lone female I never once felt threatened.

"It was a fantastic time, never a bit of trouble. It's just a pity that they can't create special Barmy Army areas on English grounds, like they do in Australia."

She bumped into the Cally detachment on Christmas Day and at once became one of the lads.

Strength from adversity - England, not unusually, were being leathered down under - the Barmy Army was formed during an earlier Ashes tour, has been a registered trade mark since March 1995 and is a limited company selling a vast range of merchandise.

Its watchword, says the website, is to make watching cricket more fun and much more popular; its approach, adds the site, has won "virtually unanimous" support.

Mr Adam Gilchrist, whose gesture to the foot soldiers may not necessarily have been approved by the Commonwealth Office, might be the virtual exception.

The 26-day trip over Christmas cost around £2,000, with another £1,500 spending money. Neil and Big Joe had saved £25 a week since the idea came up in fairy lights on Christmas Eve 2,000.

"I just said I fancied going to the Ashes and that was that," says Steve. "The Barmy Army is just about English people having fun, and I fancied a bit of it."

Whatever else they may say, it also made a change from the favoured Australian image of the Poms flying in on a whinge and a prayer.

None was only there for the beer, of course, though rarely photographed without one and wholly unable to remember some of the trip.

"It's quite quiet until lunchtime, a bit chaotic by three o'clock and madness in the last session," says Neil, though they themselves drank little until evening.

That the grounds sell just light beer, two per cent alcohol by volume, might have something to do with it.

They particularly enjoyed the fifth day of the final Test, loved telling the Aussies where they might relocate their whitewash, rejoiced with the backpackers until breakfast.

"They'd got a bit arrogant because everyone expected it be 5-0," says Neil. "The Barmy Army made up some wonderful songs, even had their own song sheets. The Aussies tried it too, but ours were much more effective."

Steve Miller also treasures the Barmy Army game. "The Aussies loved us, the players loved us and we're popularising cricket. At the end of the day, we're just fans."

Their flag, made in 1998, also professes allegiance to Darlington FC. "No-one asked us about the players, just about the chairman and his wife," says Big Joe.

It began life at England v Argentina in the 1998 World Cup in France, and has been to the 1998 Ashes, the Quakers' Wembley play-off in 2000, Euro 2000 and the World Cup in Japan,

David Stephenson, a work colleague of Steve and Joe, plans to take it up Mount Kilimanjairo in January next year.

It'll be visible from the bottom, they reckon.

Big Joe and friends hope also to be on distant shores at the same time. England are in the West Indies; though presently a bit impoverished, the Poor Bloody Infantry are saving up already.

In Barmy Army terms, Alf Hutchinson is something of an old soldier: 65 next month, retired civil servant, walks with a stick after joint replacement surgery.

"I honestly thought they were a bit anti-social until I got to Australia and discovered they were really nice lads," says Alf, also from Darlington.

"I suppose that as a cricket watcher I would prefer not to have quite so much noise, but it added to the atmosphere tremendously.

"I wouldn't like to have spent five days with them, but I've no problems at all about being identified as a member of the Barmy Army."

Alf travelled with Kenny Rodin from Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, and Ken Easom from Nottinghamshire.

Among others with whom he fell in on parade was Jimmy Fellows from Oldham, who'd sold his house for £80,000 in order to watch English cricket around the world.

"He reckoned it was either until he died or until the money ran out," says Alf. "The way he drank it might be a pretty close race."

His 28-day package included two Tests, two one-day internationals and a Christmas Day lunch when they ate fish and chips from the newspaper.

One of the Barmy Army non-coms was a young lady nicknamed Milo, apparently after a beer marketed down there with the slogan "Drunk all over Australia."

Milo also helped English cricket followers raise £50,000 for children's charities down under.

The Australian players, Alf agrees, were generally appreciative. "McGill was a miserable little sod but McGrath joined in the singing and on the fourth day in Melbourne, Langer came across to us on his knees.

"There were a lot of very personal insults, especially about them all being convicts, but I never saw any real bother.

"They're just genuine cricket fans who drink ridiculous amounts, especially at night. What's so very barmy about that?

Backtrack Briefs...

Thanks to the appeal in Tuesday's column, big Bill Hopper is joining tomorrow's Feethams reunion of Darlington's class of '66.

