Vase brings late flowering

Wondrously invigorated by the half-time tea and by manager Mulcaster's opinion of their efforts hitherto, they won 6-3 with a team that included players aged 16 and 17 and a great goalie more than twice their age.

Afterwards there were songs about Yorkshire puddings and where they might be relocated, sung (shall we say) with a degree of irony.

It was a game to captivate the committed, arouse the apathetic and above all to reward the loyalty of club stalwarts like Ian Bolland, Ken Lomer, Peter Coulson, Les Hood and 69-year-old chairman Ralph Alderson - former polliss, one of the Reeth Aldersons - who'd been out with the hand roller since 9am to help ensure that the game went ahead.

Northallerton are now at home to the much-fancied Burgess Hill on January 18, but that's still five and a half weeks away.

As the club website yesterday observed, this was Christmas come early.

Another misplaced punch, Herol "Bomber" Graham wasn't the British boxing champ - as Friday's column briefly supposed - who played Durham County League cricket for Tudhoe. It was Neville Meade.

Ian McGrath in Durham remembered him. Like many more British heavyweight champions, few others may be able to.

When the 34-year-old Jamaican beat George Ferris in 1981, however, he was not only the oldest to win a first time title - and at 16st 3lb, the heaviest - but only the second heavyweight champion in 72 years to knock out his opponent in the first round.

Five years earlier, Joe Bugner had despatched the amiable Scarborough fighter Richard Dunn in two and a half minutes.

Meade had joined the RAF Regiment in 1965 and was posted to RAF Catterick - where he somewhat reluctantly took up boxing.

"You know Catterick, there's just nothing happening," he once told the column.

"There was a boxing tournament going on in Wales and I saw it as a chance to get away for a couple of days."

He and his family lived in the Lingfield area of Darlington, though he later moved to Swansea.

"I'll come straight back to the North-East when I finish boxing. I can really relax up here," he said.

After beating Ferris - "a right that Sugar Ray Robinson would have been proud of," a commentator observed - he lost his only defence, to Dave Pearce, two years later.

The column's best efforts have been unable to discover what happened to the airman who had his wings clipped. Someone else may yet be able to run him to earth.

The reason this column doesn't enter pub quizzes is that it's so hard to get facts right. Friday's column also suggested that no- one had won the £115 jackpot question at the Kings Arms in Great Stainton - from which club did Everton sign Dixie Dean.

Not so. Nev and Marilyn Hare, Close House lad and Shildon lass, went off with a little extra spending money for Christmas.

Hails of Hartlepool stirs, their Patch's tail wags, tales of Uncle Albert come humming down the telegraph - galvanised by Friday's piece on former Hartlepools United Reserves manager Nichol Evans.

Albert Kelleher was the reserves' goalkeeper shortly after the war.

Nichol Evans would sit alone on the homeward bus, in order that "financial arrangements" might be conducted hugger-mugger.

Albert was duly summoned. "Thoo's had a canny game, young 'un," said old Nick. "Ah'm givin' you thirty bob, but divvent tell them lot."

At the Tuesday night training session, Albert was duly collared by a team mate. "Payment by results," he said.

"I got thirty bob, but don't tell the others."

"Oh I won't," said his colleague, "Nichol told me to say nowt, either. Mind, I got two quid."

Then there was Nichol Evans junior, whose one moment of football glory came on a mad March day in the fearful winter of 1947.

Pools were at home to New Brighton, 12 inches of snow cleared from the pitch.

The season already extended to June 14 and the visitors' bus finally arriving with just nine men.

Once at Hartlepool they promptly signed young Nick - from Hesleden, according to the Big Red Book - to play at outside right.

Hartlepools' 3-0 victory included a thunderous shot from "Flying Dustman" Leo Harden. "Only the goal net prevented it from demolishing the Queens Road dance hall as well," observed the Hartlepool Mail.

New Brighton's stand-in goalkeeper, greeted with a glass of whisky at the end, was team manager and former Scottish international centre forward Neil McBain.

At 52 years and four months he became, and remains, the oldest man to play in the Football League - and like Nichol Evans junior, he never played there again.

Someone has also faxed the Hartlepool Mail cutting about our friend Michael Gough's 12th man appearance in the third Test at Perth. Summoned to the WACA from club cricket, the Durham lad arrived to general bemusement in his Hartlepool United shirt.

"When I said whose shirt it was they looked a bit miffed," says Goughy.

"They soon shut up when I told them we were top."

Dedication beyond the call of duty, the Northern League magazine Northern Ventures Northern Gains carries the splendid story of enthusiastic new referee Jackie Traynor from Craghead, Stanley.

Appointed to run the line at a key cup tie at Bedlington Terriers, Jackie decided on an early night, leaving a note for Mrs Traynor - out on the town - that he wasn't to be disturbed.

The lady, however, seemed neither to have read the note nor the referees' rule book and became somewhat persistent in her attentions.

Unable to rest in peace as intended, her husband - says the magazine - spent the rest of the night beneath a duvet on the couch.

Martial arts duo produce video

Shildon lad John Robinson, most recently remembered for his 20-mile barefoot walk in aid of breast cancer charities, now plans a martial arts video with his old friend and fighting partner Bryan Crossley.

Bryan's been a karate man for 40 years, sometimes fighting against Japanese in the 1960s for 45 minutes non-stop. "There was no backing down, even if you were injured," he recalls.

In 1965, Bryan became the first ever All Britain All Style Free Fighting Karate champion, later captained the successful England team in the European karate championships and is still the country's highest ranked wado instructor.

John, still coached by his 85-year-old dad - who taught unarmed combat in the Burma jungle and boxed for the RAF - is now a master of breaking techniques, everything from bricks to coconuts with hands, feet or fingers.

The video, filmed early next year, will feature Japanese "Wado ryu" karate and extreme advanced breaking techniques.

And finally...

Friday's column invited the names of ten North-East lads who've played for Norwich City - Lol Brown, Bryan Conlon, Keith Robson, Steve Bruce, Gary Rowell, Shaun Elliott, Geoff Butler, Barry Butler, Jackie Bell and Albert Bennett, perhaps.

Paul Dobson chirps in with nine ex-Sunderland local lads who sang with the Canaries - Rowell (Seaham), Dave Hodgson (Gateshead), Geoff Butler (Middlesbrough), Elliott (Haltwhistle), Isaac Martin (Gateshead), Stan Ramsay (Ryton), Tom Scott (Newcastle), Colin Suggett (Washington) and Fred Thompson (South Hetton) - plus Bob Young from Brandon, who went on to manage them during the war.

Changing stripes, we've been sent A Magpie's Quiz Book, compiled by BBC Radio Newcastle presenter and former headmaster Barry Hindson and just published at £5.95 by TUPS Books of Washington. It contains over 1,500 questions about Newcastle Un ited - here's just one of them. What was remarkable about the Newcastle team which beat Leeds United 3-2 on October 6 1928?

We're back in the same colours on Friday.

Published: 10/12/2002