All-rounder Jack is master of his trades

He remains Sheffield Wednesday's chief Scottish scout, drives 30,000 miles a year, seems physically unchanged over four decades and should local league cricket ever again turn its arm is available, bat and ball, if selected.

Though he has also worked for Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Darlington - five times caretaker manager - Hartlepool, Carlisle United and Birmingham City and kept goal professionally in the old North Eastern League, it's as a cricketer that he may be better remembered.

Personally funded, a corneal implant in the winter means he can again pick the fiery flight of a small red ball. He walks straight backed and unaided; his memory, laser sharp, waxes wonderfully

The scrapbooks, similarly, seem superfluous. Watson saves the day, say the headlines, and Watson does it again and - previewing a match between Northumberland and the 1950s West Indians - something about the three Ws being the big attraction.

Watson, Walcott and Weekes, presumably, though the tourists had some feller called Worrall as well.

Jack also has a photograph of the day, Northumberland against the Yorkshire first X1, that he bowled Len Hutton. "One that went straight on, last ball of the over, I think.

"He was quite aloof the first day, but after that he even invited me to his table."

His first county game for Durham was in 1945, his last - 20 years later - accompanied by a long and affectionate letter from Don Hardy, the skipper, pondering the huge gap he had left.

In 128 Durham matches he hit 2792 runs, averaged 23, and picked up 392 wickets - seam and spin - at just 16.57 apiece.

The figures, inevitably, are from the Beardless Wonder.

"Ask him about the wickets," says the Wonder, affectionately, "he'll probably describe every one."

From 1949-55, however, he also made 75 appearances for Northumberland, hit 1736 runs and bagged 221 wickets - including a match analysis of 15-83 against Durham, at Chester-le-Street, in August 1953.

"7-41, 8-42, top scored in the second innings," recalls Jack, over a highly convivial lunch to mark his impending 80.

Though the applause was enthusiastic, there were those on the Ropery Lane ground who considered him a traitor. "Anything for an extra ten shillings, Watson," someone is said to have shouted as the hero departed the field.

"I don't remember that bit," says Jack.

There are many more feats which he does - 6-23 against India in the match when Colin Milburn hit a century on his Durham debut, 8-53 against Yorkshire's first team at Sunderland, 4-69 against the West Indies in the match of the Ws, 2-13 (seam) and 8-15 (spin) in the same match against Surrey II, on a cracked wicket at the Oval.

"Watson could be another Bob Appleyard," wrote Jim Swanton in the Telegraph. In the event, hearth and home, he chose to remain the original Jack Watson.

Somewhere amid the success stories, however, there was (as Jack put it) "a tale agin meself." It involved, memory suggests, two with the bat and 0-60 with the ball was recounted when lunch was served and notebook jettisoned. Coincidence, no doubt.

Born at High Spen, Durham side of the water, he made his senior cricket debut at 14 for Medomsley - "the proper Medomsley, not the one they have now" - opening with bat and ball in a side containing three county men.

A tour of which Callers Pegasus might be proud proceeded down the years - including spells as professional at Ryton (where he took 9-6), Durham City, Alnwick, Ashington, Shildon BR, Blackhall, Swalwell and Normanby Hall.

As an amateur, pensioner probably, he turned out for Shildon, Hunwick and Cliffe - that cricket lovenest near Piercebridge - whence he was persuaded at 70 to join Bearpark and took a hat trick on his debut.

At Ashington, as elsewhere, he also kept goal. "I remember once breaking my thumb, about the 53rd minute" - ABOUT, mark - "went up front because there were no substitutes and scored the only goal.

"A week later I got six in the County Cup at Shilbottle, five in the first half, and the following week we had a Cup tie against Tranmere, whose centre forward was the great Pongo Waring.

"The press made a lot of it, Watson against Waring. In the end I wasn't even eligible."

In Northumberland he'd been a policeman, allowed to play professional cricket by an acquiescent chief constable ("feller called Armstrong") but denied by his successor.

"The committee went to see him after that. He said he's changed his mind and that they could give me a small present at the end of the season, a cigarette lighter or something. I didn't even smoke."

Nor does he drink or swear, though Mr Willie Nelson of King James CC in Bishop Auckland may have a slightly different recollection.

The chief constable's obduracy led to his resignation from the force and a move in the early 50s to become the first professional on the new Shildon BR ground, coach to the town's Northern League team and, ultimately, chief fire and security officer at the hammer and tongs wagon works.

It's in Shildon that he's remained, nor ever wanted to leave, where he hopes still to catch the selectors' eye - probably less sharp than his own - and from where his Scottish sorties begin.

His wife Ruth, whom he met during RAF service in Canada, died several years ago. These days there's no reason to stay at home, he says, and digests four or five games a week instead.

"I know a lot of people on the circuit, most of them very nice, and I'll do it as long as I'm able to.

"It's still a crafty game, of course, you don't let anyone see your hand, but the days have gone when you'd get dressed up - false moustache, glasses, the lot - to throw others off the scent."

He'd tried it twice, he says. Once it even worked.