Bishop Auckland lad, now working part-time in a golf shop on the Wirral, he'll be 65 next month. "My knees feel 75 and my head about 30," he says.

The old-style "bustling" centre forward, he was a locomotive fireman based at West Auckland sheds - dear old 51F - played Northern League football for Bishop Auckland, Crook and West and scored five on his debut for both Crook and West, each time against Stanley United.

"I don't think they liked me much up there," he says.

At the engine sheds, overseen by the tremblingly remembered Alderman Bob Middlewood, he'd volunteer for 4am shift on Saturdays, cycle to the ground - "still black" - and play 90 minutes football.

"Bob Middlewood was very good about it, but the foreman was a Shildon supporter and as awkward as hell," Bill recalls.

His Football League career took him to Halifax and Workington before joining Darlington at the start of the 1965-66 promotion-winning campaign. After six goalless games, he never appeared again.

Lol Morgan, the then manager, will also be among lunch guests before the match with Kidderminster. "I'll have to ask him why not," says Bill.

Hale and - well, hearty - Durham FA referees' official and former Football League ref Terry Farley is home after his spell in coronary care. Among the cards he received was one from a former Northern League secretary, who otherwise shall remain nameless, offering the hope that his doctors were of a higher standard than some of his referees. The Elderly Secretary of the Bishop Auckland Referees' Society responds cautiously: "The doctors were very good," he says.

Remember the late Tom Spencer, Test match umpire and adopted son of Seaton Delaval? Tom, as a Geordie might say, is the one who didn't quite get away.

Though he died, aged 81, in November 1995, though the Backtrack column offered an affectionate obituary - "a charming and generous man" - and though the last rites were duly solemnised at Elsdon Avenue United Reformed Church, Wisden, the cricketers' bible, appears to have been looking the other way.

So, no less extra-ordinarily, was the revered Association of Cricket Statisticians and Cricketer magazine.

It explains why the column has all week been taking calls asking if we're sure he's dead. "Everyone in cricket seems to have missed it, it's amazing," says Wisden editor Graeme Wright.

"It's a bit weird, isn't it?" adds Andy Tong from Cricketer.

Tom, a former professional footballer, officiated in 17 Tests and in the first World Cup final, in 1975. He is remembered both for sometimes umpiring without teeth and for being at the opposite end, laughing like a silly mid-on, when a streaker called Michael Angelow made an altogether unscripted appearance at Lord's.

Seven years after Tommy Spencer's last stand, Wisden is now preparing his obituary.

Tuesday's obit on former Somerset and Durham quickie Ken Biddulph - Wisden have perhaps also noticed his passing - stirred memories for Hails of Hartlepool and for Uncle Albert Kelleher, his accomplice.

Biddy, "lovely fellow", was among cricket's more genuine number 11s. At Taunton, they recall, he'd be encouraged by the sound of the motor cutter revving up as he strode timorously out to bat.

On one occasion, his tail end tally-ho towards the middle was accompanied only by the sound of silence. Ken felt that his batting must have improved until he turned around - and saw the groundsman pulling the light roller instead.

After umpteen postponements through rain, frost, ice and snow, Evenwood Town's pitch was finally declared playable for the Northern League Cup tie with Ashington on Tuesday. We arrived at 7.15pm, by which time the ref had called it off because of the wind. The match has been re-arranged for January 28, on which date a tidal wave may confidently be expected to hit Evenwood.

Their Over 40s League match at Barnard Castle among last weekend's monsoon victims, North Shields asked league secretary Kip Watson if it could be re-arranged as the last game of the season so they could put a coach on and make a bibulous day of it. Kip - "I believe they have cheap beer in Glaxo Social Club" - has duly obliged. "In this league we like to be helpful," he says.

And finally...

Tuesday's column sought the identity of three first class counties, other than Durham and Somerset, who've never won the championship.

The Bearded Wonder had offered Northants, Sussex and Gloucestershire, a view confirmed by a call from Ted Scotter. Ron Hails, however, names just Northants and Sussex with a fanciful Cambridgeshire, members from 1864-69, as a makeweight.

Either he or the Wonder must be wrong, unique in either circumstance.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the first footballer born after the 1966 World Cup final to win full England international honours.

More ways of the world next Tuesday

Published: 17/01/2003