Brian saves the best until last

Expecting to play his final game for Haughton seconds before retiring, Brian hit an undefeated 116 on Saturday ? his highest ever score including 12 sixes and four fours.

"Why bother running?" he says and in turn, inevitably, is asked "Why bother retiring?" He'd first played as a 14-yearold for Darlington RA, joined Haughton in 1978, became Darlington and District League president five years ago. Three weeks ago, he'd firmly made up his mind to retire.

"It was taking longer and longer to recover from matches, the old injuries were hurting and I couldn't play midweek games at all.

"I'd had to pack up once before because of badminton injuries, all that stopping and starting, and at the end of the day you have to think about your health. "Against Cockerton, however, he'd hit a quick 60. Against Reeth-based Dales last Saturday, ball and batsman just took off.

"It sounds daft, but at first their bowling was brilliant.

After 17 overs we'd only got to 30, but after 35 we were 169. I must just have started to see it a bit better, the ball kept landing on the road to Sedgefield. "In both games, however, he'd been dropped without scoring.

Against Dales, his son Paul, 20, watched admiringly from the other end while younger son Mark was also in the team.

Having seen every match this season, however, Brian's father had gone on holiday. His wife preferred to watch Darlington FC lose to Oxford.

A hell of a way to go, or what?

"I still love the game, but there are times when I don't think it loves me. I'm now going to have to do some very serious thinking this winter."

TUESDAY'S column recorded the death of formidable former Darlington fast bowler Les Childs, he (say the record books) who bagged ten successive ducks. Les, it transpires, was an improbable century maker, too "As a batsman he was a bit of a rabbit like me," recalls Bob Elliott, who kept wicket to Les for Darlington II. "Neither of us found it very easy to get the ball on the middle of the bat." Then came FA Cup final day, some time in the 1950s. Darlington played Saltburn. Everything Les touched reached the boundary.

"Bob Samson, the captain, wasn't playing for some reason," recalls Bob.

"He arrived at tea, looked at the scoreboard and asked who'd scored the century.

"They said it was the bald bloke over there. The skipper couldn't believe it. "Les's son Dennis has also been in touch. "That he hit it at all was a miracle, but he did talk about that century. " Les was 92, his funeral yesterday, his death peaceful. "He was watching cricket until the end and waited until we'd won the Ashes," says Dennis. "Dad went out on a high."

GARY Pratt, England's substitute fielder in that celebrated series, continues to make the headlines. The Guardian devotes two of its new-size pages to the Durham batter, though cheerfully admitting that he's all they can afford. Most of the others have publishing contracts now.

It's also revealed that Australian skipper Ricky Ponting, the man who Pratt so contentiously aunt sallied, has given the Crook lad his boots.

They were having a post-series drink. Ponting was just looking at his boots, the way you do when you've been beaten. "Do you want them?" he asked, and didn't need to ask twice.

TIME and space mean that the passing of Brian Dobson, another great Darlington Cricket Club stalwart, must properly be recorded elsewhere in today's paper.

It's important, nonetheless, to salute not just his prowess as a bowler - "the most successful leg spinner we ever had" records Bob Hattersley in his club history - but his extraordinary courage and cheerfulness through many years of disability.

Hattersley notes that in the 50s and 60s Brian's "well-flighted leg breaks, googlies and top spinners were a marked contrast to the pace of S Young and A Johnson," his career best 831 against Stockton.

Alan Johnson recalls a great character, a fine after dinner speaker and a god friend. "I'm 6ft 5in and rode pillion on his motor bike. I still have the bruises. "Brian was 35 when he made his only Durham appearance, against Staffordshire in 1968, his 2-30 including the wicket of Jack Ikin, who'd won 18 England caps but couldn't for the life of him read the debutant.

He didn't score, it didn't matter. "To me," says Alan Johnson, "he was a star. "

LES Childs, bless him, lived in sheltered accommodation overlooking the Darlington RA ground. On Wednesday he could have been one of those with the perfect executive box - best seats in the house, as it were - when RA's footballers played their first home Northern League game for 80 years.

Almost 350 came through the turnstiles - it's only £2 - and would be most welcome when RA stage their next home game, against Hebburn on October 5.

Talk, meanwhile, turned to Spennymoor Town's Arngrove Northern League match against Alnwick the previous evening when Moors striker Kristian Dinsley - known for some reason as Menace - was trying the referee's patience.