Twice Darlington offered him the manager's chair permanently, twice - redefining scout's honour - he declined. "It would have been different," says Jack, "if someone hadn't been sitting there already."

His only regret is not playing first class cricket. Kent wanted him as a ready made spinner, Worcestershire as a coach. "It was about job security. You couldn't bring Ruth all the way from Canada and then risk things like that."

His birthday will be marked with a small family party at night. Doubtless with mixed feelings, he's even asked Wednesday for Tuesday off. "I really don't want any fuss," says the remarkable J M Watson. "Maybe you can come back when I'm 100."

IF it be true, as Oscar Wilde observed, that to lose one parent is a misfortune but to lose both looks like carelessness, what are we to make of Bulldog Billy Teesdale?

His mum, bless her, is fine, but Evenwood Cricket Club - negotiator-in-chief P W Teesdale - have now lost their third intended West Indian professional of the winter. It has nothing, of course, to do with Bulldog Billy.

"The lad's mother had a terrible road accident, needed a new kidney and it was either him or his sister," he insists.

The fourth choice, arriving in two weeks, is Deighton Butler from the Windward Islands, again recommended by Nixon MacLean - Evenwood pro made good.

"Nick's told him all about me," says Billy. "He can't wait."

AS if one weren't misfortune enough, Bill's brother Alf also rings - anxious to contact Paul Dalton, a Staindrop school teacher who used to put promising youngsters their way.

The supply's dried up, the juniors are ageing, Alf seeks to re-open the supply line but has lost Paul's telephone number.

Alf also reveals that the cricket club is to have a new coat of arms - featuring a tree, a pit head, Durham's emblem and a wild boar.

What, no bulldog?

A wild boar, says Alf, is more than near enough.

STILL hunting in pairs, two messages from Tow Law Town - beginning with an ingenious e-mail from lifelong loyalist Harry Hodgson.

Harry, now vice-president, recalls the 1973 international when Cloughy's clown - remember Poland goalkeeper Jan Temeshevski? - stopped everything that England hurled at him.

"We would like to emulate this by erecting a defensive line of poles along the west side of the pitch, to stop the majority of balls leaving the ground," says Harry.

These, of course, are scaffolding poles. International clearance and work permits won't be necessary, says Harry, but sponsorship is essential. It's £10 a pole; he's on 01388 730492.

SAME direction, a call from Charlie Donaghy. A week today (6.30pm), the Lawyers stage an under 14s football tournament sponsored by Horizon Glass and played on a round robin basis by Waldridge Park, Brandon, Sacriston and Crook Horizon Glass. All welcome.

AND a plea from Paul Williams, an independent television producer in Middlesbrough, who's anxious to hear from grass roots footballers who've seen the amusing side of the game.

He hopes to find enough material for a documentary called Park Life.- "the funnier the better," says Paul. He's at Box 328, Middlesbrough TS3 9YW.

WE interrupt this column to bring a question from Ian Cross in Morton on Swale, near Northallerton. Which Sheffield Wednesday international has a brother who's had a number one Christmas hit?

Gilles de Bilde. His brother, of course, was Bob.

DIZZIED by the lofty heights of top place in the Albany Northern League second division, Washington secretary George Abbott has been recalling the day when things weren't quite so clever.

There was 1997-98, for example, when they played 36, lost 35, scored 24 and conceded 153 and by virtue of having three deducted, finished the season pointless.

It was also the year that they registered 135 players and at Chester-le-Street could only raise nine of them.

Then there was the game at Horden, for which George claims a world record. "We'd signed this lad from South Shields, gave him his debut and I swear he never got a single kick. Shields might have seen us coming."

Washington's match against Ashington on April 21 not only marks a possible title decider but the presentation of their first ever team of the month award. "The clouds," says George, "appear to have had a silver lining."

MORE meteorology, and that carefully punctuated phrase about looking black over Bill's mother's.

Its origin is said to be with Bill Proud and Bishop Auckland cricket club at Kingsway, though Harry Clarke (Backtrack, April 6) never claimed parentage. Malcolm in Eaglescliffe further disputes the parentage.

"The phrase was in common use in south Yorkshire in the mid-1940s. It was used by several people, including my father, who'd probably never travelled as far as Durham at that time."

Dave Burdon from Hurworth Place, near Darlington, also wonders if Harry Clarke - two weeks older than Jack Watson - was really the only man to play both football and cricket professionally for Darlington.

His mother-in-law is the daughter of Albert Childs, who made 50 Quakers appearances in the 1920s and was sent off - "for no apparent reason" - whilst playing for Hull in the 1930 FA Cup semi-final with Arsenal.

Hull drew the first game, lost 1-0 in the second. On Humberside it still rankles.

But was he Darlington's cricket professional, and was he - 70 years ago -sent off for no reason? There may be more of Childs play next time.

THE father and son who played in FA Cup finals for Spurs (Backtrack, April 10) were Les and Clive Allen.

Today, readers have ten seconds to identify the only senior club in British football with a letter of the alphabet unique to that club and 11 days until the column returns, rejoicing, on April 24.