Senior service still satisfies

Ray, the league president, is 71. "I didn't bowl particularly well," he insists.

"There are some days when it just happens and others when you bowl especially well and get 0-40."

In 1998 he opened the third team bowling with former Durham college principal Sam Stoker, 130 years between them.

"I might still get a few wickets, but if I'm throwing in from the boundary, they have to organise a relay to the wicket keeper," he says.

Ray has also marked the occasion by compiling a lovely little "Centenary Calendar", an all rounder's amalgam of social and sporting snippets.

The year 1922 didn't just witness the first cricket broadcast but the discovery of insulin; 1914 wasn't just the year that W Wood hit 135 in Eppleton's last game - before losing the battle in the Great War - but the year that the foxtrot was introduced to London. In 1908, imprisonment of children was abolished and Hendon II scored 366 against Durham City.

Ray, a retired education lecturer, was born at Tudhoe Colliery, near Spennymoor, his happy childhood in a two up, two down house with one cold tap, gas lighting only in the downstairs rooms and an ash closet across the back street.

"My brother was born in Back Row, I was born in Middle Row and my sister was born in Front Street. That's how far we'd come up in the world," he says.

He played his first competitive cricket for Tudhoe II in 1946, switched to Mainsforth ("I thought it was the big time") and has been with Durham City for 45 years, these days also in charge of building maintenance.

"He's down the cricket field, filling in holes so the mice can't get in," said Laura, his wife, when we first we rang.

"When I got 6-16 there was a little reception committee waiting at the gate," said Ray.

"I was ages getting there; I was too busy picking up litter."

He also played football for Shildon and for the Cassop Victoria side which won the Durham Amateur Cup with Peter Willis - later a top referee - in goal and has written three novels, so far unpublished.

"Three and a half," he corrects himself.

"I can't get the fourth finished for filling in mouse holes."

The Senior League replaced a similar competition run beneath the wing of Durham County Cricket Club, though its membership - remarkably constant until recent years - has rarely stretched south of the city.

A minute in 1903, the first playing season, upbraided clubs for failing to send in match returns on time. How little things change, muses the president.

Though they have lost clubs to the North-East Premier League, players to apathy and crowds to creature comforts, the president holds both head and arm high.

"It's still a fantastic league with a great spirit.

"On a summer Saturday afternoon, there's nowhere I'd rather be in the world."

The 60 page "Calendar", written by a true cricket lover and overflowing with nostalgia, costs £4. Ray Pallister is on 0191-386-2867.

Senior Moments...

20 quick singles from a century of the Durham Senior League:

1903. Big hitting Eppleton batsman J Dolphin is reputed to have a piece of lead in his bat to make it heavier.

1907. Three Durham City cricketers play in a charity match at Darlington against a side which includes Dr W G Grace, 63. He's out for 51.

1907. Eppleton, batting first, are out for 26 in the season's last match. Durham have made 327 when stumps are finally drawn.

1910. John Bewick strikes a ball from the north end of Chester-le-Street's ground over the wall at the south end and through a bedroom window in Lumley Terrace. The house owner is so pleased that Chester have a big hitter he insists on paying for the damage himself.

1912. The year of the infamous Philadelphia riot, and the little less infamous Kellett Kirtley - "more like a scene from a lunatic asylum," observes the visiting South Shields skipper.

1919. Hendon, with six players, total 183 at Durham City and dismiss City for 150. "They went home thoroughly elated," notes Ray.

1920s. The Smith family, backbone of the Whitburn team, are also outstanding footballers. Jack and Sep both play for England - four appearances between them - Billy and Jack play together for Portsmouth in the 1934 FA Cup final. Tom, known as Tosser (presumably because of some question over his action) plays for Manchester United.

1926. A 20,678 crowd watches the Indians at Ashbrooke, Sunderland.

1932. Seven thousand pay to see Seaham Harbour, league leaders, play Durham. Seaham's West Indian professional George Francis takes 5-56. 4,000 regularly watch South Shields.

1946. Seaham's Jack Hayes takes 103 wickets, still the league's best return by an amateur.+

1950. Whitburn, bottom the previous season, win the league with the help of Charlton Athletic footballers Stuart Leary, Ken Kirsten and Sid O'Linn, who later plays for South Africa. Athletic manager Jimmy Seed is a Whitburn lad.

1950s. Len Shackleton, better known elsewhere, is Wearmoth's pro. Charles Buchan, Willie Watson and Raich Carter also play in the league.

1959. Colin Milburn, 17, hits 156 and takes 7-4 for Chester-le-Street against Horden and hits a century against the Indians later in the season.

