How many went to see the owls and the pussycats?

Dammit if the Dales lads didn't have beautiful pea green shirts, an' all; the visitors sporting the blue and white stripes worn since the club's formation in 1867.

You could tell they were a big club because there were two mini-buses out the back. Junior squads usually squeeze into one, with little regard for Archimedes' principle or for who might take the hindmost.

Some of the local lads had come in the butcher's van.

It was part of the Wensleydale Festival of Football, an annual extravaganza which attracts clubs like Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Huddersfield Town up country for no greater reward than the 4lb cheese presented to the visiting skipper.

Beats a pennant any day, they reckon.

That Wednesday were making their dales debut was probably down to 79-year-old Jack Watson, still the club's sedulous Scottish scout whilst living - decidedly south of the border - in Shildon.

That they'll probably be back again is because it was a wonderfully well organised occasion.

This year's three matches are all at Harmby, a small village near Leyburn which - thanks to hard work and wishes grant aided - has superb sports facilities.

There's a floodlit tennis court and cricket practice area plus provision for football, netball, basketball, quoits and boules, though in the latter event dalesmen have been slow on the uptake. Boules, apparently, has lost something in the translation.

The immaculately maintained football pitch also has dug-outs that might not disgrace one or two log cabin holiday camps of the column's uncomfortable acquaintance, though a single bench provides seating for spectators.

Fastened to the fence, a notice warns that it's forbidden to ride bicycles over the playing field. They probably don't have that problem at Hillsborough.

The Wednesday squad's last game had been against Boca Juniors of Brazil; the Wensleydale League had fought a 4-4 draw with a Darlington side described in pre-season parlance as "youthful".

The Festival's third game is against Huddersfield Town on Monday (6.30pm - £2 including an excellent programme).

Wednesday were fresh faced, too, though there were two or three who'd played in the reserves, a Northern Ireland schoolboy international goalie and a lad called Scott Beardsley, who might have been kindred but didn't much look like it.

You could tell they still had a lot to learn, though, because when referee Jim Wilson awarded a contentious free kick against a Wednesday attacker, the offender asked not where his father might be but whether the ref were quite sure.

(A programme on the wall of the Gerry Sedgley Pavilion featured Cardigan FC's tour of Wensleydale in 1978. Jim Wilson reffed that one, too.)

One already ruled out for offside, Gavin Atkinson from Spennithorne put Wensleydale ahead after ten minutes, the pussycats showing their claws. Thirty seconds later, Wednesday had made their midweek mark, Liam Dixon - one of two Bedale brothers having Hillsborough trials - heading them level.

The crowd neared 200, the milk ran out, even the raffle tickets ran out. Having helped take the gate, league chairman Len Scott rolled up his sleeves in the canteen and then went round collecting the empty cups.

"You can tell who wears t'apron in their house," said his friend George Tunstall. Not all league chairmen are so humble.

The only slight difficulty came after half time - ref, assistant refs (father and son Barry and Paul Garthwaite) and home team back on the pitch after ten minutes, visitors accustomed to a rather more leisurely interval.

Finally Jim Wilson, Leyburn school master, strode magisterially off to ask if they knew what time it was. Suggestions that Wensleydale might kick off without them were reluctantly refused.

The Owls hit a second, swiftly a third. "If t'fust team had ever hit three last season we'd not hev gone down," opined a distinctly south Yorkshire voice from The Bench.

It finished 4-1, everyone back to the pavilion for a far ranging spread provided by the Old Horn Inn in Spennithorne and by the ladies who'd known they were coming and baked a cake.

The chap from Wensleydale Creameries (the league's munificent sponsor) had unfortunately forgotten the 4lb cheese, so had to nip up the late shop in Leyburn for more modest makeweights.

Len Scott made an accomplished little speech ("their lads hadn't been unloading blocks all day"); Clive Baker, Wednesday's youth academy director, replied in ten telling seconds.

"A really lovely evening. Any time you want us back, you just have to pick up the phone."

SEVERAL of the Wensleydale League squad play for Richmond Mavericks, a learned if rather non-conformist body formed by teachers at Richmond School. As might be expected, therefore, the team's T-shirt carries a logo embracing the triple delights of football, cricket and drinking beer and with a Latin motto. Non pedicare cupiunt, it says - which being classically and literally translated, means: "They don't like it up 'em."

ANOTHER note on the Singing Winger, Colin Grainger of Sunderland and England. Tuesday's appeal for his whereabouts elicited both memories and bricks and mortar.

"Lovely voice, used to sing You Are My Special Angel with the Eric Robinson orchestra," recalled David Kitching from Well, near Bedale.

"Dunno about him, but I used to work with his son," said George Wilkinson, from Durham.

Hartlepool United chief scout Tommy Miller knew him all right, reckoned he knocks about with John McSeveney - another Roker Park outside left of the 1950s. Jack Watson - such is the world's smallness - had been at the Burnley v Newcastle United match with the flying singer on Monday night.

Thus are we led to Skelmanthorpe, near Huddersfield, from where Colin, now 67, still scouts for Sheffield United.

"Oh aye, I sang with The Beatles, Shirley Bassey, all of them," he says.

Eric Robinson? "Certainly." London Palladium? "Remember it like it was yesterday."

He appears every bit as good a talker as he was a footballer, all too much for today's column. An audience with the Singing Winger next Friday.

TUESDAY'S piece also wondered when two Somerset men last played together for England, the answer much more recently than we'd thought. Bill Moore in Coundon confirms that in one of Mark Lathwell's two tests against Australia in 1993, the fledgling Andrew Caddick was also called to the colours.

AFTER the dismal productions at Edgbaston and elsewhere, we hear of a rather brighter outlook for the North-East's first day/night cricket match. It'll be played, as you'd expect, at Thornton Watlass.

Thornton Watlass is somewhere between Bedale and Leyburn. The pitch is the village green, there's a road down the middle, more local rules than the average municipal park, the electricity board once stuck a damn great pylon at third man and there's an annual fixture on Boxing Day.

This one's on August 25 - "what do you think we are, daft or something?" asks Buck Inn landlord Mike Fox - the floodlights borrowed from an accommodating motorway maintenance site. "The lights weren't up to much at Old Trafford, either," says Mike.

"This will be another example of how Yorkshire does things better."

PERHAPS better remembered as a Northern League footballer - over 400 games in Shildon's goal, a few for Darlington - our old friend Bryan Dale earns a cricket paragraph on merit.

Batting for Cockerton II these days, Bryan's been dismissed just once all season in league matches and once more in the cup.

"I go in next wicket down and have hardly had a bat in my hand all season," murmurs John Briggs.

Bryan's seasonal average stands at 180. Any advance?

...the professional side which made its first Wembley appearance last season (Backtrack, August 1) was Barnsley in the play-offs.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the player sent off for the first time in 1992-93, in his 971st League game.

We're off again next Tuesday.