The finalists were just five miles apart, their three games even closer. Bishop Auckland v Crook Town, FA Amateur Cup final 1954, ran for 330 minutes, was watched by 200,000 spectators, raised arguments still chewed over - and spat out - today.

Meanwhile back in Burnley, Gerry McCabe plans a book, which he hopes will become a play, which he dreams of becoming a major film. . .

"Well," he says, "it's a story wide open for development. You certainly couldn't make it up."

Crook Town historian Michael Manuel, whose souvenirs help illustrate today's column, agrees. "Mind," he says, "they'd need an awful lot of extras."

The teams were Northern League rivals, the semi-finals at Roker Park and St James's Park, the final at Wembley on April 10. The crowd was 100,000, the receipts £29,000, the referee the one-armed Mr Alf Bond from Middlesex.

Twenty special trains and 200 coaches left south-west Durham. Arthur Appleton previewed the final for Sports Parade on the Light Programme, Raymond Glendenning provided match coverage for the Home Service, the youthful Kenneth Wolstenholme second half commentary for television.

Oliphant's, a Bishop Auckland electrical shop, won permission to offer "projection TV" - an early doors beam-back, perhaps - at the town hall.

The Bishops, who'd won half their previous 14 finals, were favourites - "the more star-studded side, five internationals to Crook's one," observed The Northern Echo.

Crook's official party included 76-year-old Jonathan Nattrass from Roddymoor and Arthur Creasor, 75, from Darlington, who'd both played in their only other final appearance - way back in 1901.

The 1954 final ended 2-2 after extra time, Consett steel worker Jimmy Nimmins of Bishop Auckland carried off with a broken leg after five minutes, and Crook's Ken Williamson reduced to the once familiar "passenger" role after 20.

Williamson had been doubtful until an hour before the match. Though Crook were coached by former Newcastle United captain Joe Harvey, it was the committee who declared him fit.

Kenneth Wolstenholme called it the best two hours sport of 1954; the Echo said that if the North-East's top clubs had shown the same courage and never-say-die spirit throughout the season, all three might not be in danger of relegation.

Sunderland, three down in 18 minutes, were losing 4-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday that same April afternoon; Newcastle went down 2-0 at Portsmouth - Bobby Mitchell said to have missed at least six good chances - and the Boro, trailing 5-0, finally succumbed 5-2 at Manchester City.

"The worst display I have seen from Middlesbrough this season and that is saying a lot," lamented the pseudonymous Mandale.

Crook were welcomed back to the Millfield the following evening - "The usual positions were reversed," said the Echo, "the crowd massed on the playing field whilst the players were seated in the stand" - Bishop Auckland's civic reception was 24 hours later.

The replay was on Easter Monday, nine days later, at Newcastle. The finalists were allocated 20,000 tickets each, the 60,000 crowd paid from 2/6d to 12/6d (which in proper money still isn't much more than ten bob.)

Though Ken Harrison, a 27-year-old teacher, put Crook two up in four minutes, Cullercoats lifeboatman Ray Oliver scored twice for the Bishops, who returned to another civic reception followed into the early hours by a dinner. Crook once again proved grist to the Millfield.

At Anfield that Bank Holiday, Middlesbrough were abjectly losing 4-1 to bottom of the first division Liverpool - "Doomed," forecast the Echo, as did Private Fraser, eyes rolling, 25 years later.

The final went to a second replay, at Ayresome Park three days afterwards. Whatever the result, said the Echo, the teams would be glad when it was over.

The Bishops, costing the council a fortune, were promised a knees-up only if they won, but would probably have been unable to raise a gallop, anyway; Crook would be feted regardless.

The Echo carried letters from "Perturbed of Peases West" - or pen names to that effect - protesting at our perceived two-blue spectacles.

The Football Writers' Association was naming Tom Finney "Footballer of the Year" - Boldon lad Sam Bartram was second - 16-year-old Charmian Welsh from Thornley was winning the British springboard diving championship and British Railways announced that the Northallerton to Hawes line would close on April 26.

Ken Harrison's goal gave Crook victory in the third game, though referee Bond contentiously disallowed Oliver's headed "equaliser" after a protest from opposing skipper Bobby Davison.

Former Bishops' secretary Bill Reed's 1980 club history claimed that the teams were already back in the centre circle before Davison's protest; Crook's recent club history doesn't mention it at all.

