Why man, it's Charlie

Among several readers who rang with reminiscences was former polliss Billy Leng from Durham - not least because his dad, also Billy, is in the same Bishop Auckland nursing home as Charlie.

They were even talking about him after church at Coundon on Sunday - another footballer who may have headed too many heavy leather balls - but more of St James's in this week's At Your Service column. Charlie was a Bevin Boy, down Chilton pit at 14 - "I was knee deep in water for 12/6d a week, I soon decided I wanted out," he once told the column - who wrote to Newcastle chairman Stan Seymour asking for a trial.

Despite 36 goals in 53 games, he was dropped for the 1947 FA Cup semi-final - the Magpies lost 4-0 to Charlton - and left in disgust when Southampton offered £10,000.

Transferred to Preston in 1950, he scored in the 1954 FA Cup final defeat by West Brom - the photograph of him meeting the Queen Mother remained on the sideboard - moved to the Boro and ended, injured, at Feethams.

Billy Leng senior, now 89, was a footballer, too, captained Ferryhill Athletic to the Northern League title in 1938 and 1948 and was trainer when, another decade on, they won it in 1958. Sadly, Athletic have achieved little since.

A prolific marksman, Billy also scored 32 of his 33 penalties - Bishop Auckland goalkeeper Jackie Washington saving the other.

"He was a terrific player but he could be a dirty little monkey, mind," his son concedes.

"He and Charlie used to have a bit kick about with the cushions when he first went into the home. Unfortunately neither of them is really up to it now."

Jim McMillan from Walworth, an amateur on the Quakers' books in the late 1950s, remembers both Charlie and his younger brother Frank - "both still had a hell of a shot on them," he says, though Frank made just one Darlington appearance.

Ralph Petitjean in Ferryhill recalls a charity match at Ferryhill Athletic over 30 years ago in which Charlie - "lovely feller" - was persuaded to turn out. "He'd have been about 48 but was still the fittest man on the field."

We also have a little more information - thanks to John Briggs and to Portsmouth FC historian Mick Cooper - on Billy Rochford and Harry Walker, the North-East old chimers who played in Portsmouth's 1939 FA Cup winning side.

Billy, Esh Winning lad, had signed from Cockfield in 1931, became Southamtpon's captain after the war and was regarded by Alf Ramsey as one of the finest tacticians he ever met.

He became player/coach and on retirement scouted for Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday and was a farmer in the Gateshead area.

Harry Walker, from Wensleydale, was known at Fratton Park as The Cat and played for Pompey throughout the war, whilst working in Portsmouth Dockyard.

A motor mechanic by trade, he was a regular churchgoer and became a Methodist local minister - remembered by former team mates, says Mick, as a genuine, kindly person who practised what he preached.

Back in training, or so it seemed, former Newcastle and Liverpool left back Alan Kennedy could be seen hoofing along the roads of Tyneside the other night.

Penshaw-born Kennedy, 48, was hoping to broadcast his Liverpool -based radio talk-in from the Century Radio studios in Gateshead when he encountered the murderous MetroCentre mile.

"We'd gone about 400 yards in an hour. In the end I got out and ran the last two miles up the hard shoulder," he tells Backtrack. "The chap who was driving arrived 45 minutes after I did."

Later Kennedy, nicknamed Barney Rubble by the Kop, gave an accomplished address at Seaham Red Star's sportsmen's dinner - a far cry from his debut, at the North Briton in Aycliffe Village in 1992, when he couldn't eat a thing for nerves.

"Even now I have to go to the toilet beforehand. I'd far rather play in front of 60,000 people at Anfield," he says.

He also played for Sunderland under Lawrie McMenemy, briefly for Hartlepool United and shared the England left back role with Kenny Sansom - "that little so-and-so won 83 caps, I won two."

Among the other stars at Seaham was our old friend Leo Smith, he who burned his boots - and quite possibly his boats - when only named as sub.

Remember the story? Leo, then 70, was on a tour of Holland with a Seaham side - unfortunately, however, his incendiary action was in the hotel room and the smoke alarm was first to detect his unhappiness.

Next month he'll be 80, reluctantly hung up his new boots a few months ago - "terrible arthritis in my knee" - and now no longer runs along the cliff tops, either.

"It's all I can do to swim once or twice a week," he says, though a joint replacement may yet see him back in the side.

A recent nominee in the Echo's Local Heroes awards, he'd also been consulted by his daughter to find out more about Lord Byron, that other well-known Seaham lad.

"Try under local celebrities," he suggested and there, first name up, was good old Leo Smith.

Same night as the Red Star trek, Shildon Railway Cricket Club was holding its annual meeting. Thought to be endangered, they fight on. "There's a new administration and no problems," says club president Jack Watson, 81, the former Durham and Northumberland all rounder. "I said they'd fold over my dead body - I hope I've a few more years in me yet."

Whilst Jack Watson continues to go strong, Amos the Ostrich is dead - aged just nine months.

Amos, it will doubtless be recalled, was owned by former four minute miler Brooks Mileson - now chairman of the Peterlee- based Albany Group - and named after the chairman of the Northern League, which Albany so munificently supports.

"He seemed as fit as a fiddle on Thursday night but on Friday morning we found him keeled over," says Brooks.

A post-mortem was being held yesterday.

And finally...

Another question based on Steve Chaytor's hugely enjoyable book of post-war Sedgefield area players who appeared in the Football League.

For which Fishburn-born player did Middlesbrough pay a club record £475,000 when signing him from Newcastle United in 1978?

More local heroes on Friday.

Published: 02/12/2002