Collins only sings when she's winning

A book's being written about them, it may be recalled, though its secretive author would reveal naught of his heroes save that one was Ray Wilkie - Crook Town Amateur Cup medal winner - and another a "musical celebrity."

Brandon United knew better. There was Tosh Harrison, they said, allegedly the Northern League's first thousand pound transfer; there was Paul Dalton who signed for Manchester United from Brandon and whose photograph still hangs in the clubhouse, Teddy Maguire who played on Wolves' left wing in the 1939 FA Cup final and boxer Dave Ogilvie, so proud of his roots that he boxed as Dave Brandon.

Dave's still there, now an official with the British Boxing Board of Control. Radio commentator Raymond Glendenning, he recalls, reckoned his fight at Durham Ice Rink against Malcolm Pidgeon from South Bank the best he'd ever seen.

And the musical celebrity? "That'll be Charlie Collins's daughter" they said over the Oxo, "sang at the Last Night of the Proms and all sorts."

Yes, but what's her name?

"Why, Charlie Collins's daughter," they said, and were wrong in any case. She was Billy Collins's daughter; Charlie was her uncle.

Anne Collins was raised in a musical family, reached grand opera's high pinnacle, only this summer sang at La Scala in Milan. "It had been a while in coming," she says, taking the column's call on her birthday. Decorously, she declines to reveal which one.

Her mum Nancy is 85, still in Meadowfield, still part of the parish of Brandon and Byshottles. Anne played cello too, her late father accustomed to carrying it the three miles to her lessons in Durham.

"Well," says Nancy, "you couldn't take a great big cello on a bus."

A contralto, Anne has sung all over the world, had the solo spot at Last Night of the Proms in 1975 and 1980.

Her reaction to our admission of grand operatic ignorance is gracious. "There's a standing joke in the musical world about going away on tour," she says.

"If one of the critics clearly doesn't know what he's talking about, we always say that they must have sent the football correspondent. Probably it was you."

Brandon United 0 Billingham Town 1.

The football correspondents said that the 1939 FA Cup final would be helplessly one-sided and it was - "though not," the Echo reported, "in the manner the punditti foretold."

Wolves, overwhelming favourites, lost 4-1 to Portsmouth - not least thanks to the sureness of Pompey goalkeeper Harry Walker, a Leyburn lad who'd previously won 13 medals in the Wensleydale League and also played for Darlington.

Apart from Ted Maguire, on Wolves' left wing, two other Co Durham men were on the field - and both from within a few miles of Brandon. Joe Gardiner from Bearpark was Wolves' left half, Billy Rochford from Esh Winning - "belongs to Esh Winning" said the colloquial Echo - was the victorious left-back.

Mr F Wilson from Meadowfield writes that Ted Maguire played schools football for St Patrick's in Meadowfield, went to Willington juniors and after unsuccessful trials with Sheffield Wednesday played Northern League football for Willington before joining Wolves.

He saw RAF service in France and the Middle East, made a guest appearance for Sunderland before demob and afterwards played for Swindon Town and Halifax.

Ted's now 83, still lives near the invisible line that divides Meadowfield from Langley Moor, until recently got out most days for his pint.

At present, however, he is in Ward 17 of Dryburn hospital. We wish him well, one of Brandon and Byshottles' finest.

Paul Smith, Hartlepool United season ticket holder and chief pie taster, has been telling us how he came to visit St James' Park twice in a week.

The first was last Wednesday's match between Newcastle and Derby County, tucked up in an executive box - "and all I say about corporate hospitality, as well."

The ground, he says, is now awesome. "They have escalators, grey padded seats, carpets your feet sink into, salmon, champagne, all absolutely glorious."

The second visit was (of course) to St James Park, Exeter - a 5.30am start with his mate Les from Murton for Pool's match last Saturday.

"The pies were all right but the terraces were crumbling and the turnstiles rusting. Where Newcastle had soap and toilets, Exeter had a wall."

One of the St James' Park matches attracted 52,000, the other 2,967.

Paul - from Sherburn Hill, near Durham - is happily unswayed by life at the Court of St James's. "Exeter City's what football is all about" he insists. "Give me the grass roots every time."

Still closer to the earth, the Lady Feversham Cup final between Harome and High Farndale takes place on Sunday at Spout House, Bilsdale - cricket's answer to Table Mountain.

It's the first time in 150 years that Spout House has staged a final, a celebration of real village cricket.

Bilsdale's on the road from Stokesley to Helmsley, the 25-over match starts at 11 30am and the neighbouring Sun Inn is every bit as glorious as the ground. Absolutely essential viewing.

Headed homeward from the west country himself, Derek Parker decided on a detour to Dudley - junction 2 off the M5 - and a pilgrimage to Duncan Edwards' grave.

