HEADED "Pleasures of the Non-League game", an instructive letter from Evenwood Town chairman Craig Latcham appeared in the Non League paper on Sunday. For "pleasures" read "perils", an' all.

Craig - owner of discount stores in Billingham and Bishop Auckland and familiar in the region's workmen's clubs as Craig Johnson, singer - had arrived an hour before the Durham Challenge Cup tie with Spennymoor United.

It had been pouring. The referee said line markings weren't sufficiently visible, the chairman and assistant secretary set out with paste bucket and brush from opposite ends of the field. They finished five minutes before kick-off.

Craig then discovered that the tea hut lady hadn't turned up. Helped by the manager's daughter, the chairman again rolled up his sleeves, put the kettle on and - able to stand the heat - got into the kitchen.

Washing up completed in time for the final whistle, he then - with others - set about taking down the nets, securing the premises and sundry other jobs undertaken after the lights go out. Three and a half hours after arriving, he finally got a drink.

That Evenwood recorded a famous victory made everything seem worthwhile, of course. The peril, other than some unfortunate editing which made him seem a one-man band, came when he got home.

"I had to explain to my wife how I'd spent my evening when in more than ten years she has never seen me with paint brush or tea towel in my hand."

THE column, perchance, was at Evenwood's game with Murton on Saturday. The club chairman was minding the shop elsewhere, the usual team in the tea hut when a child of about five poked his head around the door.

"Milky Way and Chew-its," said the bairn.

"What's the little word you've forgotten?" asked the Evenwood tea lady, indulgently.

The little lad replied immediately. "Pop."

THAT night to Cockerton Cricket Club's annual extravaganza - meal excellent, speaker dreadful - and one of only two of those present to wear the club tie.

Though the Darlington and District League had been much curtailed by the foot-and-mouth outbreak, they still managed to play some cricket and to present some awards.

Probably the most frequent recipient was Mr David Black, winner of both batting and century making trophies and of a third, less expected.

The unfortunate Mr Black had been caught out on the boundary - well, not so much caught out as caught short - and not just once but five times in the match with Rockcliffe.

Black affronted, as they say in the Broons, they gave him the Village Idiot award. The gentleman was said to have been relieved.

GETTING on 10pm last Tuesday night and Willington asked to make a substitution when the ball went out for a throw-in during extra time of their Durham Challenge Cup tie with Easington.

"Better get a move on then," said referee Martin Robinson as Andrew Dixon belatedly arose from the bench.

The throw was taken, a Willington player headed the ball forward, the referee blew the final whistle. The sub, Martin estimates, had been on the field for precisely two seconds.

Thereafter the match went to a penalty shoot-out. Willington led 3-2, needing to score to win. Andrew Dixon duly obliged.

Had he not made a last two seconds appearance, of course, he wouldn't have been able to take the penalty. Is it, wonders Martin, the shortest qualifying period of all time?

STILL with cameo appearances, a Jarrow Roofing sub was ordered off in Saturday's Albany Northern League game with Seaham just a minute after taking his bow. It's by no means a record, however - that belongs to the gentleman in the 1970s who came on for Aycliffe factory team ENV in the Auckland and District League, forcibly advised the referee of the error of his ways and before so much as touching the ball was promptly despatched whence he came. His name? Bulldog Billy Teesdale. His time on the pitch? Precisely six seconds.

SHILDON'S 11-5 win over Washington Nissan on Saturday was the first time the dear old Railwaymen had hit as many since November 28, 1953 - an 11-1 win against Stanley United in which Keith Hopper scored either six or seven depending on whom you believe.

The Northern Echo recorded that he had hit a double hat-trick, the Northern League's impeccably researched millennium history reckons that it was seven.

It was also the weekend that Sunderland sold Trevor Ford for £30,000 to Cardiff City after losing 2-0 at home to Middlesbrough - "the most inept performance in 30 years," wrote Wearsider - and that "feeble" Darlington lost 1-3 at home to Barrow.

It did, however, allow the memorable line that "Darlington's only goal came from Scarborough."

That was Jimmy Scarborough, born in Nottingham, of course.

Elsewhere that autumn Saturday, 250 pigeon fanciers assembled at Langley Moor for the West Durham Amalgamation's annual tea, Northumberland's rugby players recorded their record win - 35-9 - against Durham and Kelloe held a special dinner to mark winning the Coxhoe and District Cricket League.

Keith Hopper, now 68 and still playing NYSD League cricket for Bishop Auckland, has not been available to resolve the sixes and sevens debate. Probably, according to him, it was eight.

K R Hopper is but a bairn compared to Bill Smith, another old friend who rang at the weekend.

Bill's 77, still playing weekly five-a-side football among the young 'uns at the Dolphin Centre in Darlington, recalls being in the same Croft WMC team as Quakers legends Ron Greener and the late Brian Henderson.

If you thought they were hard men, he says, you should have seen Whacker Wake. Bill's also preparing for the annual Boxing Day match in North Cowton - his home village - between the young bloods and the more experienced hands. Both teams solicit his services.

"The only trouble with 11 a side," says Bill, "is that I might have to do a bit of training."

FRIDAY'S column sought a team of post-war footballers - properly positioned in 1-2-3-5 formation - who have played league football for both Bishop Auckland and Darlington.

Arnold Alton's team was: Ray Snowball; Clive Nattress, Donald Ball; Bob Hardisty, Lol Brown, John Edgar; Gordon Cattrell, Ken Murray, Bill Hopper, Ken Williamson, Dave Wintersgill with perhaps Danny Mellanby and Ron Steel - 66 Darlington appearances between 1949-51 - as subs.

We'd also nominated goalkeeper Phil Owers; a subsequent e-mail from Arnold adds Dave Hawker, Tony Isaacs and ("his dad will kill me otherwise") Lee Ellison.

An altogether more straightforward question today: who was the last Welshman to captain the FA Cup winners at Wembley?

An answer to that one - and a great deal about the former Bishop Auckland player who's now chief executive of the League Managers' Association - on Friday

Published: Tuesday, November 20, 2001