They'd baked to feed the five thousand, worked all week to make the ground look its month of Sunday's best, anticipated home from home advantage and a place in the sun at Lord's.

Come the hour, alas, and Wolviston's National Village Cricket Cup semi-final fell victim to the great Thor, abandoned without a wicket pitched or a ball being bowled.

Under the curious - some might say antediluvian - rules of the competition, they must try again this weekend on their opponents' ground in the shadow of the castle at Elvaston, near Derby.

Wolviston's Armstrong Park home is perhaps more humble, shared with the football club and a mile from the village near Billingham. The clubhouse, in a portable cabin, was opened in 1988 by Stockton solicitor David Townsend, the last man to play cricket for England without ever having appeared in the county championship.

A notice warns "Do not go through this door wearing playing boots", another reminds participants that the dressing room isn't a pig sty.

(A member of the Wolviston side rather ignored the injunction, it should be said, though the nature of the offence and identity of the culprit had best be left unrevealed.)

The team had given up lunchtime in a health club to mop overnight rain from the ground; as the match was to begin, so also did another thunder storm.

"How dashed unfortunate," - or something to that effect - said home skipper George Sayers, his beard newly bristled into a W formation.

Among spectators sheltering in the clubhouse was our old friend Tony "Jesus" Day, not too clever just now, and his friend Surreal Neil, who collects telephone exchanges in the way that others collect stamps.

He'd find Wolviston's when the rain stopped. "If you think I'm boring," said Neil - canny lad, really - "you should have spoken to the Moldovian folk dancers at Billingham Festival."

Should next Sunday also be waterlogged and a bowling competition prove impractical, the semi-final will be decided on the toss of a coin. Obverse possibly, perverse certainly, it may prove the spin doctor's road to headquarters.

A slight cloud, too, over the column's old school friend John Robinson, who narrowly failed on Saturday to establish a new world record by breaking four bricks with his foot.

John, a Shildon lad, drives a brick wagon. The attempt took place at a brickyard in Blaydon. He'd been building up to it, it might be said, for some time.

"I drove up in my work clothes, loaded up with bricks, got changed for the world record bid and then drove the bricks back home," he says.

Though the attempt failed - he already claims a British and European record for smashing three bricks, piled one on top of the other - he did manage to smash through six inches of solid concrete with his foot, to punch through two inches of concrete and to perfect his "Bruce Lee" punch - through an inch thick piece of wood from just an inch distance.

John was also the undisputed marbles champion at Timothy Hackworth Junior Mixed and Infants.

He trains seven days a week, might slam his foot into something immovable 3,000 times in a session, plans another attempt to mark his dad's 85th birthday next year.

His latest martial arts class will be the subject of a video, Raw Power, available in the autumn. From Block Buster, no doubt.

The mighty Arsenal's 89th minute third on Saturday produced scenes of uncommon euphoria in the Middlesbrough press box. The Guardian's man had £100 at 14-1 on the Gunners winning 3-0. Joy, sadly, was confined to just 47 seconds. That's how long Dennis Bergkamp got the fourth.

Whatever gloom may temporarily have settled over the Riverside Stadium was dispelled first thing yesterday by the arrival of former FIFA referee George Courtney, now Boro's director of community initiatives.

After 36 years trying to play golf at Bishop Auckland, George finally won a trophy in the men's invitation fourball on Sunday.

"There's been more mickey taken out of my golf swing than ever there was out of my refereeing," says the ecstatic whistler, who turned 60 in June.

His partner was Boro development colleague and six handicapper Richard Lewis - "a jewel, a proper golfer" - who plays at Barnard Castle.

"He talked me round," says Richard.

Each won a cut glass decanter and posterity's place on the clubhouse honours board. George even got to make a speech - "it was the most moving of my life."

Mr J Higginbottom from Newton Aycliffe thoughtfully sends the Premiership table from his Ladbroke's coupon - "I thought you might like to see Arsenal at the top," he says though, sadly, the table was compiled before a ball was kicked.

It's alphabetical only. Second place must for now suffice.

Mr Higginbottom is also among several readers who have queried the "odd one out" among the Oaks, Derby, and St Leger. The St Leger, we said, was the only one named after a person - but surely, everyone clamours, the Derby was, too. A better answer, everyone agrees, is that the Oaks is the only race for fillies.

More than a century after he achieved it, it is time for the Northern Echo finally to acknowledge Mr H P Child's finest hour. It came on August 8 1896, the afternoon that Sam Moody of Newbottle, Houghton-le-Spring won the all-England quoits championship - and a £100 side-stake - before more than 1,000 spectators at Waterhouses, that Mr Geo. Witham's bay Never Despair beat Mr Jos.

Young's dark horse Star of the North for £40 at the Foggy Furze racecourse at West Hartlepool and that a huge crowd saw Stockton beat Middlesbrough in the Cleveland baseball final.

H P Child was Chester-le-Street's cricket professional, awarded an inscribed ball by Mr Kerrigh-Walker, the captain, for his "wonderful bowling performance" in the match against Bishop Auckland.

Ernie Guy, who lives in Chester-le-Street, has just presented the ball back to the club - "it was given to me by my late uncle". The Echo's crowded back page devoted just four lines to the match, the wonderful bowling performance omitted entirely:

"The Bishops were all out for 11 runs, made up of E Fairless 9 and two extras. The game stopped at 100 put on by the Cestrians for the loss of no wickets."

The poor, unheralded professional had actually taken eight wickets in ten balls without conceding a run. Belatedly, we salute him. Child's play at last.

A first, even for this column, Mrs M E Crawford writes from North Cowton, near Northallerton, with news of the "fatally injured" racing pigeon she found in the village. Its leg tags are 2063 and F31122.

The owner, Mrs Crawford believes, will want to know that the poor bird rests in peace beneath her front garden.

the first footballer to play for both Merseyside and both Manchester clubs (Backtrack, August 17) was Peter Beardsley.

Brian Shaw today seeks the identity of the six footballers to have been capped for England since 1980 whilst playing for Glasgow Rangers.

Back over the border on Friday.

Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2001