Friends flock for Watson

Bob Stokoe was there, and Durham's director of cricket Geoff Cook and former Hartlepool United chairman Garry Gibson whom Jack - his memory nothing ailing - reckoned the best boss he ever worked for.

Former Pool assistant manager Eddie Kyle may not entirely have agreed, but they were friends again before the coffee.

A formidable all-rounder, Jack played cricket for both Durham and Northumberland between 1945-65, last turned his arm over two years ago, still carries his kit in the car in the hope that one day someone may play the whites man, too.

The most assiduous scout since Hawkeye, he has worked for four of the North-East's big five football clubs - Newcastle United excepted - was four times Darlington's caretaker manager and remains Sheffield Wednesday's man in Scotland, though Shildon's his long time home.

Shildon's cricket redoubtables were there, too - Gordon Brewis, Fred Brownless, Peter Dargue, the indomitable John Raw - recalling that when J M Watson first became the BR professional in 1955 he earned £600 a season, for which you could probably buy a new car.

"I've never seen anyone bowl faster spinners in my life," said Gordon.

"We made him scrat for it, mind," said John.

"We're going to have to give him a game now he's 80," conceded Peter.

Bob Stokoe, now 71 and living in Hexham, had earlier that morning played at Bishop Auckland Golf Club - time restricted the game to snooker - with his friend Bill Berriman, he of the fabled Spennymoor chip van family.

"Bob always wins the snooker," said Bill. He usually wins the golf, an' all.

Jack had scouted for the immortal Stokoe at Carlisle, had a sell-on percentage in his contract, misplaced the contract. "Bob fought tooth and nail for me after we sold Ian Bishop, got himself a black name with the directors through it," he recalled.

He still didn't get his percentage, though.

Geoff Cook, a long gone teammate at Normanby Hall, had been at the airport that morning to greet Martin Love, Durham's new overseas player - 33 Centigrade when he left Brisbane, little more in Fahrenheit in Newcastle.

"He's come prepared," said Geoff and so did Jack Watson, who wore pyjamas (it's said) beneath his cricket kit.

Ken Thwaites, a Normanby Hall colleague in the 60s, proposed a splendid toast in which particularly he recalled their 1963 NYSD League championship, clinched with a last-game victory at Feethams.

Amid much frustration and other words beginning with the letter 'f', the visitors batted until 6.40pm and 70 minutes later, Watson unplayable, had Darlington back in the pavilion.

"They wore cravats," said Ken, enigmatically.

A bit later, he also recalled a game between Normanby Hall and Norton - Norton had rings around their caps, the same sort of red rag as a cravat - in which Jack played blessed peacemaker and Cyril Knowles, Spurs and England, was decidedly in the wars.

Cyril, known on occasion to be irascible, was keeping wicket for Normanby in his only appearance of the season, advised a Norton batsman that in his well- judged opinion he had been caught behind and suggested that he might like promptly to return whence he came.

The batsman remaining obdurate, Cyril - nice one - again somewhat forcibly reminded him of the error of his ways, at which point the bat was used for a purpose not officially embraced by the laws of cricket. Jack, happily, intervened.

The column, in truth, had a hand in the lunch arrangements - a particular surprise to the new octogenarian because a few days earlier we'd assured him the week off would be in Wales.

"You're a fibber," said J M Watson and in these formative years we've been called worse, but by none better, than that.

John Carter OBE, former managing director of Darlington and Simpson Rolling Mills, was the only other person in the bar as the birthday bashers were introduced one to another.

Hearing Ken Thwaites's name, John enquired if it might be the same Kenny Thwaites - "niggly little beggar" - who'd played football for Eston Grammar School in 1958.

Very likely, we said.

John played for Guisborough Grammar School, marked both figuratively and physically by young Thwaites and ending up in Middlesbrough General with his knee accidentally sliced open.

Though they'd not met for 43 years, Ken - footballer, cricketer, greyhound trainer, racehorse owner, chapel organist, good bloke - recalled the match at once.

"You must be John Carter," he said.

He lives near Whitby. So small the world and so wondrous the power of time's healing, they will have lunch there together very shortly.

More football injuries, Esh Winning's Good Friday match with Shildon was interrupted after 15 minutes, referee Malcolm Lambert unable to continue after doing something nasty to his back.

It was his wife's fault, he said - "she made me paint the ceiling this morning" - though the poor chap's troubles didn't end there.

