A 21st bash to remember

The old watering hole has been much titivated since last we paddled down to the sand dancing sea front, though if it is true that the Great North Run pumps millions into the local economy at least half seemed to be going, tanner a time, into the amusement arcades.

Several of the banditry appeared also to be carrying what it known in those parts as a DSS limp, as if to say that they'd have been up and running themselves, but for that insidious old injury.

It was the 21st GNR, and the first that the non-com column had attended. It's right what the other few million say: it's stupendous.

There were more double deckers than Sir Brian Souter's bus garage, more tents than the Great Yorkshire, more heroes (and heroines) than The Wizard could ever have imagined.

Seb Coe was out there, Graham Gooch, Graham Taylor - who'd over-celebrated his 57th the previous evening - John Motson and Frank Bruno, the only entrant among 47,000 allowed to run without vest or number and still far too formidable to fall out over it.

There was a blind man who, tied to his sighted companion, covered the half marathon in 83 minutes, a little girl with a BBC flag shouting "Come on daddy" at four-fifths of the field, a chap who ran in with his little lad on his shoulders and a team of BBC weather presenters, perhaps penitentially put forward after a force five forecast proved gloriously mistaken.

There was a fancy of fairy queens, a symmetry of Supermen, a naughty of nuns, a malfeasance of Menaces and a great grotto of Father Christmases, none able to discern which one was for real.

Most of all there was quite amazing organisation, a 12 month logistical exercise extraordinarily extrapolated into one bright September morning.

Mr Paul Tergat, it will be known, was first man home, followed closely enough by forty thousand more, each born again buoyant as at last he made it home.

Soon South Shields resembled a silver sea of triumph and turkey foil, a feel good factor far fetching towards infinity.

Without audible exception, each was ready to be back again next year. Great, Great North Run.

IN Gipsies' Green Stadium, 200 yards beyond the staggering finish, the "family reunion area" was arranged alphabetically, an A-Z of good will.

The column stood on top of the track banking beneath N for Northern League, a vicarious high ground shared with the NSPCC, Newbottle Ladies' Guild and apparently numerous Nicholsons.

Around 35 runners represented Albany Northern League clubs, each sponsored for Marie Curie Cancer Care and for the HC Pilgrimage Trust, which helps send the sick to Lourdes and with which Albany Group chairman Brooks Mileson has some involvement.

Crook Town assistant manager Dennis Pinkney, 45, got around in two hours 40 minutes despite having played the full 90 minutes of the previous afternoon's FA Cup tie with Pickering; League president George Courtney, 60, performed his internationally acclaimed impression of a well fed butcher's dog, management colleague Brian Mulligan did it in two and a quarter, inspired by the rear view of the young lady in front and by the thought of a free Sunday dinner at the Nag's Head in Sedgefield.

John Flynn, Tow Law's chairman, ran in the team's black and white stripes ("everyone thought I was from Newcastle") with an important message to Defra on the back.

"Close the Tow Law burial site. It stinks."

John alone was sponsored for around £500. Next Sunday, he and two of his children - there are lots - will abseil from the top of the Transporter in Middlesbrough, again to help Marie Curie. For some of us, however, that really is a bridge too far.

THE column's own improbable essay into athleticism had come the previous day, a 16 mile sponsored walk from Middleton Tyas - near Scotch Corner - to Shildon's FA Cup tie with Brigg Town.

Originally it was also to have been the Great North Run - the League chairman leading, as ever, from the back - until the thought of crossing the 167ft high Tyne Bridge proved too much for a knock kneed gephyrophobic and a low level alternative was swung into place.

It was somewhat ironic, therefore, that the day's only serious mishap should involve the humblest bridge in Christendom.

At Barton, three miles from the start, a stream crosses the road and is forded by a short bridge about 18 inches above terra firma. Not even the Backtrack column could see psychological trolls beneath that one.

Our walking companion, however, decided to plodge across. The Rev Leo Osborn is the Northern League chaplain and newly installed chairman of the Newcastle Methodist District, a man accustomed to the deep end if not to Barton ford.

Half way across he slipped, lost his footing and fell, derriere over dignity, backwards into the water.

Whatever the rest of us might have been tempted to observe on such an occasion, the chairman of the Newcastle Methodist District said "Oh golly", shook himself like a shaggy dog story and continued cheerfully along life's steep and rugged pathway.

It was, nonetheless, the most memorable act of total immersion since John the Baptist.

Nothing else much happened until we reached Shildon, though Leo broke into Wordsworth (or some similar eulogist) at the river crossing in Piercebridge and the haul up the Roman road and Legs Cross bank helped underline the historical research that a legionnaire's lifespan was a mere 38 years - and only that, had Queen Boadecia not first cut him off in his prime.

Gordon Hampton, Shildon FC's newish chairman, runs the Ashfield group of companies which makes road signs and similar accessories. It's why small brown signs saying "Football stadium" have now appeared on roads into the town and why, on the last mile home, we came across a big blue sign saying "FA Cup fever hits Shildon", one of the few known examples of a road sign doubling as self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gordon, doing a tremendous job at Dean Street, had also had made a T-shirt, detailing the date and the charities and casting upon the League chairman the odd, screen printed aspersion about loquaciousness and thirst.

It probably explains why someone at the match said that it was coincidental to see us there, since his wife had just seen someone in a Mike Amos T-shirt walking through the town.

A short silence followed. "Hold on," he said, "could that have been you."

Yes, we agreed, quite possibly.

The walk took just over four hours, quicker than Brigg's journey from Lincolnshire because of an accident on the A1 near Wetherby.

Kick off duly delayed, the first request from the visitors' dressing room was for headache tablets and a glass of water. However much it might have raised home hopes, the headache proved to be of the transferable sort, an acknowledged medical phenomenon most commonly identified in cases of FA Cup fever.

Leading 3-0 at half time, Brigg finally won 8-2, to the serious disappointment of the Northern League chaplain, chairman and most of the 416 crowd.

Still, Leo - bless him - had chipped in £166 to the League's charity pot, I hope to add another £750 and there's thousands more yet to come. "And just think," said one of the Brigg winners, "how many we might have won by if we'd kicked off at three o'clock."

THE only three goalkeepers used by Ron Greenwood in his 55 games as England's manager (Backtrack, September 14) were Ray Clemence (28 games), Peter Shilton (19) and Joe Corrigan, who played eight.

Brian Shaw in Shildon seeks the identity of the three clubs who were Football League founders in 1888 and also Premiership founder members 104 years later.

More first footing on Friday

Published: Tuesday, September 18, 2001