A good day for Gunners

The Little One, at any rate, was 18 on Sunday. Rite of passage, all of us went to watch the glorious Gunners at Old Trafford.

Did you see us on the box? You should have done: we were the only ones there.

Well, almost the only ones - hundreds of empty seats all around in the North Stand, Tier 1, Upper.

They were good seats, £45 each, bought through the FA. You could tell they were a step up from normal because there was an escalator to the Manchester Lounge and the Manchester Lounge was so quiet, so wholly insulated from the tumultuous world outside, that Attilla the Hun could have used it as a model for sensory deprivation.

(Not even Attilla, it should be said, would have come up the ultimate torture of sensory deprivation and Worthington Creamflow at £2.50 a pint.)

Thirty minutes to kick off and nothing in the Manchester Lounge rose above a murmur. It was probably like the waiting room in a vasectomy clinic, a neutral if not a neutered position.

Had an old lady in a frilly white pinny come around with ham sandwiches and fairy cakes, an analogy with the Co-op funeral tea would have been lugubriously complete.

There were, however, a couple of fellers going round selling half-time draw tickets. That bit was like George's Weekly Fiddle at Shildon, only with even less chance of winning.

Earlier we'd had a family lunch in Didsbury, or somewhere. The Big One ordered something called Hoegarden, £3.20 a pint, reprising the 1989 hit "I beg your pardon, I never promised you a Hoegarden."

The Little One, old head on young shoulders, had brought £10 to see him through Cup semi-final day, 60 per cent of which went on his first legal bets - £2 at 25-1 Arsenal to win 4-0, £2 on Henry and Wiltord respectively to score the first goal.

No one had offered odds on bewildered, benevolent, Uncle Festa.

Outside in the real world there were song sheets, perfect for paper planes, and unemployed stewards yawning for want of stubs to tear and pockets to pat.

It was as if someone had gone before, ringing a bell and intoning "Unclean", a scene so improbable that it seemed likely that they would re-enact the Parable of the Rich Man's Feast, when the rich man sent out into the highways and byways in order that the house might be filled.

Admittedly they stood up if they hated Boro, but even Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men worked like that.

The winning goal was acknowledged with a sort of sanitised semi-silence. Though the song sheet had "Arsene Wenger's magic, he wears a magic hat" and "Oooh-aaah Ray Parlour" there was nothing about Gianluca.

Not in the gold coloured edition, anyway.

Finally, the own goal was all that mattered; in the end things got quite noisy. The double dreamed on and we echoed all the way home. For the Little One, at least, a very happy birthday.

That same Sunday afternoon but on the other side of the Pennines, our friends from the Doghouse Cricket Club (vice-president: Backtrack) began another season at Scarcroft, near Leeds.

David Watson, our man on the boundary, reports that this year the Doghouse have a youth policy - "Chairman David Lewis advised me that only six were over 50." Pups.

Colin Bainbridge, formerly of Redcar, Saltburn and Yorkshire and Leicestershire IIs. Upped the average, admitted to being "over 60" but hit nine not out and took 2-27 on his Doghouse debut.

He'd been recruited, he said, after bumping into David Lewis at the races.

Man of the match James Davidson of Stockton scored 53 of Doghouse's 154-7 and claimed 3-13 in Scarcroft's 119 reply. Geoffrey Robinson from Normanby Hall, known appropriately as The Craftsman, took 4-46.

Much the waggiest tail in the Doghouse, however, may have belonged to Yarm newsagent Tom Stafford, pushing 60, who excelled (says David) behind the stumps.

Surrounded by so many Boro boys Tom, like all the best, is an ardent Arsenal man.

Anyone else notice the name of one of the Hebburn scorers at Shotton Comrades on Saturday - a young man called Timothy Hackworth. Goes like a train, poresumably.

Still, alas, it's not a level playing field. Joanne Smith, secretary of Newton Aycliffe in the Over 40s League, has been refused admission to the post-match knees-up because of her sex.

It happened, of all places, at Hartlepool Catholic Club - when her eight-year-old son was allowed in the bar but she wasn't.

"I was utterly humiliated. Women were good enough to serve behind the bar but not good enough to drink there. It was quite scary that it can still happened in the 21st century," says Joanne, a special school teacher in Darlington.

"Terribly upset", she refused to sign the match report form and threw it back at the home team secretary. "To be fair, he was as mortified as I was because they just play there.

"They said I could go in the lounge, but it's the principle of the thing that's important. I just left."

Later, still in tears and threatening resignation, she contacted Over 40s League secretary Kip Watson. "If she's good enough to run the team for them, she's good enough to join them for a drink. I just wish I could do something about it," says Kip.

Joanne, conversely, will greatly be welcomed at Sunderland Catholic Club - the league sponsors - for the annual presentation on June 7. Kip plans to give her a goblet with which to help drown her sorrows.

The inscription? "For bravery above the call of duty."

Not for nothing does the column turn out to speak at Women's Institutes. At Langley Park the other night we were given a book of sports snippets called "Short and Curlies" with a picture on the cover of Vinnie Jones's infamous encounter with Mr Gascoigne.

Generous, eh? "Free with the December 1995 issue of Maxim," it said on the back.

In it is revealed that Billy Wright signed autographs with both hands simultaneously, that there was a 1950s Scottish League referee called Charlie Faultless and that Subbuteo was turned down as an Olympic sport in 1992.

Lincoln City in 1957 had a 6ft 3in centre half called Ray Long and a 5ft 2in left winger called Joe Short, Sunderland were saved from financial embarrassment in 1881 when a supporter sold one of his prize canaries for £1 and Brian Clough when manager of Nottingham Forest in 1987 paid Billy Stubbs £10 to shave off his moustache.

Stubbs, born in Hartlepool and signed from Seaham Red Star, was 20 at the time. "It makes you look 30," said Cloughie.

Our last record of him is on loan to Doncaster and Grimsby. Hair today, whatever happened to Billy Stubbs?

Seaham Red Star, incidentally, have withdrawn their resignation from the Albany Northern League. "It was precautionary," says club chairman John Smith. "We had a meeting at the weekend when eight people offered to help. Eight is workable."

Bishop Auckland's 18 post-war England amateur internationals (Backtrack, April 12) were Michael Barker, Warren Bradley, Laurie Brown, Corbett Cresswell, Tommy Farrer, Mike Greenwood, Bob Hardisty, Derek Lewin, Frank McKenna, Derek Marshall, Seamus O'Connell, Ray Oliver, Billy Russell, Harry Sharratt, Norman Smith, Harry Teesdale, Bob Thursby and Peter Wilson.

Ron Evans in Ferryhill Station and Arnold Alton in Heighington managed the full set, though Arnold blots his escutcheon somewhat by suggesting that Dave "Jock" Rutherford, the column's all time hero, won amateur international honours with Scotland. His five caps were all for England.

Fred Claydon, who played a few games for the Bishops in the 1960s - "four or five times, then I got hurt" - not only managed to identify all bu t two but named a team in their original starting positions.

So back to the Arsenal, now in their 15th FA Cup final. Readers are invited to name the club with whom they share the record.

More final words on Friday.

Published: 16/04/2002