Rags to riches...

"I want to be incredibly rich, working from my office in the sky and with batches of shirts flying all over the world," said Alan. It was October 4 1991.

Eleven years later they live in an opulently-converted barn in Co. Durham, have the bairns privately educated - their nine-year-old son is in the same school team as Peter Beardsley's daughter - and drive an Aston Martin DB7.

The business is The Old Fashioned Football Shirt Company - TOFFS, indelibly - the Aston Martin's 70FFS.

The office may only be on the first floor, but the shirts fly all over the world.

The company turns over £1.8m, has a 22-strong workforce at the new 8,000 sq ft headquarters on Gateshead's Team Valley estate and provides work for many others in the rag trade.

For TOFFS, read a couple of swells, and - best of all - he remains utterly in thrall to the Arsenal.

Incredibly rich? "We manage," says Alan, who played for Andover Town and had unsuccessful trials with West Ham.

He, accent as broad as the North Bank, had begun as a clothes factory cutter but became something upbeat in the music industry. She, 13 years his junior, was from Darras Hall, Newcastle, but working in London.

They met at a Christmas party in 1987.

"Every so often a bread roll would land on my table," recalls Alan, 54. "I thought they were just being lobbed over in general, but then I realised they were being aimed at me."

It was a Geordie lass's mating ritual, and it worked.

Instantly attracted, they moved north two years later, his days of sex, drugs and rock and roll ("That really was what it was like") suddenly over.

"The music industry and I were giving up on each other at the same time, and the cost of living in London was bloody awful" he says.

Alan became a manager with a pizza company, losing both dough and friends, decided it was time to put his shirt on self-employment.

He'd had the "retro" shirt idea for ten years, though the TOFFS brainwave was his wife's.

"I can even remember where it came to me, bottom of the ladder leading to the loft where we had our little office," says Michelle, 13 years her husband's junior.

Now, of course, they're toffs.com as well - even Harrods have had to settle for toffsworld.com - and Michele no longer throws bread rolls at the old feller.

"These days it's spaghetti and red wine," he says.

The first 100 per cent cotton replica was of Arsenal captain Joe Mercer's gold coloured shirt from the 1950 FA Cup final; the first customer, inevitably, was Arsenal.

"People kept talking about pro formas and things. I knew so little about business I probably thought a pro forma was a subs' bench," he says.

In 1991 there were 12 designs, and a willing guinea pig in Michele's father - "like many more people, he wanted to recapture his youth." In the latest catalogue there are 692 different period shirts, only Accy Stanley keeping the Gunners from another first place, and the slogan "100 per cent nostalgia guaranteed."

About 45 per cent go abroad, with licenses from many top European clubs and shops in Milan and Newcastle, but it's an Englishman who has 300.

Another 100 orders had arrived before the column did, at 11am on Wednesday. It may only be some half hidden corner of the Team Valley industrial estate - or business park, or whatever these places are now fashionably labelled - but this, quite clearly, is the Retrocentre.

The foyer's an Arsenal shrine, Alan's office - he's MD, she's company secretary - another home for Highbury heroes, though there's a Darth Vader replica, too and even a book about Brentford.

Michelle, opposite side of an ever open door, is in the Newcastle United room and in the boardroom where the table alone cost £10,000 there's also a tip-up seat, number 131, from Wembley.

"I never thought he was mad, never doubted him, though there was one month we couldn't even pay the mortgage," says Michelle. "Alan's always collected stuff and his investments have proved sound.

"You look at the things that are worth a bit in our house, and it's Alan who's bought them."

Others, even Nike, have inevitably cottoned onto the idea. "Some of them are the clubs who told me it would never work, now the little oiks are demanding licence fees," says Alan.

That TOFFS remain market leader is, they say, because of their insistence upon quality and the product's longevity.

"We've come from a cottage industry to a biggish business but we still try to retain the cottage industry ethos," says Michele.

"I honestly think the bubble is going to burst on new football shirts.

"There's only so much a fan is going to pay and all they're doing is subsidising the players' horrendous wages.

"We suffer too, because what was once a reasonable licence from clubs now costs two or three times as much, but I still think we can get much, much bigger, it's having the facilities and the factories to keep up with the demand.

