Wolviston's dreams of Lord's fast approaching reality

Three times in the previous seven seasons they'd reached the last eight, on each occasion hung, drawn and quartered.

Now the village people were at Streethouse, an unremarkable outpost in West Yorkshire, watched by a scrum of 500 who seemed to have left their hearts at Featherstone Rovers. There was even a daft lad with a drum; these days there usually is.

Wolviston's on Teesside, beneath Billingham's once-sulphurous shadow. Its cricket club was formed in 1884, has dressing rooms and clubhouse in a Portakabin, charges the players £2.50 match fee, £1.50 for their sandwiches and another few bob to help sharpen the scorer's pencils.

The road to Lord's, where the final of the Wadworth Brewery sponsored competition will be staged on September 9, had exercised them rather less than usual, however.

In the first two rounds they'd had byes, in the third and fourth the opposition - Boosbeck and Medomsley - had withdrawn and after beating Ingleton they were twice on a potentially sticky wicket against Sessay when rain ended the match.

The organisers insisted on the toss of a coin over the telephone, Wolviston called correctly, beat Kirkley from Northumberland in the regional final, hit the road to Streethouse in a coach with courier, curtains and carnations (though one of the three was plastic.)

Best described as an experienced side - the youth policy matured about 20 years ago - they included Ian Brooksbank, who hopes to become one of the few sportsmen to have played at both Lord's and Wembley.

Errington Farm, his pub football team near Middlesbrough, won the final of a brewery competition staged beneath the tottering twin towers, the trophy presented by a Queen lookalike - "like something off the Stanley Baxter show," said Ian, equally unimpressed by the fast fading facilities.

"It was a farce. The dressing room stank, the pitch was like a ploughed field and we kicked off at ten o'clock in the morning. I'd only just got to bed."

George Sayers the skipper, who looked as a Spanish conquistador might, had an ancestor in the 1884 team picture that still honours the clubhouse wall.

"You can instantly see the family likeness," they said mischievously. "Kit Sayers is the surly looking one."

Mike Gough, father of the Durham County player of the same name and known thereabouts as the Undertaker - "it's his aura" explained the skipper - had been recalled to open the batting because of holidays.

"The captain told me they were desperate," he said. "It's what he calls motivation."

The hotel even had a red carpet out the front, though it proved to be for a wedding party. "Can you imagine paying a fortune for your wedding and then us lot landing, an' all?" said Steve Cottrill, his Boro tattoo vivid beneath regulation red shorts.

They also had pool, sauna and jacuzzi and some of them had all three. It mightn't have been structured preparation, but it took their minds off the match.

(George Sayers, the skipper's 68-year-old father, was later to criticise such Fancy Dan diets. "All a cricketer needs before a match is two corned beef sandwiches," he said.)

The supporters coach had left two hours later but got no further than Middlesbrough before expiring in a cloud of steam. For A19 read A Nightmare, and not just the engine boiling over.

Wolviston batted at 2.30pm, the home side not only having acquired a Latin motto for the occasion - "Nulli secundus" a classical translation of "H'away the lads" - but enough impromptu banners to suggest that Streethouse might sleep sheetless.

"It won't go our way all the time," George had warned in his team talk and on unlucky 13, two wickets in three balls, his foreboding was heavily underlined.

Gough went first, followed by wicket-keeper Geoff Ward (known as Big Baby) who'd kept goal for Brandon United and, briefly, for Shildon, too. After 20 overs, half way, they were 45-4 and the hosts - Streethouse named desire - already scenting blood.

Never mind secundus, Wolviston at the time might have been lucky to finish third.

It may infrequently be that a 53 seat coach is compared to the US Fifth Cavalry but it was at that moment that the visiting supporters arrived and the effect was no less cataclysmic. Wolviston, re-born, rallied beneath the flag.

Geoff Peacock, otherwise Beast, smote 73 handsome runs before being magnificently caught on the boundary by an Australian from Wakefield who almost broke his leg on a child's football in so doing.

Paul Adamson added 30-odd, Wolviston finished on 175-9. If not indefensible, it seemed a pretty weak case.

Streethouse began equally cautiously, 56-1 at half way, but North-East prospects still more ominous than the sun blessed sky. Come friendly rain and fall on Streethouse, we thought - as Sir John Betjeman had similarly of Slough - but the only depression may have been over the visitors.

They didn't show it, bowled intelligently, fielded superbly, tracked and backtracked, covered and recovered, urged and surged and with four overs remaining faced a total of 147-2.

"I'm ever so nervous and I aren't even bothered who wins," said a Yorkshire lady nearby.

The final overs were bowled by Ian Brooksbank and Mark O'Neal, known as Billy partly (it is said) because of a belligerence akin to the column's old friend Bulldog Billy Teesdale and partly of a dog at Plawsworth which formed an unnatural and rather alarming affection for him.

