Foot and mouth disease victim, the All England Whippet Derby has been postponed. In Newton Aycliffe, where the event was to have been held at Easter, they suffer another malady.

Though home to 30,000, the town - like others of that post-war era - has long been prey to Sporting Apathy Disease, or SAD (of course) for short.

"I just can't put my finger on it," admits deputy Town Council leader Alan Courtney, who helped bring the Derby to Newton Aycliffe.

"In the former pit villages where I come from there's still all kinds of organised sport. In Newton Aycliffe we can't even run an Under 18s football team."

The town was unable to sustain a football club at the relatively humble Wearside League level - it was run by Luke Raine, now Darlington's director of football - nor a cricket team in the Durham County League.

"Look at a place like Murton, defying all the odds to keep a Northern League side going, and in Newton Aycliffe we can hardly run a domino card," says Alan, a retired polliss who owns both a racing greyhound and a trotting horse.

George, his brother, had perhaps even greater claim to international sporting renown.

The Whippet Derby would have attracted hundreds of visitors from Britain and the USA. Said originally to have been a North-East sport - "for pit lads who couldn't afford a decent greyhound," says Alan - it's now increasingly popular nationally.

"The organisers reckoned they had more people coming to Newton Aycliffe than they'd ever had anywhere," says Alan.

"We must be doing something right. I just wish I knew what we were doing wrong."

Up in Newton Aycliffe's twin new town, meanwhile, Peterlee Newtown continued their unexpected challenge for Albany Northern League honours on Saturday with a 1-0 win over Marske United.

The gate was about 50, half of them from Marske. SAD, or what?

"I don't know what the answer is either, it certainly can't be lack of entertainment," says Danny Cassidy, club secretary since its formation 25 years ago.

Their first competitive game, in the Northern Alliance, was against Workington Reserves. To mark the silver jubilee, they hope again to entertain Workington.

Apart from the occasional cup run - 1500 watched the FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie with Whitby in 1984 - it's always been a case of Newtown and old, old story.

"There's a strong Sunderland contingent in Peterlee, but on Saturday they weren't even playing at home," says Danny.

"We've got a good team, a nice clubhouse, the best tea hut in the league and still we can't get over new town apathy."

Peterlee host neighbours Seaham Red Star, weather permitting, tomorrow evening. "It would be wonderful," adds the secretary, "if we could edge the gate up towards 100."

Almost five years after smashing endless records with Stockton, Sairaj Bahutule made his Test debut for India on Sunday.

So much for not changing a winning team.

In 1996 he became the first professional in the NYSD League's 103-year history to complete the 1,000 run and 100 wicket double - bowls leg breaks and biffs it, the column observed.

"I was very surprised," said the modest Raj. "You have had so many good players in this league."

"The whole place just lit up when he did it," said Stockton groundsman Colin Gray.

Not even Richard Thurston, our man at Grangefield, supposes that he learned all he knows in three summers at Stockton. "My ambition is simply to be the Great All Rounder," Raj had said. In Madras he's taking another small step.

On the same day as the Backtrack Bahutule interview, September 10 1996, we also reported desperate times facing Darlington Cleveland Social - baling water in the Northern League second division but still the town's second most senior club.

The column even promised to buy a pint for every irregular spectator who turned up for the following night's match with Billingham Town.

So great is our influence, that they folded six days later.

Still shuffling about on the domino board, as the column has been of late, we were interested during a game in Mickleton, in Teesdale, on Friday evening to hear the 3-2 described as "Gentle Annie."

"It's because there's no harm in it," said Frank Watson, secretary for 21 years ("I said I'd do it for six months") of the Barnard Castle Games League.

In parts of the Tyne Valley, where we've also lent a hand, the double four is known with no great affection as the Blaydon Cow. Elsewhere, apparently, its soubriquets are still ruder.

Do any other dominoes, in any other areas, have similar nicknames?

Hodgy rings. Not only is Ray Mallon presenting Spennymoor Boxing Academy's annual awards in June - "we're digging out the music from Robocop" - but he'll be spending a night training with the boys.

Last year, it will be recalled, they had Mad Frankie Fraser, whose fights weren't generally under Queensberry Rules.

Then the conversation turned to the fiasco at Barking town hall two weekends ago when the national schoolboy championships had to be abandoned because of overcrowding in the hall.

"Bloody crackers," said Hodgy, among less printable things, but he couldn't beat the headline in Boxing News. "ABA goes Barking mad."

THE first team to win a Test match on their inaugural tour of England (Backtrack, March 16) was Pakistan in 1954 and the first cricketer to captain his country to a Test series victory and his county to the championship in the same season was Peter May of Surrey - 3-0 against the West Indies - in 1957.

Alf Hutchinson, who posed those questions, also points out that, had Hick and not Vaughan played in the deciding Test in Sri Lanka, the total number of caps in the side - 539 - would have been an English record.

Bill Moore from Coundon today seeks the identity of the footballing nation whom England played for the only time in a full international at Old Trafford in 1997.

More one-offs on Friday.

Published: Tuesday, March 19, 2001