Having given his kit to a replacement official, Malcolm showered, changed and - as the subsequent hammering on the dressing room door suggested - found himself locked in.

At a game earlier that day, we'd bumped into Morpeth Town manager Peter Feenan, bemused that after a waterlogged pitch forced the postponement of their match with Seaham Red Star, Teletext should broadcast it as a 3-0 win to Morpeth.

Not that Peter's complaining. They'd asked the Northern League, he said, to allow the result to stand.

We all make mistakes, of course, but Doc Forster was particularly surprised to see the name of Witton Gilbert in the Unibond League First division table in the Sunday Sun - straight in at eight. Hitherto little known for its football prowess, Witton Gilbert - pronounced as in Jack and Jill - is a village west of Durham. Witton Albion may be both nearer Manchester and nearer the mark, an' all.

THE column on April 13 gave readers ten seconds to name the only club in British senior football whose name contains a letter of the alphabet unique to that club.

Eleven days later, we can reveal that it was St Johnstone.

An invitation today to name the three players who've been European Footballer of the Year on three different occasions.

More from Europe, and Bradford and places, in three days.

World a darker place without legend Lyght

Andrew Lyght so greatly enjoyed the high-life that when he was fighting cancer the local night club manager sent a cheery get well soon card because, he said, the takings were down something dreadful.

Though the amiable West Indian was cured - a miracle, he believed - it did nothing for the sales of rum and Red Stripe.

When the night was long and the pain intense, he had prayed that if he were spared - Lyght out of darkness - he would spend the rest of his life serving God.

As good as his word, Andrew was baptised.

Twelve years later, the North-East's outstanding club cricket professional of the 1980s has died. He was 44.

He came from Guyana, they always said, but he belonged to Crook.

A delightful man with a perpetual smile, he played for Crook from 1983-88, made countless friends, broke endless records with both bat and ball.

"As well as being the best pro we ever had he was also the bravest and one of the nicest men," says former Crook treasurer Roy Coates, now secretary of the Durham County League.

He was less complimentary, however, after discovering that his star import had also been playing football for Crook Town Rangers - moonlyghting, it might almost be said - a team of which the column was president and our old friend Ian "Boss Hogg" Hawley the principal promoter.

"I went crackers," Roy recalls. "The last thing we needed was our pro getting injured playing football. His illness put all that into perspective."

Cancer of the lower abdomen was diagnosed in England and treated at Newcastle General Hospital, Andrew's work permit extended so that the chemotherapy could continue.

"I heard God call me in Newcastle hospital," he once recalled. "From that moment I knew there was nothing ever to be afraid of again."

He'd played several games for West Indies 'A', would probably have been in the test squad but for his drinking and smoking - "and when those guys talk about smoking," Backtrack observed in 1991, "they don't just mean ten Woodbines."

He even admitted using dope, appropriately named, in the dressing room during an A team tour of Zimbabwe in 1980. "I got more runs than anybody that tour.

"I knew I'd have been in the first team but for that."

Then everything changed. Born again, he grew dreadlocks and a beard, became vegetarian, renounced alcohol, tobacco and most of Satan's other perceived works.

"Typical," said Roy Coates - joyously - on his return ten years ago. "He goes years and years without getting the drinks in and when it comes to his round, he's teetotal."

West Indian cricket took exception to his dreadlocks - "why can't Andrew play in his knots in a country where there is freedom and tolerance of religion?" demanded the Abroke News, without ever getting an answer - in Crook they were blunter yet.

"You look like a nanny goat," someone said.

Andrew insisted that they were part of his committment to Christ. "If they pick me fine, if they don't I praise the Lord, anyway."

In the early 80s he'd played for Bethesda in North Wales, spent 1991 with Brechin in Scotland, never lost touch with the Crook lads.

Roy Coates had heard the cancer had returned, rang Guyana two weeks ago, was assured it was just a "weakness".

Dear old Boss, then Crook's substantial wicket keeper, recalls heavy sessions, dawn card schools and the shield presented by Andrew's friends in the north to sit alongside the more conventional trophies.

He'd been billeted to a house near the golf club where the somewhat primitive facilities remained at the bottom of the yard. For emergencies and other extremes, a bucket was thoughtfully provided.

"The best man ever to fill a pail," read the shield's (slightly sanitised) inscription.

And so, says Ian Hawley, he was

Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2001