A FAMOUS era in North-Eastern football is brought to a close today when Bishop Auckland, arguably the most successful amateur football club in the country, plays its last game at Kingsway, its home ground of 116 years. Bessie Robinson looks back at the stadium's, the club's and the town's long-lasting romance with the national game

TIME runs out today for a world-famous amateur football ground whose terraces have seen their share of spectacular soccer history.

Remarkable matches, personal triumphs and tragedies and countless instances of dedicated individual service are all part of the century-long story of Kingsway, the home of ten-times FA Amateur Cup winners Bishop Auckland FC.

Loyal fans of the club write the final chapter this afternoon when they take over the pitch for a special fundraising game following a last home league fixture against Bradford Park Avenue.

The emotional occasion will mark the end of a 116-year run of international, cup, league and charity matches, which have brought many of Britain's top teams to the ground.

Back in the 1880s it was energetic theological students at Auckland Castle who set the ball rolling by breaking the study window of Bishop Auckland vicar, the Reverend GR Eden.

After a bundle of tightly-bound rags and paper crashed into his Market Place window, he arranged a game between the students and the King James I Grammar School, nearby.

They played 45 minutes each of soccer and rugby before Association triumphed and the Bishop Auckland Church Institute team was formed, taking its dark and light blue strip from the colours of the students' universities, Oxford and Cambridge.

Kingsway was their home from 1886 and that of the breakaway Auckland Town club from 1887, when The Northern Echo recorded Newcastle and Sunderland as their main North-East rivals.

The club settled into its ground-sharing arrangement with the town's cricket team, often sharing the same players and officials.

From those heady early days the Kingsway silverware cabinet was never empty. The first Durham Challenge Trophy in 1892 was followed by an apparently endless haul of league, cup and special competition wins.

The Bishop's best Northern League run came between 1947 and 1956 when they never finished below second and were champions seven times.

In the FA Amateur Cup their record was without equal. They were in the final 18 times and their ten wins included three in a row in 1955, 56 and 57.

One of the best seasons ever ended in 1955 with an incredible nine trophies, including the FA Amateur Cup brought back to Kingsway from a 2-0 Wembley win over Hendon on April 16. Derek Lewin scored both goals in what was the club's eighth Amateur Cup win and club legend Bobby Hardisty's first.

Three months earlier, on January 29, the club's most successful FA Cup run, which brought Ipswich Town to Kingsway, ended with a 3-1 home defeat against York in front of an all-ticket crowd of 16,000.

The first top European team to visit was Stade Francais on Easter Saturday 1948. Nigerian and Dutch sides followed.

Manchester United have played three times, in 1959, 1960 and 1996, each match a thank-you for the Bishops' help in despatching three players, Derek Lewin, Warren Bradley and Bob Hardisty, to Old Trafford following the Munich air disaster of 1958.

Newcastle sent a side for a friendly fundraiser last month as a favour to manager Alan Shoulder. The visitors won 8-0.

Kingsway's biggest and smallest gates came in the same week in December 1952. A record crowd of 16,319 crammed in for a second round FA Cup clash with Coventry City but, seven days later, on December 13, there were only eight spectators for a reserves match with Barnard Castle. They paid a grand total of 3s 4p (17p) and there were more goals than fans, Bishop winning 14-0.

In 1988, almost a century after joining the Northern League, the Bishops moved to the Northern Premier League, now the Unibond, and straight away won promotion to the premier division.

Sadly, today's fans are measured in hundreds rather than thousands and the club's board recognised eight years ago that a move had to be made.

Because of its ground sharing arrangement, Kingsway can never be developed on all four sides and is being sold off to developers to help finance a new stadium a few miles away at Tindale Crescent.

The scale of the new project depends on discussions with the Football Foundation over grants, but present chairman Tony Duffy is confident the development will go ahead.

Before then, the club faces two years in limbo, playing its home matches at Northern League side Shildon's Dean Road ground.

Mr Duffy said: "It will be sad because we have been at Kingsway since 1886 and we've had many good days. The ground is part of football history. The place was packed in our Amateur Cup winning days in the 1950s, but standards have changed and we have to move to progress."

* Don't miss comprehensive coverage of the last game at Kingsway, in The Northern Echo on Monday.