Barton thriving after its brush with extinction

The first team entered 11 cups, reached ten finals, won seven. Then there are the seconds, the three thriving junior sides and the accustomed teasing trophies like most wides, most ducks and most self-inflicted runs outs.

A pair of children's sand shoes with wooden wheels attached is believed to await the woebegone winner. "I bet it'll be Fez," they forecast in the Half Moon at Barton.

The village, population just over 1,000, is six miles south of Darlington on what once was the Great North Road. Nine of the first team regulars live there, most of the other lads too, and if they're not batting for Barton they're probably playing bingo for it.

Such community activities have helped raise £20,000 towards a £320,000 ground redevelopment for which they hope to have a 65 per cent Lottery grant before Christmas. Other funding is already in place.

Twenty years ago, however, Barton very nearly went for a Burton. This is the story of how it became a model village, instead.

Club secretary Martin Fairey is in the Half Moon, and Trevor Frankland who runs the youth teams and ploughs through the paperwork and Geoff Burn, groundsman and second team skipper, who's just completed his 44th season with the club.

A half century shortly? "I think I'll probably have to flog on," he says cheerfully.

Martin's brought a scrapbook, cuttings from 1982 about vandals repeatedly attacking the little pavilion near the A1 and, January the following year, of the most serious threat of all to one of the region's oldest cricket clubs.

The chap who'd bought the field, their home for getting on 150 years, not only wanted £12,000 for it but wanted it within a week.

They persuaded a bank to loan it - "put our heads on the block," says Geoff Burn - began working to pay off the debt, realised that with one team and little enthusiasm, they couldn't go on as they were.

It was the turning point, they agree, and they turned to the young 'uns.

Hazel Burn, Geoff's late wife, saw the bairns playing on the village green and persuaded them to come to the cricket field instead, formed an under 15s side and even, it's recalled, bought their fish and chips after the match.

"The first season they were awful, absolutely awful, but it's amazing how quickly kids learn," says Geoff, whose much loved wife was buried four years ago in her Under 15s T-shirt.

Now there are Under 13s, 15s and 17s and players knocking on official doors, pestering to know when practice is. They've had a lad at the Yorkshire Academy, another with Durham Under 16s and any amount who've come through to the senior sides.

The ground has no electricity, no showers and only a cold tap. Redevelopment was mooted in the 1990s - "I had two lads in the teams, I thought they deserved better," says Trevor Frankland - and the paper mountain began to grow three years ago.

Now Trevor's almost on top of it, and can see an exciting future. There are plans for new changing rooms and scorebox, two artificial practice strips, a football pitch - Barton hasn't one - and a relaid square.

"Completely marled, six inches deep, minor counties standard," says the groundsman. "The square we have is all right, needs a bit levelling, but is basically a 150-year-old meadow.

"The club is really thriving and buzzing but this will improve it out of all recognition," says Trevor. "It'll be the bees knees if it comes off."

They'd also brought to the pub an illuminated address presented in 1867 to cricket club secretary Mr T F Coad, discovered recently in some southern attic and returned via the Royal Mail to "The secretary, Barton Cricket Club."

Mr Coad, who also received a time piece and a liquor stand, is thanked for the interest and labour he has bestowed "pertaining to the benefit and reputation of the above club, its union and permanancy."

Tomorrow at the Jersey Farm, the Fenwick and the Murrough Wilson, the Hammond, the Haughton and the Cecil Lees, the league and the Barton seven-a-side trophies will all be re-presented as further evidence of their permanent ways.

"We're still a small village team but now in all sorts of ways we're an integral part of the village," says Geoff Burn. "On any argument we've come a long way; I like to think we're an example of how to do it right."

Tomorrow night's proceedings may also be rather prolonged at Stafford Place CC, Thornaby, where the column - first come - will be doing the glad handing. There are about 185 trophies says demon bowler Brent "Bomber" Smith, known to be a little loquacious. "After that," he adds, "I'm speaking for six hours."

Among sports publishing's more improbable titles, One Dead Ref and A Box of Kippers will hit the book shops before Christmas.

It's a collection of potted biographies and anecdotes of all 72 men from the present borough of Sedgefield - Shildon, Spennymoor, Newton Aycliffe, Ferryhill - who've played League football since the war.

"I wanted something a bit more inspiring than Footballers From Sedgefield," says compiler Steve Chaytor, a Sedgefield lad whose father Ken scored 20 goals in 77 League appearances for Oldham in the 1950s and is now content to do the garden.

The ref, it transpires, collapsed 30 minutes into a game. The match was abandoned and the debut making player never chosen again.

The box of kippers was part of a transfer fee - and with a Wingate, not Whitby, connection. "All they had was an old casey, £2 and the kippers," says Steve.

"By that time those concerned were so drunk, they cooked the kippers on a spade there and then."

The book will be launched in Sedgefield at the end of November, when village lad Gordon Jones - 462 League appearances for Middlesbrough, 85 for Darlington, nine England Under 23 caps - will be among the guests. More of smoked haddock later.

Steve Chaytor had left a message. We rang back on his mobile. "It's a bit difficult to speak just now," he said, as if in some high level meeting, and murmured his excuses to the assembled company. He was actually at Hartlepool Golf Club, where mobiles are strictly (and commendably) forbidden in the clubhouse. The conversation continued in the locker room.

Stan Cummins, another Sedgefield area lad made good, is back in football - not the only happy news from that quarter. He's become engaged to Julie Slater, once the little girl across the road.

Stan, born in Ferryhill and now back there, played for Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace, excited many and then spent 17 years coaching in America.

Home for two months, he's been appointed manager of Norton and Stockton Ancients in the Albany Northern League second division, in charge of a young side for tomorrow's home game against Evenwood.

"I'm really looking forward to it, I was impressed when I met them," says Stan of the Ancients, who'll be 44 in December.

Julie was friends with Stan's younger sister, also Julie, when they were all growing up. "She was literally across the road from my parents, we just met again and it clicked. I've already bought the engagement ring," he says.

They hope to marry on April 6, the date of Julie's late mother's birthday. "All we don't know," says Stan, "is April 6 which year."

Happy days at Horden an' all, the side's unbeaten Northern League record continuing with a 6-1 win at Crook on Wednesday. England v The Bill on television, temperature barely 40 Fahrenheit, the crowd was sadly small - Bovril fuelled Hartlepool postman John Dawson almost inevitably among the few. Mid-October, it was his 76th game of the season.

Early days at the University of Nottingham, the Little 'Un reports that Leyburn lad Michael Dawson - Forest's 18-year-old centre half - is cool on a reported £3m interest from Man United.

Forest have been very good to him, says Michael, whose brothers were also at the club. Andrew's now at Scunthorpe, Kevin at Chesterfield. More of that remarkable trio ere long.

The bairn also attended a stand-up comedy night this week at which the turn, Gateshead lad, was banging on about the brutality of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

"The Northern Alliance? I used to play football in that. I thought they were brutal fining me ten quid for a booking."

Among an audience of 200 Nottingham students, the Little 'Un was the only person who got the joke.

After the World Conker Championships at Trimdon Colliery last weekend - at least The Guardian regards it as a sport - another bash takes place on Sunday at the George and Dragon in Yarm, the same weekend as the annual fair. Local rules proscribe old chestnuts, all entries must be from this season's fall. How on earth can they tell? "I haven't a clue," our man with the strings attached admits.

The requirement which FIFA imposed upon all international referees in 1991 (Backtrack, October 15) was the ability to speak English.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the last English born manager to lead his side to FA Cup final victory at Wembley.

Leading from the back, the column returns on Tuesday

Published: ??/??/2002