1963. Future England batsman and Test umpire Peter Willey makes his debut, aged 13, for Seaham II.

1964. Lance Gibbs returns to Whitburn as the league's first £1000 professional, earning his money with 126 wickets at 8.53.

1968. The league management committee decides for the first time to have no fixtures on FA Cup final day. Durham play Sunderland in a friendly "as a gesture for cricket."

1972. Steve Greensword hits a record five league centuries for South Shields, scores 1,652 runs at 67.33 and has 111 victims at 13.03.

1984. Wearmouth groundsman Colin Dobson is called out on strike by the NUM, obliging the club to play all games away. The ground takes several years to recover.

1999. Wearmouth become the eighth North-East club in a year to fold through shortage of players.

May 25 2002. The total attendance at the six league games - Boldon, Durham, South Shields, Burnmoor, Felling and Whitburn - is 210

Stanley give blood and bandages for 'Psychie'

Whilst all around was flooded, Stanley - you know, Stanley Hill Top - remained totally if not tropically dry on Wednesday evening.

It was the Ernest Armstrong Memorial Trophy final and, as Co Durham folk do on big occasions, they'd baked.

The competition is played annually in memory of the MP and House of Commons deputy Speaker, who himself played for Stanley United, earning the nickname Psychie on account (shall we say) of his combativeness.

"That's why Stanley have always played in red and white stripes," said someone in the Little House on the Prairie. "It's the blood and bandages kit."

The eternally enthusiastic Vince Kirkup is starting his 26th season as Stanley's manager, though Paul Fowler - known, unsurprisingly, as Foxy - becomes the fifth secretary in 100 years.

Four teams from Ernest's old constituency contest the trophy; Stanley had never previously won a game. Now Tow Law had come a couple of miles along Windy Ridge for the final with Ernest's son John - "Young John," said the elders - there to present the trophy.

Whilst Young John bears a resemblance to his dad, his sister Hilary - the government Chief Whip - is a feminine pot model of him.

Tow Law converted a couple of careless penalties early on. Stanley pulled one back, might have had more before two late Lawyers' goals unbalanced the scoreline.

They've already won two trophies and had a match postponed before the season's even started. Whatever the monsoons elsewhere. It's never dull at Tow Law.

A note in the newsletter of the Mary Reveley Racing Club - based, of course, near Saltburn - tells the story of the nervous young apprentice brought up at Yarmouth the other day under the non-trier rule.

"What were your instructions?" asked the senior steward. "I was told to sit and wait, sir," said the apprentice.

"Well, you certainly did that very well," said the steward. "How long were you told to wait?"

"Until Ripon next Tuesday" mumbled the apprentice.

Bill Gibson sends the programme from the match, 25 years ago last night, which marked the re-birth of Gateshead FC.

Gateshead United had folded a few weeks earlier. Bill became chairman of the hastily formed new club, Southampton manager Lawrie McMenemy - Gateshead lad, of course - sent a full squad north when he heard of the desperate need for funds.

Ball, Bowyer, Osgood and MacDougall were among the latter day Saints. Managed by Ray Wilkie, Gateshead fielded Clark, McIvor, Guthrie, Common, McCloud, Holbrook, Rosethorne, Matthews, Barker, Hopkinson and Davis.

Four thousand watched the game, Alan Ball scored the only goal. Sometimes by the seat of their shorts, Gateshead still survive.

Willington FC is holding a car boot and table top sale at the Hall Lane ground tomorrow (9-12) of Willington, Northern League and other football memorabilia. They would greatly welcome support.

Middlesbrough Bears, among speedway's better known names, have made a comeback six years after being forced off the track by the closure of Cleveland Park stadium.

Managed by speedway nut and one-time Darlington FC fanzine editor Steve Harland, the Bears lost a junior four-man challenge by eight points at Workington.

"The result wasn't important, it was the feeling of having Middlesbrough race jackets on again," says Steve.

Former motocross rider Carl Shield - one of Middleton-in-Teesdale's better known names - top scored, joined in the Bears pit by Jitendra Duffill from Middlesbrough, Chris Hunter from Stockton and Matty Swales from Ingleby Barwick.

The smell of the circuit back in his lungs, Steve is now hoping to organise challenges against Berwick and Newcastle.

And finally...

The unique thing about England's team in the first test against India (Backtrack, August 6) was that Mark Butcher, Alex Stewart and Simon Jones all had fathers who played Test cricket, too.

John Briggs in Darlington today invites readers - younger ones, presumably - to name the "pop" duo who took their name from a Football League manager.

Top of the pops again on Tuesday.

Published: 09/08/2002