FOR much the same reason that mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun, a day/night cricket match was staged on Friday on Thornton Watlass green. They've an annual Boxing Day fixture, too.

The floodlights had hitherto done back shift on motorway maintenance contracts, the black sightscreens were mushroom sheets slung between the trees, black batting pads achieved by dextrous tailoring of bin liners and stumps made luminous orange with a touch of tractor paint.

Watlass Warriors v Invitation Invincibles, the score book read, Blacks against Reds. After "Venue" it said "Watlass in't dark" and after "Type of match", "lots of fun".

In truth it was simply wonderful, English eccentricity at its well orchestrated best, and - finally to fly the Union Jack over the proceedings - the hero was to prove a cricketer called Carruthers.

Thornton Watlass is near Bedale in north Yorkshire, its village green a regularly improbable cricket field, even in broad daylight.

There's a spreading chestnut tree at square leg, a road which crosses behind the bowler's arm, fence posts half way to the rope and the Buck Inn, which forms part of the boundary.

The Buck's a four, the tree nothing whatsoever, unless it lands among the boughs and someone has the presence to call "lost ball", in which case it's six and stop running.

A local rule hadn't been written for the generator next to the chestnut tree but if the ball hit it, someone said, they were buggered.

Phil Day, of all the good folk, was credited with the idea. Eddie Nicholson had sorted the lights, Black Sheep Brewery the togs, Taylors of Harrogate the now-familiar tea pot cards with four and six in the middle.

They'd contemplated an all night match on June 21, said Phil, concluded that they mightn't be at their sharpest at 3am and opted for an altogether different generation game, proceeds to the club and for Alzheimer's disease research.

Besides - we're talking transport subsidies here - the last bus goes at eight minutes to midnight.

They'd six pylons, more lights atop something which these days is known as a cherry picker but probably is just as effective with conkers, the entire village merrily moonlighting.

The elderly crowded benches, like the Commons on budget day, the middle aged stood on corners talking, as they did before Coronation Street was invented, the young uns sat on straw bales, waving their Yorkshire Tea pots.

"It's the sort of cricket they've grown up with" said Goff Weatherall, the Watlass chairman.

Pop music, of the sort which tormented Old Trafford but to which enlightened spots like Thornton Watlass are more attuned, greeted each boundary or dismissal. As the night wore on, they sent rockets up, too.

The first was so sudden, so clamorous and so vivid in its explosiveness, that had Watlass been 20 miles nearer the sea, they'd have launched the lifeboat within minutes.

"Anyone bringing the scorer a dry cider will receive a free box of tea bags" announced the public address, though there were enough free tea bags to assuage Catterick NAAFI.

Warriors batted first, daylight, 121 for four from 25 overs.

The music man played something about the boys being back in town. Invincibles opened at 9pm, dicky dark.

"it's better than Headingley is this" said Barbara Hay, sound Yorkshirewoman and a county ladies' official.

"At Leeds the day/night was over before it were dark. We were robbed."

Richard Carruthers and Adrian Grayson opened. "It is you, isn't it, Richard?" urged the announcer through the gloaming. Carruthers waved his bat in acknowledgment.

Adrian Grayson is the father of Paul of Essex and Simon of Blackburn Rovers, presently seconded to Sheffield Wednesday, and one of precious few fathers whose lads have played at both Wembley and Lord's. Mike Gatting's old feller may have a similar claim.

Adrian offered himself up at 20-odd, professed that the wicket was trustworthy - "important when it's a bit dark" - and the white ball generally visible. The lights could be seen from Bedale.

Carruthers remained, 70 or so, at the moment of nine-wicket victory.

Afterwards they adjourned to the boundary, that being the Buck Inn, delighted with their day/night's work. A repeat is unlikely, however.

"You're asking an awful lot of favours to put on something like this" said Dave Jardine. "In future we'll probably stick with Boxing Day."

HOWEVER greatly the notion of Blackpool being noted for fresh air and fun has been derided by the gentility, it was a damn sight sunnier over there on Saturday than it was over here.

It was the FA Cup extra preliminary round, road to Wembley barely tarmacadamed, Squires Gate v West Auckland and the home club's first-ever appearance in the competition.

Axa were so enthusiastic about it that they'd paraded the old pot (or what now passes for it) at Squires Gate on Thursday evening, not flown to the nearby airport - anywhere so long as it's the Isle of Man - but driven up from Portsmouth and back the same night.

The promotion seemed unsuccessful, the crowd barely 50. Squires Gate FC is divided by a wall from the diminutive Blackpool Wren Rovers, the floodlights of Blackpool Mechanics - where the Nolan Sisters' mum used to serve the pies - visible a few hundred yards further away.

If the three were simultaneously at home, they reckon, the crowd wouldn't be 100. The golden mile it's not.

West had last played a Blackpool team in March 1963, it was recalled - Blackpool Rangers, Amateur Cup - when, West 3-2 down after 81 minutes, the Darlington Road ground was suddenly and seminally flooded.

The already swollen beck in the adjoining field appeared eternally to have been dammed, a hole had appeared in the dividing wall, two bairns were seen fast fleeing. Today, safer distance, half West Auckland's 50-year-olds claim heroic responsibility.

The FA ordered a replay at Bishop Auckland, West won 5-1. The hosts' late deluge on Saturday was rather less penetrative: Squires Gate 1 West Auckland 2.

DAVID Shayler, late of MI6, returned after three years exile to the Riverside Stadium - Boro unbeaten after two. "That's typical of some folk" a fellow season ticket holder told him. "They only come when we're top."

OPENING time again, the column called upon on Sunday to launch Spennithorne and Harmby's magnificent multi-sport facilities.

They're neighbouring villages in Wensleydale, happily married through the Sports Association though endangered by the proverbial storm when discussing millennium mugs. Should Spennithorne be on top, or Harmby?

English, they compromised: side by side.

Since 1995 they've had a superb football pitch and pavilion. Now - thanks to a great deal of hard work, fund raising and £35,000 from Sport England - they have a floodlit all weather tennis court, games area and cricket net.

"The cricket strip's as good as anything at Lord's" said George Tunstall, the cricket club secretary. "The youngsters should be throwing their computers out of the bedroom window to get here" said Philip Holden, the sports association president.

It was a lovely afternoon, music by the Wensleydale Stompers, who wondered if Bill Bailey might return - is there a trad jazz band on earth which doesn't? - and included 80-year-old drummer Sid Shoulder, who looked a bit like genial Harry Grout and had played cricket for Shildon BR with Jack Watson and Fred Brownless and them.

It ended with a fancy dress football match, teams including the Drunkards and the Pheasant Pluckers, named after Harmby's local. Musical readers may recall that the Pheasant Plucker's Song was a minor hit for The Barrow Poets in 1980.

Curiously, they never hinted at another.

THE two teams with five FA Amateur Cup wins (Backtrack, August 25) - joint second behind Bishop Auckland's ten - are Crook Town and Clapton.

Bill Moore (again) wonders what was so special about the venue of the Darlington v Chesterfield Third Division North match on December 29 1923. We're back where we belong on Friday