Though Albert Gillett was only half of G&B, the chocolate and cream bus company which for 50 years ran steady away around the pit communities of Co Durham, he was wholly devoted to Sunderland FC.

Albert was so indelibly red and white, in fact, that towards the end of the heady season 1912-13 - Sunderland top of the old first division, fast closing on the double - he made a public promise.

His team had already beaten Newcastle United in a twice replayed quarter-final and Burnley in the replayed semi-final. His new home, said Albert, would be named after the FA Cup winners.

Thus it is that, to this day, there's a foursquare house called Aston Villa in Front Street, Quarrington Hill.

Though original Land Registry documents identify the title, though name and date are set in stone above the front door, the village history for 1913 takes no note of Albert's over-confidence.

There'd been an attempt on the life of Attracta Docherty, memorably named landlady of the Crow Tree pub, Supt Wales and his boys in blue had raided the Crow Tree club and the Rev Arthur John Gadd had become Vicar of St Paul's, no doubt promoting puns about nearer my Gadd to thee.

Albert took to the roads in 1921, really shook em up without winning the FA Cup, formalised his services in 1926. A picture of his first Ford Model T, in front of a shed urging folk to fill up with Shell, still exists. The company and its 23 vehicles was sold to the United in November 1974.

So what, he'd been asked, if his lads were to lose the final? "No chance," insisted Albert, "I'm going to be living in Sunderland House."

We'd chronicled the 1913 Cup final a few columns back, noted its bitterness, back biting and brawls, supposed that there was little new under the sun.

Though there may be any amount of Aston Villas in the west Midlands, the Quarrington Hill equivalent - an out-house, as it were - was an unexpected bonus.

It's a former colliery village, now much diminished, seven miles south east of Durham. "I remember the first time I saw that stone above the house I just couldn't believe it," recalls 62-year-old Sunderland fan Bill Anderson, from Thornley.

Clive Lawson, secretary and much more of Quarrington Hill's immaculately kept community centre, confirms the story and remembers the buses. The "B" was J J Baker, who as early as 1926 had run "express" services between South Shields and London.

"You could set your watch by G&B," says Clive. "There could be six foot of snow and you'd still see that brown and cream bus coming round the corner."

Clive was also, it transpires, one of the people who in the late 1960s helped install the "sprinkler system" at the Echo's head office in Darlington.

We remind him that, earlier this year, it had abundantly proved its worth. "I know," says Clive, "I've never been so relieved about anything in all my life."

Tony Goodall, Aston Villa's present incumbent, is a Newcastle lad but no particular football fan. He's had no problems, he says, nor has he plans to change the name.

"To be honest," says Tony, "I find it rather charming."

A minute's silence for Mo Mowlam before Saturday's Arngrove Northern League game at Marske United, and from club chairman John Hodgson suitably grassroots memories of a much-loved local MP.

Having hacked through municipal red tape to ensure that United's floodlights went ahead - her blunt description of council planners much similar to Hodgy's own - Mo was duly invited to perform the official switch-on in December 1997.

Since she was also Northern Ireland secretary, a large and heavily armed entourage was in attendance. A well meaning courtier brought her a glass of sherry.

"She walked around the clubhouse looking for somewhere to ditch it," says John, essaying a passable impression of Lady Bracknell.

"Finally she asked if the dressing rooms were empty, gave the sherry to a bodyguard and asked him to bring two pints instead.

"We sat there drinking beer and talking football. She was absolutely brilliant."

Among more familiar faces at Marske was Cameroon international Joseph Desire Job, presently out of favour at the Boro, there with his mate Ballo Ousmane from the Ivory Coast.

Though in England for more than a year, Ballo still hasn't been granted a residence permit - and Home Office rules mean he can't play football for a team which takes a gate.

Though United are keen to have a look at him, they charge £2.50. Ballo, like his mate, kicks only his heels.

Marske official Jimmy Smith, fighting Ballo's corner, admits frustration. "It's like having Frank Sinatra to sing at your house but not asking for a penny."

Doubtless familiar with G&B on the post-war road to Hartlepool, former Victoria Ground favourite Fred Richardson - Reggie to his family - was 80 last Thursday.

Middlestone Moor lad, he'd played for Bishop Auckland in the 1946 Amateur Cup final, understudied Tommy Lawton at Chelsea, joined Pools in 1947-48 because he was homesick. After spells at Barnsley, West Brom and Chester, he returned to Hartlepool between 1952-55.

"It was £10 a week and a couple, of backhanders when I get transferred, that's all I ever got from football," he once told the column.

Friends tried to get him a birthday card from the club, who must have mistaken him for Ballo Ousmane, the amount of obstacles they put in the way.

Fred, long in Coxhoe, is still looking forward to the village cricket club's reunion on September 3. He did canny for them, an' all. Belatedly, a very happy birthday.

Hails of Hartlepool, who doubtless could tell a tale or two about Fred Richardson, responds instead to Friday's piece on the All Blacks at the Old Friarage field in 1905.

He may, Ron supposes, to be the only person alive to have played cricket on both "Old" and "New" Friarage grounds - the former as a 14-year-old for West Hartlepool St Luke's, circa 1941, against the Heugh Battery.

The real pleasure of it, says Ron, was the spread of left-overs from the Unit's supper offered at the interval - a large tray of sandwiches and cakes and as much cocoa as they could drink.

"In the early days of the war," says Ron, "such an abundance of food to us non-serving citizens was indeed a luxury. It made the inevitable defeat eminently bearable."

Friday's column noted that this year's FA Cup final had been played between the two immediately previous winners - Arsenal and Man United - and asked the only previous occasion on which it had happened.

The answer should have been Arsenal and Newcastle United in 1952, but as Magpies' publications editor Paul Tully points out, it was also the case when Everton met Manchester United in 1985.

Today back to Sunderland v Aston Villa, 1913. Had the Wearsiders duly completed the League and Cup double, they wouldn't have been the first side so to do. Readers are invited to name the two clubs who got their first.

Singular as ever, the column returns on Friday

Published: 23/08/2005