A happy Chappy down under

The talented all-rounder has played and coached in Melbourne for the past nine winters. Pom and circumstance, this one's going to be different. The tables are being turned down under.

"For the first time ever, I won't have to put up with jokes from the immigration people about an Englishman trying to teach Aussie kids to play cricket, " says the decidedly happy Chappy.

"The main challenge is to see how much of the stuff I can throw back at them, and believe me I've been practising. I'm definitely ready to rub it in a bit." Crook lad, Steve's first class opportunities were limited but his 12-48 remains a Durham second team match record.

After playing for Crook, he had several years as both amateur and professional with Bishop Auckland, was professional at Hartlepool and has spent the past two summers at Darlington. He is also groundsman at Ashbroke, Sunderland's cricket club's home.

The decision to live permanently in Australia - "I made it about quarter past six on Monday evening, " he insists - is chiefly to spend more time with his partner Joanne, whom he met while with Hallam CC, in Melbourne.

"We've had nearly three years of going backwards and forwards. We've bought a house and thought it was time to settle down a bit, but that's not to say I won't come back some day." Already, however, he's getting his Aussie baiting act together. "It's a great time to be English. I've already had a few unreturned texts and a few telephones slammed down on me.

"I thought I'd heard all the jokes that could be heard about English cricket in my first game at Hallam, and then I had another nine years of it.

It's time for a bit of revenge." On Monday evening there was little chance of celebration, however, because he'd promised to work on Crook's square - "it's still home, after all."

The party really begins next week, 12,000 miles away. "Just when they'll be starting to forget, there'll be Chappy arriving from England to remind them all over again.

You have to say it's worked out quite well, really."

GARY Pratt, another Crook lad making a name in cricket, helped NW Durham MP Hilary Armstrong achieve a double at Tuesday's 10 Downing Street reception.

Gary, the 12th man who threw the Aussies onto a whinge and a prayer, was taught by Hilary's brother, John. Paul Collingwood, who lives at Iveston, near Consett, is also one of her constituents.

"It was really good of them to remember Gary, I'm the only MP with two in my patch, " she says.

The reception, however, was a case for the Phensic scientists. "Let's just say that they looked like they'd had a good night, " says Hilary.

"Freddie Flintoff sat on a swing at the end of the garden, looking a bit bemused. Paul was looking forward to playing for Durham next day, but definitely not to the journey." The Armstrongs - Hilary's father Ernest was NW Durham MP before her - are better known as football fans and Sunderland supporters.

Like everyone else, however, she's been caught up by the events of the past eight weeks. "I think, " says Hilary, "that everyone's a cricket fanatic now."

STILL at twelfth man - or extra cover, anyway - we're approached by a spectator at Esh Winning's football match on Tuesday evening who'd also been watching the village cricketers a few days earlier.

Etherley batted first, lost just four in their allotted span, duly bowled their first over.

That's when someone started to count the fielders.

"It was obviously entirely accidental but there were 12 of them, all in whites and all up for it, " he says. "The umpires hadn't noticed at all."

Durham County League secretary Roy Coates, yet another Crook lad, knew nothing of it. "It's not the sort of thing anyone would want to tell me about it, " he says.

Mathematically adjusted, Etherley won anyway.

FORMER Richmond School teacher Ian McNeilly e-mails a copy of Freddie Flintoff 's 6.30am interview - "though I'm not really capable of speaking" - with Standard Light. He reckoned he'd never be a real celebrity.

"I'm ugly, I'm overweight but I'm happy. What's most exciting about winning the Ashes is that I'll be awarded the freedom of Preston.

"It means I'll be able to drive a flock of sheep through the town centre, drink for free in 64 pubs and get a lift home with the police when I become inebriated." Mike Gatting then asked him if he'd had anything to eat. Freddie smiled blearily.

"A cigar . . . "

CRICKET at a slightly humbler level, Hartlepool CC celebrates its 150th anniversary a week tomorrow with a dinner dance in a marquee on the Park Drive ground.

Though not the oldest club in town - that's Seaton Carew, 1829 - nor a founder member of the NYSD, Redcar alone claiming that distinction, it's a proud record, nonetheless.

