Lawyers solve another

What with Blackpool's attractions and the average footballer's loyalty, Vince found himself with only half a team for the Wearside League match with Windscale. The Lawyers, perchance, found themselves without a Northern League fixture.

Graeme, who had himself played for Stanley - and Vince - 20 years earlier, held a Saturday afternoon training session, told his counterpart along windy ridge to arrange a 1.30pm roll call and to advise him of the shortfall.

The upshot was that five of Lawyers' first team squad, including Andy Sinclair - the balding Baggio of Tow Law Town - turned out for Stanley instead.

"It really got us out of jail; we were in a terrible mess," says Vince. "If ever Graeme wants any of my players he's very welcome." The select X1 drew 2-2.

Happy coincidence, we also bumped at a Pubwatch meeting into the balding Baggio's brother Steve, landlord of the Weardale in Spennymoor.

The Baggio bit notwithstanding, old Andy - so much in demand, he also turned out for Bishop Auckland last week and for a Newcastle all star X1 the week previously - is reckoned a ringer for former Chelsea manager Gianluca Vialli.

"Everything except the Armani suit," says Andy.

Tommy Horniman, who also drinks in the Weardale, bears a more than passing resemblance to Stamford Bridge chairman Ken Bates - "except I've just had me hair cut," he protests.

Thus it was that an unsuspecting Weardale stranger fell totally for the line that Bates and Vialli were in the North-East to sign Alan Shearer.

"Andy put on this bloody awful Italian accent and worked him, Tommy just looked miserable like Ken Bates does," says their kid. "Before we knew it, the story about Chelsea signing Shearer was the talk of every pub in Spennymoor."

Ray Gowan marks ten years as Shildon FC's manager with a big dinner, if not exactly fireworks, on November 5. Probably there should be a medal as well.

Thirty five years in the North-East, but still possessed of a Bow Bells accent, Ray played for Crook, Bishop Auckland and Gateshead among others and has sent a bundle of programmes as evidence.

They were the days when the Bishops fielded the likes of Billy Roughley and Michael Baker, when the Crook programme included ads for the RSPCA, Dr Barnardo's and the RNLI and Gateshead were in the Northern Premier League at Redheugh Park, admission three bob.

"The real sign of old age is being named in a programme that cost three old pence," says Ray, 56.

He was manager of Dormans in the Teesside League before becoming team boss at Brandon - where, memorably, he commuted to midweek games from Heathrow Airport after being seconded back down south. He never missed a match.

Ray's hoping that former colleagues from both playing and management days will join him at the do at the Redworth Hall Hotel - since he's never taken so much as a brass button out of Shildon, proceeds from this one will also go to the club. He's on 07970 789649.

Still in old money, the well- heeled Blackburn Rovers depicted in last Friday's column on Alan Murray is rather different from the club remembered by Raye Wilkinson.

Raye, now Middleham-based northern organiser of the Stable Lads Welfare Trust, was on youth terms first with Preston then Blackburn - in the days when a mental hospital known as Langho Colony was on the site of the present multi-million pound training set-up.

"At Preston they'd ask how much your expenses were," recalls Raye. "You might say 15 shillings and if you'd done well you'd get thirty.

"At Blackburn, which was nearer home, I told them my expenses were 7/6d. No matter how well we'd done, they gave me eight shillings and wanted a tanner change."

The Olympic flame may temporarily have been extinguished, but still it burns here. Tom Purvis in Sunderland provides further information on Ronald Gilchrist Brebner, the Darlington-born goalkeeper who won gold in the 1912 games.

Much-travelled - his clubs ranged from Elgin City to Queens Park Rangers - Brebner also played twice for Sunderland in 1905 before joining his home town club.

Harold Stamper from Stockton - known, memory suggests, as Collie - was also in the British squad but only played in the semi-final.

Brebner was carried off while playing for Leicester Fosse in 1914, an injury which contributed to his premature death, aged 33, ten months later.

Stretching regional identity a bit, Tom also provides details of Norman Fredric Hallows, who won a team gold in the 1908 three-mile event, despite finishing seventh - "thus becoming the first North-East athlete to win Olympic track gold," says Tom. Hallows was from Doncaster.

Whatever they say about the first modern Games being in Athens, 1896, Mike Boustred has been researching the Much Wenlock Olympics in 1850.

Mike, co-owner of the Stile restaurant in Willington, circulates a bi-monthly newsletter - delightfully discursive but never before dwelling upon Much Wenlock, which is in Shropshire.

Their games, he says, were modelled on an idealised myth of those in Greece and Rome - "in reality they were much as now, with cheating, bribery and the obtaining of athletes by graft and transfer fees between cities."

Unlike the latter day Olympics, however, the Much Wenlock games were for men only, competitors and their trainers required to appear naked in order (it is said) to remove any doubts.

Transgressors were thrown off a cliff, those who jumped the start were whipped and a character dressed as Nero fell off his chariot.

Mr Boustred remains unimpressed, citing the French adage "plus ca change" as doubtless they do all the time in Willington. Translated? "Those with the deepest pockets always win."

Last Tuesday's column, incidentally, claimed that the Olympic field event in which women now do better than men was the "discuss". This column likes to provide talking points, but that was taking things a little too far.

One of these recollections of Wembley which the sports desk has been seeking is from a chap who recalls the 1981 Smith's Crisps six-a-side competition in which Bewley Junior School from Billingham were losing finalists.

"Mike Amos even went with us. He probably invited himself," he writes. For "probably", read "definitely".

Another memory, also involving Billingham's best, comes from Norman Coleby in Middlesbrough.

Norman was with fellow Billingham Synthonia committee men Peter Lax and Graham Craggs at the 1997 Chelsea v Middlesbrough FA Cup final when the chap behind tapped Peter on the shoulder and asked if he'd reach beneath the seat to retrieve his false teeth. The dentures, alas, had been involuntarily expelled in the course of being ill, and lay amid the result.

"Peter asked Graham if he could borrow his Boro scarf to pick up the teeth and returned them gingerly to the owner who, without cleaning, immediately put them back where they belonged," says Norman.

Graham Craggs never wore his Middlesbrough scarf again.

THE eight Nationwide League teams who never appeared at Wembley (Backtrack, October 6) are Exeter, Halifax, Hartlepool, Hull, Lincoln, Rochdale, Walsall and Wrexham.

Bill Moore, bless him, turns now to cricket. Which overseas pro in this summer's county championship has played 54 one-day internationals but only one Test, he asks - and which overseas pro has played in 20 Tests but only one one-day international.

More pros and cons on Friday