GARRY Gibson is walking tall again. After several years adopting as low a profile as may be possible for a 6ft 6in giant, the former Hartlepool United chairman is ready once more to face the world wide web.

His enthusiasm returned, he's even started watching football again, Berwick against Hearts on Saturday, Real Mallorca against some other Spanish lot the weekend before.

Garry, Wheatley Hill lad and proud of it, has taken a post-graduate course in Internet marketing and is about to enter the recondite realms of dot.com passion.

"I feel I'm moving back from centre forward to midfield, spraying the ball about," he says.

His company will be called profitbeforeexperience.com. "Oh aye," he says, a little ruefully, "I've had plenty of experience."

We lunched, agreeably. Garry recalled the time when - an election imminent - local MP Peter Mandleson was asked what three things he'd save if one of his houses caught fire and listed his Hartlepool United scarf at number two.

When the chairman publicly lampooned him - "we saw Peter once or twice a season" - Mandelson declined for a time to talk to him, even when times got desperate.

Though occasionally spotted at the checkout of ASDA in Hartlepool, he is living in Scotland, where Heriot-Watt University is providing office accommodation for his latest venture.

Probably for £50, he will offer the Internet services of 150 recently retired professionals in all fields - architects, engineers, maybe even football club chairmen - to those seeking their expert advice.

Having signed plenty of footballers, he's now looking to recruit those other professionals. Garry's e-mail address is ggibson Vinny Jones meets Ged Hartley. We recalled the other day that the young Vincent, then a wide-eyed 21-year-old, had played for Wealdstone against the Bankers in the 1985-86 FA Trophy.

Peter Livingstone points out, however, that the South Bank player chosen to get to grips - as it were - with the southern danger man was Ged Hartley, Thornaby's finest.

"You know the feller, very shy," adds Peter. "He torpedoed Jonesey after about 30 seconds."

Though he might not use the explosive term torpedoed - "I gave him a clip if you know what I mean, just a hard tackle" - Ged remembers the game well. What's called man marking, probably.

Now 44, he spent ten years at South Bank, also played for Spennymoor, Ferryhill and Guisborough and still turns out for the Billingham Strollers Over 35s side.

"Vinny Jones hadn't a reputation then, of course, but I remember Tony Boylan nut-megging him, which didn't go down too well.

"He didn't come across as hard, none of them did, but even if I played against Vinny Jones now it wouldn't bother me. We were brought up not to be afraid of anyone."

After a 0-0 draw at Wealdstone, the Trophy holders, South Bank won the home replay 2-1, thanks to an extra time goal from skipper Neil Roberts.

Dave Dale, then the club chairman, recalls rushing back from Birmingham for the match, finding a queue half way down Normanby Road and trying to jump it.

"I'm the chairman," he said. What the polliss said can only be imagined.

"I still maintain that Ged Hartley was the finest centre half I've ever seen in non-league football," adds Dave.

Jones signed later that year for Wimbledon and is now a star of both film and football. Ged Hartley is a baker at Asda in Thornaby. "If they ever do Vinny on This Is Your Life," he says, "you can tell them I'm available."

WEALDSTONE, known not inappropriately as the Stones, also gave the rugged Stuart Pearce to the football world, signed for £25,000 by Coventry in 1983. Former Willington manager Malcolm Smith - whose efforts to save the Northern League club in 1996-97 won him the league's top award - was Wealdstone's assistant boss at the time. Malcolm, alas, seems to have disappeared into the inner recesses of Coulby Newham and can't be contacted. It would be good to talk.

PERHAPS because we'd all had an early night, Wednesday's paper carried nothing of the previous evening's Albany Northern League Cup tie between Billingham Synthonia and Guisborough Town.

Harvey Harris, retired detective chief inspector and active football watcher, rings to fill in the gaps.

"It didn't end until quarter past ten and if it had gone on all night I don't think a soul would have left," says Harvey.

The match was 3-3 after 90 minutes, the same after extra time.

All 12 subsequent penalties had left the goalkeepers helpless before Matt Hysen scored for Guisborough and Synners' Andy Ripley hit the bar.

"The standard of football was excellent by both sides," says Harvey. "We even enjoyed the pies."

ANOTHER fillip for the Northern League, UEFA have announced that the third/fourth place play-offs for the European Under 16s championship in the Spring will be held at Durham City's ground. Two earlier games are already scheduled at New Ferens Park.

"It's a huge boost for us, the league and for our ground staff," says City treasurer Ernie Duncan. The man chiefly responsible for the pristine pitch is Tommy Porter, recently retired from Sunderland.

The qualifying games are on April 22 and 26, the play-off on May 6. Go-ahead City plan a marquee throughout, with the possibility of sportsmen's dinners, an Irish night, old time music hall and whatever else football allows.

They're also offering the marquee free to charities - so long, of course, as Durham get the bar. Ernie Duncan's on 07930 397926.

The first weekend in May is also when Sir Stephen Redgrave is due to take part in a sprint challenge on the River Wear

"It should," says Ernie, "be a very good weekend for Durham."

ONE for our statisticians: apart from the British Army X1, when did a side last have four captains in the same game - in the same half, even?

It happened at Sunderland on Wednesday when Michael Gray let his mouth run away, departed in shame after 46 minutes and handed the armband to Stefan Schwarz.

Shwarz was subbed five minutes later, gave the black spot to Emerson Thome, who disappeared, injured, seven minutes after that.

Finally the responsibility rested with Chris Makin. He was unable to skip out at all.

SUNDERLAND'S programme, incidentally, carried the results of a national survey into the five worst haircuts in the Premiership. Daniel Cordone of Newcastle ("bad hair and a daft shoe lace") was third and Everton's Abel Xavier ("one way of terrifying the opposition") second. The winner, inevitably, was the pony-tailed Mr Seaman.

MARLOW, to whom the magnificent Marske United travel in the last 16 of the FA Carlsberg Vase a week tomorrow, are among Britain's oldest clubs - formed in 1870.

They are also, so the Crook Town crack insisted on Wednesday night, the only club to have contested the FA Cup in every season since the old tin pot was inaugurated in 1872.

None of that can explain the identity of the Buckinghamshire side's all-time leading scorer, however. It's listed in the Non League Club Directory as Julius Caesar.

THE only club to play in both FA Vase and FA Trophy finals at Wembley (Backtrack, January 30) is the Gloucestershire side Forest Green Rovers, in 1982 and 1999 respectively.

From the Berwick Rangers programme - per Mr Garry Gibson - who was the last man before Sir Alex Ferguson to win the "Manager of the Year" title in successive seasons?

More border line cases next Tuesday.