"There may have been games before then, but we can definitely trace it back to a general meeting in 1855, " says club president Ken Gardner.

The club played on Burn Road ("where Tesco is now") and on Clarence Road before moving to Park Drive in 1912.

All former players or followers are welcomed to the do. Tickets are £25 from club steward Dave Williamson, 01429 260875.

Gateshead FC, football's poorest relations of them all

IF GATESHEAD were football's poor relations, then their nearest and dearest seemed a pretty dysfunctional family.

The town was apathetic, the crowds wretched, the rest of the Football League reluctant to come calling. Even Newcastle United, the next door neighbours, were said to be pretty hostile.

That the club refused to serve free alcohol to visiting directors probably didn't help, either. Worst of all, though, Gateshead was in the far North.

The football world was shocked, nonetheless, when the cap-in-hand club failed to gain re-election to the old fourth division after finishing third bottom and applying for only the second time in 32 years.

"On any moral or ethical grounds a criminal injustice was done, " writes Tony Grayson in the new edition of Soccer History magazine.

"It was the starkest example of the old pals act, the bleakest representation of all that was wrong with having to apply for re-election, a process which was to survive another 26 years." It was May 28 1960, the day that the League's annual meeting also agreed to institute a new Football League Cup and to increase the minimum admission charge from two bob to half a crown.

Peter Radford's 20.5 second 220 yards made him Britain's first sprint world record holder for 46 years, Stirling Moss won the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, Stuart Young took 8-15 for Chester-le-Street against Sunderland and Fred Trueman 7-60 for Yorkshire against Northants and they were celebrating at Wembley, where the Seaham and District League had been won for the first time.

Far from the Empire Way, this was the Wembley that's forever part of Murton.

Though they professed optimism, Gateshead might have feared the worst. On the only other re-election occasion, in 1937, they'd finished above bottom placed Darlington but gained 13 votes fewer.

This time their bottom four fate was known by mid-April, though late wins against Oldham and Walsall - who, the Gateshead programme pointed out, had successfully applied seven times for reelection - ensured that they finished six points above Hartlepools United (as then they were) and five above Oldham. Southport, seeking re-election for the third successive year, were fourth bottom.

David Absalom, Gateshead's chairman, sent to all voting clubs a nine point argument for renewing Gateshead's membership.

In 22 seasons since 1928 they'd finished 16 times in the top half; in the previous 15 seasons only twice been in the bottom eight.

Only the claim that Redheugh Park was a "great ground" might have been questionable, says Grayson.

That the old place was surrounded by a greyhound track is said by some not to have helped, either.

In the poll for four fourth division places, Oldham won 39 votes, Peterborough - the Midland League champions - 35, Hartlepools 34, Southport 29 and Gateshead just 18.

The following Monday's Northern Echo said that the news would come as a "sickening shock" not just to club officials but to a large part of the football world.

"Whether it has the same impact among townspeople is another matter, " added "Redheugh", incisively. That week's Gateshead Post didn't even mention it.

Grayson supposes - "There is little doubt that few teams relished a trip to Gateshead" - that the town's geographical situation told chiefly against its football club.

To this day, he adds, many Gateshead fans believe that Newcastle United were among those who voted them out.

"There is no evidence of statements from the St James' Park board supporting their neighbours in their hour of trouble." Gateshead applied unsuccessfully to the Scottish League, began again in the Northern Counties League, folded in 1973. Redheugh Park became a gipsy site, the stand transferred to Morecambe and the players to nowhere very memorable.

After several recent crises, the new Gateshead FC is midtable in the Unibond League premier division, crowds at the 10,000 capacity International Stadium often struggling to reach 200. The relations grow poorer yet.

And finally... THE unusual thing about England's first innings 339 in the Kingston test of March 2004 (Backtrack, September 13) was that extras were the highest scorer.

Looking gloomily at the Premiership table, Sunderland fan John Briggs recalls the disastrous campaign of 2002-03 - and points out that ten of that squad are still with Premiership clubs elsewhere.

Readers are invited to name them. Bottoms up again on Tuesday.

Published: 16/09/2005