Rags to riches for Willington

Almost 100 people have forsaken the fireside - men, women and bairns. Inevitably there's a bit chew-on about the constitution, rules being what they are, but the optimism appears abundantly well founded.

Ten years ago, the club came within days of folding. Now they have five teams, anticipate more, and have just won a £330,000 Sport England Lottery Fund grant for major ground development. Work starts on Monday.

Comparison with the town's football team was uncomfortably easy. Once FA Amateur Cup winners, they lost 13-0 on Saturday, after which the chairman resigned. The way seems permanently uphill.

The cricketers' windfall, topped up by £34,000 of their own "partnership" funding, is chiefly attributed to Neil Moore, the treasurer, and to first team skipper Karl Brown. Both are pollisses.

"I just came as a player in 1994," said Neil. "It was only when my lad started playing as a junior that I thought we must be able to do something a bit better. Now we'll have some of the best facilities in Co Durham."

The pavilion had neither gas nor hot water. Electricity arrived three years ago. What most of all they look forward to next season is a hot shower.

It would be wholly mistaken, however, to suppose that getting lucky with the Lottery somehow represents easy money.

Work on the application - "a bit of a dream," says Karl - began four years ago. In the past 12 months alone, they reckon to have spent 1500 hours between them working on administration and with other agencies.

Among the end products is an inch thick sports development plan, aimed especially at young people, women and ethnic minorities.

"Sport England thought it was the dogs' bollocks," says Neil, though the official version was that it was "one of the best in existence."

The club was saved by last- minute acceptance into the North East Durham League, now plays in the Durham County League and hopes to develop both on and off the field.

Work, due to end next June, includes pavilion, changing rooms, social facilities, digital scoreboard, fully covered wickets and long- awaited new equipment for groundsman Alan Hill, who commutes several days a week from Chester-le-Street.

The club is also funding a part- time cricket development officer in local schools.

Karl Brown played his childhood cricket up the hill in Oakenshaw. "We just wanted to do something for cricket and for the community," he says. "When we're old men, we'll be able to sit on critics' corner and say that we had a part in it all."

The annual meeting breaks up highly impressed. What might be called showing Willington.

Our old friend Jack Watson, incidentally, is the Durham County Cricket League's new president, following the late Hunter Cummings.

"Jack's the ideal replacement, we're delighted he's accepted," says league secretary Roy Coates.

Jack, now 81 and still sedulously scouting for Sheffield Wednesday, began his County League involvement in 1955 when he became Shildon BR's first professional - his first problem as league president may be uncomfortably close to home.

Shildon Railway, as the club became, holds its annual meeting on Thursday (7.30) after a season in which the first team didn't win a game. Most officials have subsequently resigned.

"I'm worried about them, they need everyone to turn up on Thursday," says Roy Coates.

Jack, who's also Shildon's president, echoes the plea but insists they'll continue. "We need younger people to take responsibility, but the club folds over my dead body."

Astonishingly, as the "all luck" brigade in particular might care to note, the Grey Horse on Bank, Top, Darlington, won the British national domino championships on Saturday for the third time in four years.

Almost as remarkable, they beat Busters - a pub team from 100 yards up the road - in the final at Bridlington Spa.

"They were very good about it, we all had a few drinks together afterwards," says Derrick White of the Grey Horse. "To be fair, Busters were in the more difficult half of the draw."

The finals - fives and threes team singles - were contested by 64 qualifiers. The Grey Horse galloped home 4-0 in a best of seven final, ten hours after playing their first domino.

The eight playing members were Anthony White and his son Mark, Derrick White - Anthony's brother - Colin and Alan Stainsby, Paul Ramshaw, Mick McMain and, ineluctably, Stormin' Norman Kent.

The two teams had agreed before the final to take £1,000 each from the £2,200 prize pot and to play for £200.

"It's typical of the spirit that exists between us," says Derrick. "Saturday proved beyond argument that Darlington is the fives and threes capital of Britain."

Otherwise engaged, the column spent Saturday afternoon at Tow Law v Morpeth, the visitors conspicuously without Paul Gascoigne and with fading hopes of his signature. "He's speaking to a Scottish Premier club," said Morpeth chairman Ken Beattie. The wind was up and the rain and mist down; two men were sent off in the first quarter of an hour. Gazza, bless him, would have loved it.

Alan Mullery spoke at Guisborough Town's dinner on Thursday. Now 61, he is best remembered - he grumbles - as the first England player to be sent off in an international.

Club funds benefited greatly; the auction of a single soft toy raised an additional £750 for the Butterwick Childen's Hospice.

Mullery's best tale may have been the one, told over a drink beforehand, of his management days at Crystal Palace when a promising young player was habitually late and usually knackered.

Explanation eventually demanded, the lad - who'd best remain nameless, but enjoyed a very decent career - told Mullery that his dad worked at night and insisted that he help him.

"What's he do, for heaven's sake?" said the manager.

"As a matter of fact," said the player, "he's a burglar."

Stormin' Norman Sturman, doyen of Haughton Cricket Club and recent winner of this year's overall Local Heroes award, looks in with a copy of his privately printed autobiography - called Line and Length. His wife, he says, has spent the prize money already.

"Most of my trophies are in a corner of the garage but the Local Heroes awards are special. She's been out for two new corner units to stand them on."

What of Harry Walker, the goalkeeper said in Friday's column to have been the last Leyburn lad until the Dawson triumvirate to play in the Football League?

Born in 1916, Harry had already won 13 Wensleydale league and cup medals before joining Darlington as a 19-year-old. Two years later he went to Portsmouth, conceded just a single goal on the road to the 1939 FA Cup final at Wembley and played a key role in the 4-1 win over Wolves. "Walker never gave his colleagues the slightest grounds for anxiety," the Echo observed. The winners' left back was 25-year-old Billy Rochford, signed seven years previously from the celebrated Esh Winning Juniors - "belongs Esh Winning, too," the Echo colloquially added. Billy's parents travelled to Wembley; Harry's had ears cupped to the wireless. Harry Walker played 238 post-war League games for Nottingham Forest and afterwards - recalls Tom Peacock of Low Coniscliffe - worked at the Ordnance factory in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. He died in 1976. Billy Rochford, who represented the Football League and after the war made 134 appearances for Southampton, died in 1984.

Neither is likely to have made his fortune. Portsmouth were on £20 a man to win the Cup - less, discovered skipper Jimmy Guthrie, than the bandsmen who played at Wembley before the final. "We'd have been be tter off playing the cornet," he said.

* Harry Walker may not, however, have been the last Leyburn lad - Leyburn area, anyway - to play League football. Dave Wintersgill, briefly at Wolverhampton, Chesterfield and Darlington, came from Spennithorne - a couple of miles away, attended Leyburn School and reckons you could name a team of Wensleydale players down the decades. At 16 he'd become Wolves' second youngest debutant, incidentally, behind that legendary old wolf Jimmy Mullen, a Newcastle lad.

Dave is now 37 and an officer at Holme House prison in Stockton.

And finally...

The Horden lad presently sidelined by a heel injury but still playing Premiership football at 35 (Backtrack, November 22) is Bob Taylor of West Bromwich Albion.

Everyone knows that Chris Waddle played for Tow Law, of course, but for which club now in the Albany Northern League did Trevor Brooking make an appearance?

Star time again on Friday.

Published: 26/11/2002