Suffice that for long years afterwards there were those in Bishop Auckland who knew Alf Bond as the one-armed bandit.

Fifteen thousand - "what must easily be a record for the ground" - crowded the Millfield as the Church Lads Brigade band led the heroes homewards; the Essoldo, one of Crook's three cinemas, showed Isn't Life Wonderful and so, doubtless, it seemed.

Bishops saved the ratepayers' money.

Two days later, Boro lost at Highbury in the season's final match - "they played like a team resigned to their fate" - and went down with Liverpool.

Gerry McCabe was just a bit bairn - one of six - at Leadgate, near Consett, where his mother and a brother still live.

Now 54, he is headmaster of a special needs school in Burnley and hopes to have his book ready for the epic's 50th anniversary.

Among his models is something called The Goalkeeper's Revenge by Bill Norton, a book on the national curriculum. "Must have made him millions," Gerry muses, though we'd heard neither of book nor author.

His own book will raise money for the Cheshire Home at Crook where his sister, who has multiple sclerosis, now lives.

He's at 140 Keighley Road, Colne, Lancashire BB8 0PJ (01282 866995) and would love to hear from any who were there, or left anxiously behind, or watching projector television at Bishop town hall.

Backtrack has also steered him towards the great Harry Sharratt, but that's another book entirely.

Relegated in 1954, Boro weren't much better in 1952. We mentioned a couple of weeks back the 4-1 Cup defeat by second division Doncaster Rovers on the day of the King's death, before which the Ayresome teams observed a two-minute silence. "Unfortunately," writes Harry Foster from Northallerton - who was there - "no-one told Middlesbrough that after that they could move."

Tomorrow, by high coincidence, is the 50th anniversary of Crook Town's biggest ever attendance - the estimated 17,000 somehow shoehorned into the Millfield for the Amateur Cup quarter-final against Walton and Hersham.

"Almost certainly it was more, including those who got in without paying," says Crook secretary Alan Stewart.

The Echo's match reporter took the vast crowd so greatly for granted that he never once mentioned it, though an extraordinary photograph on the news pages showed a pre-match throng so huge "that it appears to be threatening to knock down the cottages."

The game ended goalless, Crook repeatedly thwarted by Amos, the visiting goalkeeper - one of a short line of distinguished custodians of that name.

Tomorrow, the day of the anniversary, they're at home again. "It's Shildon," says the secretary, "so we'll probably beat the record."

Another coincidence: we lunched yesterday with Philip Ray, a Durham University student preparing a thesis on the social history of football in the North-East - he regards the column as a "primary source" - and who plays on Sunday mornings for Durham Buffs ("I'm the youngest by about 30 years", he said).

Durham Buffs, of course, is the team of former FA chief executive Graham "Cruncher" Kelly and of John Flynn, the faintly formidable chairman of Tow Law Town....

Of all the stinging, minging nights for which Tow Law is inhospitably and internationally renowned, few on that polar sub-station may have been bleaker than Tuesday.

Lawyers played Colliers, Tow Law v Ashington, Northern League Cup fourth round.

"It's not very nice," said chairman Flynn, in the manner of the unfortunate Captain Oates, who announced that he was just going outside and might be gone some time.

"It's got to get wuss," pronounced everyone else, and in truth it got wuss by the minute.

There, too, still not ten stones wet through, was former pitman Alan Shoulder, once United at Newcastle, Hartlepool and Carlisle but perhaps best remembered for his 1977-78 Cup exploits with Blyth Spartans.

On one Ironworks occasion, Alan recalled, they'd abandoned a match because of gale force fog.

Now 49, recently appointed manager of Bishop Auckland, he remains an avid football fan - a devotion never better underlined than his attendance at Tow Law when his native Coundon Club was all week marking its centenary with beer at 60p a pint.

Gossip, shortly to become legend, is that there was even a coach load in from Hogan's on Saturday night. The admirable Alan left at half-time; he'd had his twelve bob's worth already.

THE first black player to appear in an FA Cup final (Backtrack, February 19) was Albert Johanneson for Leeds United in 1965.

Dr Graeme Forster, Tow Law Town's Machiavellian manager, wonders if we know who became the first black footballer to be represented as a Subbuteo figure.

Flick back here again on Tuesday

Published: Friday, February 22, 2002