"I hope this will suffice for another five years, then we'll probably have to be on the move again."

For the moment they're kicking in towards Christmas. TOFFS people, undoubtedly.

That remarkable former pitman Barry Parnaby has smashed the North-East pentathlon record - for Over 70s - held for 17 years by his friend and former running mate Len "the Leap" Watson.

Len, 89 next, is now in a home in Bishop Auckland.

"His memory's going a bit but physically he's very canny," says Barry.

"When I visit him we'll sometimes have a walk up the Green Tree.

"If no one's looking, he'll break into a bit jog."

Barry - from Kelloe, east of Durham - once had lungs so full of coal dust that he needed two rests just climbing the stairs. He hit new heights on Sunday.

Already holder of the British Over 70s 400m record, he measured 3.99m for the long jump ("Lenny did fower twelve when he was 80"), 21 06m for the discus ("my throwing's very poor"), 30.4 seconds for the 200 metres ("decent"), 19.60m for the javelin and six minutes 14.6 seconds for the 1500 metres.

"I've not declined so sharp as I thought I would," he concedes.

It totalled 3,552 points, 142 above the old record.

"Don't let it fool you," says the all round good guy, "there's nowt between me and Lenny at all."

Dave Morrison, another of the column's golden oldies, bowed out on a high on Saturday.

Probably the best known wicketkeeper in North-East club cricket, 59-year-old Dave claimed a couple of smart stumpings in Darlington RA's win over neighbours Darlington, a defeat which cost Darlington the NYSD premier division title.

"That's it, he's definitely packing up," says a note from Valerie Tait, the lady in the lad's life.

"I'll only believe it when he's not out there next April," says a former RA colleague.

It was his fifth spell with the Railwaymen - "I used to fancy other players' wives, now I ask after their mothers," he once told the column - with spells at Bishop Auckland, Darlington, Northallerton, Richmond, Barton and even Great Broughton, when he had a pub in Stokesley.

Now he runs the Builders Arms in Darlington, but is marking his alleged retirement with a short holiday in Cyprus.

Is it really the end of Morrison's career?

More reasons for reading next Friday's column.

In for a quick coffee, ground hopper extraordinary John Dawson brings news of Bradway v Brunsmeer, the only Thursday match allowed in the Sheffield based Meadowhall Sunday League.

Bradway fi elded former Newcastle United midfielder John Beresford, 36; Brunsmeer included former Newcastle United midfielder Chris Waddle, 41. The home side won 4-2.

We also hear, incidentally, that much loved ex-Middlesbrough and Sunderland scorer Stan Cummins, 43, may be making another flying visit from America.

Little Stan's signed for Ferryhill Greyhound in the Over 40s League.

Both Alf Hutchinson in Darlington and Stan Wilson in Thirsk report sightings of Tony "Jesus" Day, the region's least missable cricket fan.

"He was just behaving in a normal way," says Alf, back from Scarborough Festival. "I don't think he can have been well."

Tuesday's reference to West Auckland's 1968 Durham Challenge Cup final against Sunderland reserves surprised long-serving Spennymoor United chairman Barrie Hindmarch. "The pitch must have been a bit crowded because we beat Horden one-nowt that day," says Barrie. West's final fling, he thinks, was in 1966.

Anf finally...

Tuesday's column sought the identity of nine Hartlepool United managers, since the club's formation in 1908, who've appeared in an FA Cup final.

They were Fred Priest (Sheffield United 1899, 1901,1902), Bobby Gurney (Sunderland 1937), Bill Robinson (Charlton Athletic 1947), Allenby Chilton (Manchester United 1948), Cyril Knowles (Spurs 1967), Bobby Moncur (Newcastle United 1974), Viv Busby (Luton Town 1975), David McCreery (Manchester United 1976, 1977) and Keith Houchen, horizontally unforgettable for Coventry City in 1987.

York City's programme against Darlo on Tuesday sought the identity of the Football League's leading scorer, with a total of 102 goals, in seasons 1987-88 and 1988-89.

His identity, and something else from the weekend, on Tuesday

Published: 20/09/2002