"Get him off before he's sent off," yelled Town manager Ken Houlahan, Menace's nemesis.

Mark Brischuk duly came on as sub.

Three minutes later there were flailing arms and handbags. Mr Brischuk, and an opponent, were duly run an early bath.

COLOUR PIECE, Tuesday's column noted that Scotland's football team once wore primrose and pink. Martin Birtle in Billingham suggests, and John Briggs confirms, that there was a noble connection.

The fifth Earl of Roseberry, Liberal prime minister in the 1890s, was also president of the SFA. Primrose and pink were the Roseberry racing colours, worn intermittently by the national team between 1880 and 1951.

The most famous match in the pink was a 4-1 win over England in 1901, Robert S McColl of Queens Park hitting a hat-trick. "I've never seen my colours so well sported since Ladas won the Derby in 1894," said the Earl.

McColl signed for Newcastle United later that year, scored 20 goals in 67 appearances and with the £250 signing on fee he received for returning to Hearts three years later, opened a little sweetie shop.

R S McColl's became a Scottish institution, the founder became known as Toffee Bob. As other Roseberrys might say, topping.

Who's Aaron? How's this for a swift reply?

MENTION of Aaron Travis in Tuesday's column - "Who was he, then?" we'd asked - swiftly elicited an e-mail from Neil Appleby, the great man's grandson.

It also led, once again, to some serious stoking of the search engine. Though the name suggests distinctiveness, there's an Aaron Travis who writes erotica, another who's the subject of a miscarriage of justice campaign in Mississippi and a third who scores goals for Bethel College Falcons, in Wichitaw.

The Aaron Travis in Tuesday's column scored goals for Darlington - 61 in 14 months, we'd said, from 1914-15.

Neil, of course, never saw him play. "I just knew Pop as a great old boy, a wonderful character. I loved him to bits. Family folklore has it that every time he scored he turned a somersault on the way back to the centre circle.

"Today he could have made millions, but back then he just stopped playing one week and went to work at the Rolling Mills the next.

"Darlington gave him a lifetime pass and I used to get in with him. I never paid at Feethams until after Pop died. " Travis had been on Manchester United's books, signed for Darlington from Norwich, marked his debut with a hattrick in the 5-1 North Eastern League win over Jarrow, January 31, 1914.

By the end of that season, he'd hit a further 18 in 13 matches. In 1914-15, while war raged, Darlington played on.

On September 9, 1914, Quakers' third game of the season, Travis hit six in the 10-0 win over Houghton Rovers. "His marksmanship was superb," reported the Echo. "Houghton were outplayed in every department. " That same Wednesday night, West Stanley beat South Shields - "more than a mild sensation in North Eastern League circles" - Hartlepools beat Jarrow and Newcastle United drew 0-0 with Sheffield Wednesday.

On the front page, Russia beat Austria, Germany was retreating and the Kaiser was complaining about the use of dum-dum bullets. Before joining the colours in mid-March Travis had scored 42 goals, still a Quakers record for a season.

Though he served with the Lancashire Fusiliers, Travis never fired his machine gun in anger. "They just wanted him to play football, " says his grandson. "The army looks after its sportsmen, even now. " He died in October 1966, aged 76, the Northern Despatch obituary recalling his part in the Quakers' North Eastern League and Durham Senior Cup double in 1920 and in the fabled FA Cup replay win over Sheffield Wednesday, before a 52,000 crowd at Hillsborough.

He also scored six goals in 11 games in Darlington's inaugural Third Division (North) season, 1921-22, before a long stretch at the Rolling Mills.

Last season Neil, a Darlington investment adviser and enduring Quakers supporter, gave the Aaron Travis Trophy to be awarded each season to the club's top scorer. Clyde Wjnhard won it, with 15.

"Whatever it says on the Internet, there's only really been one Aaron Travis," says Neil.

"This way his name lives on. "

And finally...

THE first English footballer to appear in the finals of major international tournaments in three different decades (Backtrack, September 20) was Tony Adams - European Championships in 1988, 1996 and 2000 and in the 1998 World Cup.

Brian Shaw in Shildon (again) today invites readers to suggest the only player to have appeared in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow derbies. Close to home, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 23/09/2005