Matter of the heart for England captain's mum

Hilary Johnson's from Darlington, Hilary Cleminson when she joined Darlington Harriers as an enthusiastic 15-year-old. When last she featured hereabouts, November 1991, she'd become, at 47, the oldest athlete ever to make an open-age international debut.

It was the 100k. Two weeks previously she'd completed the euphemistically named Darlington Dash - a 42-mile cross country event - in six and three quarter hours.

Now doctors have told her that she needs a new heart.

"Can I have Seb Coe's?" said Hilary.

Her grandfather, William Osborne Cleminson - Martin's middle name is also Osborne - was a cabinet maker in Bishop Auckland, won three England amateur soccer caps while with Darlington and also played for Darlington St Augustine's (the first Northern League champions), Shildon and Plymouth Argyle.

Her father Bill, known generally as Clemmy, died - from a heart attack - while running between the wickets for Cockerton Cricket Club in 1972.

Formerly with Darlington and Darlington RA, he was 53 and 45 not out. "The ball leaves his bat at escape velocity," a Northern Despatch profile had observed nine years previously.

"Any fielders daft enough to try to intercept would have plenty of time to discover whether Emergency Ward 10 is like the real thing." Hilary, whose son Will also plays for Leicester and is tipped for imminent England A recognition, has taken it all - even, she says, Martin being "wicked" - in her long practised stride.

"My engine's fine. I just have no electrics," she says, cheerfully.

Problems began shortly after that first column. "Having waited 30 years for recognition, I'd hate it to end just yet," she'd said.

Still the Darlington dasher dealt comfortably with longer distances, but found on shorter runs that sometimes she couldn't go another step.

At first both she, and the doctors, thought it was asthmatic. Further tests revealed atrial fibrillation, known otherwise as athlete's heart.

"Half of my heart was just beating randomly, it can only happen to people at the top of their game," says Hilary.

"It would drop to 35 beats a minute at rest. The heart tries to compensate by putting in extra beats, but it has no need to.

"My heart is still as strong as a horse's. It just beats differently."

For six months she was immobilised, then returned to teaching and to training, but attacks returned with so little warning - even in the middle of the countryside - that she had to carry a mobile phone while running.

"It even started when I was watching Martin play rugby, and came really badly when he was Lions' captain four years ago.

"They thought it wasn't right for me to watch him with my heart as it was. I begged them to let me go, he was captain of the British Lions, but I couldn't stand a full game without getting over-excited and falling about."

Cardiac surgery under local anaesthetic - "to burn through the circuits" - failed to correct the problem. "I could see it on television, and after he'd done four my heart still looked like spaghetti.

"He asked me about a pacemaker, went into overdrive, shot it in there and then. At first it made a real difference, I couldn't compete but I was running again."

Just over a year ago, however, her heart stopped completely - "a real blue light job" - re-started by the sort of 2,000 volt technology now seen on television.

At 56 she is again on the roads ("jog and walk") with her pacemaker, saving for the Lions' tour to Australia, a transplant apparently considered impractical.

"Well, a bit drastic anyway," says Hilary.

Martin, she says, has now accepted the 35-day ban imposed for three offences of stamping, kneeing and punching Saracens' players. ("There won't be a knee jerk reaction," he'd said, rather inappropriately, after the hearing.)"He's like a bear with a sore head, takes it out in training. They call him the most expensive bag carrier in the world.

"The whole thing was ridiculous. If the referee had seen it in the first place and not been so useless, Martin would have get ten minutes and that would have been that.

"They were all going out after him. There were ten places where Leicester could have cited Saracens, a bad referee and two linesmen who were blind, but that's not what it should be about."

She now lives in Market Harborough but often returns to Darlington where her brother John - the boys' favourite uncle, and their only one - still lives. "John's a legend," she says.

Another visit's planned in the Spring. "I'm starting to feel quite good again," says Hilary. "Who knows, I might even have another go at that Darlington Dash."

The e-mail also addressed to half the industrialists on Teesside, a plea for help arrives from Don Beattie in Middlesbrough. A sporting question going the rounds is, he says, driving them round the bend.

"Arsenal will never do it until Arsene Wenger leaves. Man United have done it more than any other British team. Liverpool did it once, but not in the usual way. Everton, Charlton and Oldham have all done it more than once but Wimbledon can't ever do it unless Crystal Palace go bankrupt."

The sports desk has an idea, but can't be specific. Any offers? In passing, no more, last Tuesday's column recalled the 2,384 who squeezed into South Bank's Normanby Road ground for the 1986 FA Trophy quarter-final with Enfield.

"I lived in the street over the road and you couldn't hear the television for the noise," recalls former club chairman Don Dawkins. "I never thought it was possible to get so many people into the ground."

Stan Wilson from Thirsk casts his mind back to the previous round, when the Bankers beat Trophy holders Wealdstone in a replay.

Wealdstone's aggressive, hard-tackling central midfielder has since become very familiar. He swears it was the young Vincent Jones. (Probably to be continued.) Friday's piece on little Stan Cummins reminded The Bearded Wonder of an honorary Stan - West Indian cricketer Anderson Cummins, Durham's overseas player in 1993-94.

"One of the most amiable characters you could ever meet," says the Wonder, though his cricket bags arrived without the obligatory dressing room nickname.

Sunderland fan Simon Brown, it's reckoned, first came up with Stan. It stuck so greatly that within weeks Cummins even referred to himself as Stan.

Stan Cummins, Ferryhill lad, flew back to America last Thursday. Stan Cummins, cricketer, is now somewhere near the top of the order for a leading Canadian bank.

If not for services to nicknames then to Durham cricket, Simon Brown's benefit year is launched on Friday evening with a black tie dinner at the Riverside.

The first Durham-born player to represent England while playing for Durham, Brown - himself nicknamed Chubby - has claimed 502 wickets in 136 first-class appearances for the county.

Former Durham skipper David Graveney and county member Harold Tavroges will be principal speakers at the do. Ticket details from Marjorie Towers on 01740 658500.

Keith Hopper, who gently points out that he is no longer captain of Bishop Auckland cricket club's second team - the distinction now belongs to our old friend John Brennan, still a bit bairn - has been invited by the Australian Wattlesprigs to raise a touring team next January.

"I'd love to go, we just need a dozen others," he says.

The Wattlesprigs were over here last summer. Though their match at Bishop Auckland was cancelled, rain, it's reckoned they made a serious impression on the bar stocks.

The proposed tour - "70p a pint, £5 dinners" - also includes golf, fishing, water skiing, surfing and something called sunbaking. K R Hopper, dreaming of warmer climes, is on 01325 332663.

The only team that Manchester United failed to beat in last season's Premiership (Backtrack, January 26) was Wimbledon. Two draws, Bill Moore (again) today seeks the identity of the only team to appear in the final of both the FA Vase and FA Trophy at Wembley.