The Plawsworth dog was called Billy, too. They performed heroically, Billy II having a suitable altercation with the batsman. Thirteen were needed from the last over, seven off four, five off three, four from the last ball. Wolviston, wondrously, won it.

There were tears and there were beers - the latter from the sporting opposition - there was kissing and carousing and amid it all the treasurer went round to remind them that they still owed £5.50 apiece for the bus.

Because it defined it, that was the truly great moment in sport.

The return passed raucously, George Sayers and the splendid Mark Christon - once together at Durham School - launching into a rousing rendition of Floreat Dunelmia. Beats the hell out of Nulli secundus, anyway.

There'd be late nights and bottled brains - but at home in the last four on Sunday August 19 - they'd still be semi-conscious in the morning.

JACKIE COE, who kept goal for Willington in the 1939 FA Amateur Cup final, has died, aged 93.

He was a giant at 5ft 7in - a gentle, twinkling, coruscating collier who could brighten a three foot seam, an affectionate family man and among the nicest, the most vividly entertaining and the most utterly indomitable men it has been this column's great good fortune to have known.

As well as football and cricket, Jackie also had something of a reputation for his eating habits, though the blackclock between two beer mats was a one off - a bet, he would insist, in the Beehive.

After hanging up the green jumper, as in those days plainly it was, he became a Northern League referee, recalled not only the time he took a match in welly boots - at Waterhouses, of all places, "the teams insisted on playing" - but also the destruction derby, Middlestone Moor v Binchester Blocks, in which a player finally sought his protection from the mob.

"Chap called Moralee, I think it was. He says 'How Jackie, this bugger's kickin' us to bits', so I told him to kick the bugger back.

"Next minute he'd kicked him as high a house and straight away I blew for a penalty.

"He says 'how Jackie, you told us to kick him'.

"I says 'Aye, but I didn't tell you to kick him when I was watchin'."

He was born at Tantobie, near Stanley, started down Sherburn House pit at 14 - "rats, short pants and a candle" - made his Northern League debut a year later, in goal and on high, for Tow Law.

He'd met the magnificent Cora, who survives him, at Durham Big Meeting, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in May.

"We divvent sleep together nee more, mind," said Jackie. "She gets the lodger in."

"Seventy years is a very special achievement," said John, one of four children. "To those of us who know them closely it's also a bloody miracle" - but even when one went into a home for respite care, the other one always went, too.

They'd married at ten o'clock at Lanchester register office, him in on Tommy Bell's bus from Tow Law, her by car from New Kyo. Immediately afterwards, Jackie went back to Tow Law, had a beer with the bus driver in Wheatley's pub, played against Willington - "we lost one-nowt, me mind must have been elsewhere" - and with the half crown that somehow found a way into his boot took his new wife on a one night honeymoon to their Aunty Eleanor's in Easington Colliery.

The morning of the Amateur Cup final he'd started down Page Bank colliery at four o'clock, been loosed out early at ten, begged a lift to Roker Park and faced a Bishop Auckland side that included an 18-year-old apprentice brickie called Bob Paisley.

Goalless after 90 minutes, it went into extra-time, turned when someone in the crowd blew a whistle, a Willington defender picked up the ball - believing the referee to be the whistler - and Bishops scored from the resultant free kick.

They lost 3-0. "We were broken-hearted by then," said Jackie.

He also had a trial with Newcastle United - "straight off night shift, I was half asleep" - might have had an England amateur cap but for an incident at Stockton which might these days be termed a professional foul but to Jackie, who (of course) was an amateur, was simply pragmatic means of stopping the other chap scoring.

"The FA representative, a man called Beech it was, told me dad and me that I'd lost me chance because of ungentlemanly conduct."

As a cricketer he won three successive Stanley News "Player of the Week" jumpers whilst playing for South Moor St George's, became an umpire when he stopped playing at 64, remains the only person twice to have taken 100 wickets in a Mid-Durham Senior League season and claimed a hat trick for Wolsingham, against Crook.

"They had a collection around the ground. I got thirty bob and a raincoat. I thowt I was a millionaire."

Though in later years he had a virtual season ticket to the region's hospitals, he was always cheerful, lived in peace with his pipe and in the greatest contentment with Cora.

They'd moved to Sunnybrow, near Willington, in 1938, never left, held the platinum anniversary do in the Brown Trout. Side by side as usual, they had been overwhelmed by friends, admirers, bottles of stuff that were no doubt medicinal but had been distilled in Scotland and by a telegram from the Queen.

"What for," said dear old Jackie, "was she at the Cup final an' all?"

Cora had never once removed the wedding ring that his mother had had to buy because he was either down the pit or playing football. "I will say this," she'd said on that reflective night in May, "it makes you very thankful, doesn't it?

Published: Tuesday, August 7, 2001