"I'd read in one of the papers how lots of Mancunian lorry drivers were doing the same thing," he says.

Now in Bishop Auckland, Derek was born in Coventry 55 years ago ("they were in the Third Division South in those days") and like impressionable youngsters then and now, supported Manchester United instead.

Joining he wagon train proved fruitful. "It's a black gravestone with a circular picture of him taking a throw, clearly a place of homage and beautifully tended. It was very good to be there."

These days, however, his allegiance has reverted to Coventry City. The reason, says Derek, is called Alex Ferguson.

Around 700 turned out for the official opening of Chester-le-Street's new dressing rooms on Wednesday, though the principal attraction may not so much have been the new facilities - which cost £42,000 - as Julio Arca, who cost £3.5m.

Chester played Sunderland. Former Premiership referee Alan Wilkie, local lad, cut the ribbon, accompanied by Daniele Dichio and Steve Bould.

Alan does everything without charge - a snip, a ribbon cutter might say - but had wanted to pose with Milton Nunez, not strapping great lads like Mr Dichio.

He's not very big, Mr Nunez, considerably smaller. (Nunez also has one of those little wavy lines over the second 'n', but probably we're out of stock.)

The Football Foundation, formerly Football Trust, had given £25,000 towards the splendid new changing rooms; the FA in various ways another £11,000.

"They're as good as anything in the Northern League" said John Tomlinson, the best sort of club chairman, since he also runs a brewery.

Dichio, known as the Italian Stallion - his pace, presumably - hit a powerful hat trick. Bould played economically, the Argentinian Arca switched to wing back and began to look at home.

Sunderland won 6-0, would have had more but for Chester goalie Lennie French - the French resistance, as it were - and looked very comfortable.

"The first team's got us worried sick," said a departing voice in a red and white shirt, "but the reserves are bloody stupendous."

News of Ian "Boss Hogg" Hawley, heavyweight wicket-keeper and one of the column's early days heroes. Boss is more of a golfer these days, though his round has temporarily been squared.

There was a fourball (or whatever it's called) at Crook, the sponsors' hospitality tent enticingly between the tenth and eleventh.

It probably wasn't that they got a couple of juniors to finish the game for them which particularly irked the committee, nor even that it was an awfully long drink before they left the tent.

What probably did it was getting a taxi back to the clubhouse. Suspended for two matches, anyway.

Water under the bridge and all that, but back briefly to the Great Flood of West Auckland, diverted this way on Tuesday.

It was 1963, FA Amateur Cup, West losing 3-2 to Blackpool Rangers when after 81 minutes water poured through a hole in the boundary wall and the pitch swiftly flooded. Youths are believed to have dammed a swollen stream in the next field.

"It was unbelievable, I'll tell you" recalls George Brown, West's free scoring centre forward.

"I remember looking towards the stand and it was just pouring through, the bottom half six inches deep in no time."

An identical incident occurred the following year - against Shildon, he thinks - during a match watched by Jackie Milburn, then manager of Ipswich Town. ("He was seeing if I was any use" says George. "The only difference was that we were winning.")

Tom Peacock, then a probation officer and 30 bob linesman, has also rung.

Wilf Dodds, the Northern League secretary, had instructed him to inspect the pitch before the original Blackpool match date.

"It was covered in snow then and it wasn't much better when they finally played it."

The FA ordered a replay at Bishop Auckland, West winning 5-1. "As we ran out," recalls George Brown, "the speakers played the Dambusters March."

The spirit moving in sundry places (as a cricket loving Australian parson might say), we were taken by Durham II 207 all out against Essex at Gateshead Fell last week.

No fewer than 88 were extras, more than twice the highest score with the bat and (if the bairns' pocket calculator is to be believed) 42.51 per cent of the total.

Not even the Beardless Wonder can trace a higher proportion of extras in a substantial and completed innings. Others, by the bye, may know better.

The Rev Leo Osborn - Albany Northern League chaplain, Aston Villa superfan, member of the English 92 and Scottish 38(ish) clubs - changed sports on Saturday to watch his beloved Warwickshire in the NatWest final.

Only when play had been abandoned without a ball being bowled did the sun finally shine upon the righteous. Leo - superintendent Methodist minister on north Tyneside - was told there'd be no refunds unless the following day's play was washed out, too.

"Some of us have to work on Sundays," he protested, wiser but £45 the poorer.

THE unusual thing about Darlington's Third Division North match with Chesterfield in December 1923 (Backtrack, August 29) was that it took place on Feethams cricket pitch, the football field having been declared unplayable.

Old Moore of Coundon also wonders what linked both captains and both umpires in the fifth test between England and the West Indies in 1980.

We return with that one, and with news of a visit to Highbury, on September 12