Lance a lot, and a hot dog Galahad

Lance Cairns, one of the most popular professionals in North-East cricket history - and among the most mightily successful - is now completely deaf.

"He lip reads tremendously well, you don't have to talk any differently," says former Durham County colleague Chris Thomas, who caught up with him in New Zealand two weeks ago.

The exuberant Cairns, now 53, was always hard of hearing in one ear - "when they were in the slips together, Steve Greensword just used to think Lance wasn't speaking to him," says Thomas - but the problem has gradually worsened.

Thomas, 43, was in New Zealand with a rugby team from Yarm School, where he is sports master. Cairns, who runs a successful fudge-making company in Christchurch, joined him for lunch.

"He's one of the nicest men alive, two-and-a-half hours passed like five minutes. I had one of the team with me and Lance made a fuss of him, too," says Thomas.

"If I hadn't been told, I wouldn't have realised that he now had no hearing at all."

Cairns already played for New Zealand, and had taken 6-85 against the West Indies in 1979-80, before blowing into Bishop Auckland - with the Cairns bairns -on a typical Co Durham April day. It snowed.

There's a picture somewhere of him on a snow-covered Kingsway. Another shows him, Chris Thomas and Pakistan test player Wasim Raja sunbathing during a 1981 county match at Stockton. The observant will notice the precautionary umbrella.

Thomas, nicknamed Winker - "apparently because I looked like a character called Winker Watson in the Beano" - first played for Durham County as an 18-year-old.

"I was like a little boy in a chocolate shop, on the same field as internationals like Lance and Wasim," he recalls.

Wasim, known universally as Waz, who was professional with Chester-le-Street, Durham City and Shotley Bridge, has recently been elected to the international referees' panel and taught until last Christmas at Caterham School, in Surrey.

Cairns, at any rate, smashed records almost as easily as he smashed the first two balls of his Bishop Auckland career into the grounds of the school next door.

In his first season he claimed 199 wickets, scored 1,192 runs, helped the Bishops to the NYSD title and to two major cups and also bowled Durham to the Minor Counties championship, taking 56 wickets at 12.69.

"His action," Christopher Martin-Jenkins once observed, "was like a slow motion Mike Procter."

He bounced back to Bishop in 1981 and again in 1988, when he became the first NYSD bowler to take 200 club wickets in a season and part of the first father and son combination to play first class cricket in the same season.

Chris, once a pupil at St Anne's school in Bishop Auckland and a dab hand on the Kingsway bandit, had made his debut for Nottinghamshire.

His dad played for the Rest of the World at Scarborough.

In 48 tests, Lance claimed 130 wickets and hit 928 runs, his finest hour in the 1983 Headingley match when 7-74 in the first innings and 3-70 in the second helped the Kiwis to their first victory in England at the 29th attempt.

"He still loves his cricket and is very proud of Christopher, but he's also very busy making money out of fudge," says Thomas.

Winker himself made 32 Durham appearances between 1977-81 - right hand bat, slow left arm bowler - before moving to teach in Watford and playing for Hertfordshire.

Now blessed with rather less hair, he's back playing from firsts to thirds for Norton, on Teesside, where - little boy in a chocolate shop - the adventure all began.

We'd bumped into Chris Thomas while on the way to a football match at Norton Cricket Club Trust, the sports complex where still they talk of the armed police swoop on a bloke carrying a hot dog.

Some vigilant soul had (rather inexplicably) mistaken it for a shooter.

"My wife was on the teas that day," recalls Neil Tait.

"I was carrying a tray of scones when this policeman with a gun demanded I stop where I was. I don't know what he thought I was going to do with a dozen buttered scones."

Also on the Norton boundary was our old friend Surreal Neil, he who collects telephone exchanges, with yet more disturbing news about cricket superfan Tony "Jesus" Day.

We reported after last week's trip to Colchester that Tony, Middlesbrough-based, had virtually stopped watching country cricket after they took to wearing numbers on their backs.

Therapeutically, Neil bought him a ticket for Durham's match at Darlington earlier this summer. "He ate it," he says, surreally.

Someone at the FA may have a sense of humour after all. The "Competitions bulletin" sent weekly to overwrought administrators and their like now has a photograph on the cover - the player in the first clearly identified by the name on the back of his shirt. It's Hassell.

Our note two weeks ago on the passing of Darlington RA cricket stalwart Norman Wilson recalled how the like of Len Hutton, Hedley Verity, Herbert Sutcliffe and Maurice Leyland played regularly in Darlington while stationed at Catterick Camp.

Richard Abbott, still in Darlington, remembers well those wartime days and the Red Cross charity matches at Feethams.

"Len Hutton would never give autographs before a game, but afterwards would line all the teenagers up in single file and sign every book."

In one match, Richard recalls, the great Hutton hit the ball clean out of the ground.

"On our way out we noticed a car with a slight alteration, that is to say a large dent, in the roof."

Feethams crowds also saw many international footballers during those dark days - but that's anther column.

Dave Tolley, another stalwart of Co Durham club cricket, died earlier this month, aged 62. A memorial match takes place on Sunday (2.30pm) at Tudhoe, where he'd played, encouraged and been a virtual ever-present spectator.

"Lovely feller," says John Davies, still turning out for the seconds at 53 but perhaps better remembered for his football prowess with Spennymoor United in the seventies.

"Hell of a side in those days," says John and now that the suspension's finally lifted, they may be again.

Sunday's match, between the present first team and a "select" second string, will also feature a "bit of a buffet" and the return to Tudhoe cricket of former FIFA referee George Courtney, 61.

"He gets in on the gift of the gab," says John.

One of the Newcastle United press pack rings to point out a) that George Reynolds's palatial pad at Witton-le-Wear has a floodlit ballroom playing constant classical music in the background and b) that Faustino Asprilla is an enthusiastic hand at the bongos. Tino is presently lodging with the Darlo chairman. "It may not be a permanent arrangement," our man adds.

And finally...

Former England and Sussex cricketer David Sheppard (Backtrack, August 27) became Bishop of Liverpool.

Among those who knew was Fred Claydon in Shildon and Methodist local preacher Ian Andrew, from Lanchester, who using Sheppard in a sermon illustration at the time.

The Stokesley Stockbroker additionally recalls that he was previously Bishop of Woolwich - "where doubtless he ministered to the Building Society and the Free Ferry."

David Sheppard topped the 1952 first class batting averages while still with Cambridge University - 2,262 runs at 64.2 - twice captained England in 1954 and hit 1,172 runs (average 37.80) in 22 tests. The good Sheppard may not have been so infallible in other areas, however. "It's a pity that t'bloody Reverend doesn't put his hands together more often in't field," observed F S Trueman (famously) as another chance fell to earth.

Now 73, Lord Sheppard of Liverpool still lives on Merseyside and lists reading Wisden and singing in the choir among his hobbies.

The Bearded Wonder, who well recalls Lance Cairns and Wasim Raja together - "super fellers, both liked a sherbet, mind" - today seeks the identity of the three Durham cricketers who've played Sunday league cricket for the county but never appeared in the championship.

Sundays' best again next Tuesday.

Published: ??/??/2002