Assistant referee Ray Clementson knew he had to draw the line somewhere when offered one of the top appointments in the local calendar.

It was the Durham Challenge Cup final on Good Friday morning. Trouble was, it was also the morning that he should have been off to sunny Spain - a ten-day holiday with his wife and son.

Facing a toss up, there could only be one decision. Ray let his 19-year-old daughter take his place in Barcelona and went to Belmont industrial estate - Durham City's ground - instead.

"It was the biggest game I'd ever had, I couldn't really turn it down," he said.

Ray, 46, also appeared in the column when he first began refereeing - locked in Mike Gough's sports shop in Hartlepool after going into a changing room to try on his new gear. The staff forgot about him and went home.

This time he thought he'd "closed" his dates for Good Friday and was surprised to be offered an assistant ref's appointment for the final between Billingham Town and Bishop Auckland.

"My son was due to play in a football tournament in Barcelona but broke his leg. Though he still made the trip, it made my decision easier," he said.

FA North-East referees' officer Alan Wilkie was duly impressed. "It says a great deal about a referee that he'd rather spend an hour and a half in Durham than a week and a half in Barcelona," said the former Premiership official.

Home alone in Seaton Carew, Ray denies that he's in the black books but may end up flagging, nonetheless. His wife, he reckons, has left him a list of jobs as long as the average football field.

The Durham Challenge Cup final kicked off at 10.45am - "we'll do anything to accommodate Sky," they said.

Martin Robinson from Darlington, known for circuitous reasons as Speedy, was referee; Dave Young, nicknamed Sonic because he once stopped a Hartlepool League game to remove a hedgehog from the pitch, was on the other line.

It was the 50th game this season on Durham City's pitch, its immaculate condition chiefly down to former Sunderland head groundsman Tommy Porter, who cares intensively for it in what passes for his retirement.

Tommy - "it's just my hobby," he said - was back on the pitch before the players were off it. Alone in the North-East at Easter, he was hoping for a drop of rain.

Durham's 51st game was the following day, the free lunch before the FA Carlsberg Vase semi-final at The Tavern, formerly the Coal Hole, in West Sherburn.

Goodness knows why they changed the name. There's a pub called the Coal Hole in London, near the Savoy Hotel, which celebrated actor Richard Harris quite frequently swears by.

Whitley Bay led 2-1 from the first leg, set out their stall order and in holding Durham to a goalless draw in the second answered the teasing question about what football finalists sing when no longer going to Wembley (where their knees once went all trembly.)

You know the line about telling mother you won't be home for tea? It's now "Tell yer ma, yer ma, We won't be home till dark; We're going to Villa Park...."

Durham's citizens, it should be said, took defeat like sportsmen - Tommy Porter immediately back at his grass roots.

They'd a game yesterday and another semi-final, Albany Northern League Cup, coming up on Thursday. On Thursday they play Whitley Bay.

The Doghouse Cricket Club, one of the itinerant organisations of which the column is honoured to be vice-president, celebrates its 40th anniversary this season.

Proximity to Ray Clementson is coincidental. Doghouse, maybe, but he's a football man.

Based on Teesside, it was born "out of frustration" says general secretary and co-founder Bernard Gent - but only at the fact that league cricketers couldn't usually play on Sundays as well.

Since then the lads in the Doghouse have played over 1500 games, toured in all but two of their summers and fielded over the years a full side of Test cricketers - a twelfth man, too.

In something approaching batting order, though G R J Roope might not appreciate coming in at seven, the internationals are: Clayton Lambert, Irving Shillingford (West Indies), Rizwan Zaman (Pakistan), Geoff Cook, Bill Athey (England), Jimmy Adams (West Indies), Graham Roope (England), Clairmont Depeiza (West Indies), Chris Old (England), Shivlal Yadav (India), Grayson Shillingford (West Indies). Pieter Strydom (West Indies) carries the Lowcock's lemonade.

Among those still turning his arm after all these years is David Lewis, in no hurry to leave the Doghouse and so evergreen keen that he has a net in the back garden near Stockton.

The season's fixtures begin at Scarcroft, Leeds, on April 14, embrace a tour to Bognor Regis - about which in the present circumstances no more had best be said - and continues until Arthington, near Otley, on October 6.

The aim, says Bernard, remains the same as ever - "fun cricket which can be taken seriously."

Mooching myopically around Shildon, we bump into veteran football administrator Bob Strophair - who from his jacket pocket produces the accounts of the Auckland Nursing Cup, 1921-22.

The Bishop Auckland Nursing Association benefited by £38, Nurse Wood by ten guineas and the Willington Nursing Association by five guineas after Bishop Auckland Reserves beat Toronto in the final.

First won by Stanley United in 1900, the cup became the Auckland Charity Cup in 1964. Other winners have included Leasingthorne Eden Rovers (1911), Coundon St Joseph's (1933), Newton Cap Bank (1933) and Eldra United (1966).

The most remarkable thing about the Nursing Cup, however, is the longevity of its secretaries. In 102 years, Bob Strophair is the third.

THE last two Newcastle United players to finish as the top division's leading scorer (Backtrack, March 29) were Andy Cole with 34 in 1993-94 and Alan Shearer, 25 in 1997-97.

Either because of the holiday weekend or through horror at such ineptitude, only John Briggs in Darlington pointed out that the question was based on a misconception - Dickie Davis (1950) wasn't the last Sunderland player to head the top division's seasonal scoring charts, it was Kevin Phillips half a century later.

Readers may today wish to identify the Test cricketers - any nationality - who hit most runs, and took most wickets, in the 1990s.

We again aim to improve upon the average on Friday.