Hume's historic milestone

The former plumber has become the first disabled angler ever to be chosen for England's full, able bodied, fly fishing team.

The team get to wear the three lions. None will ever have sported it more proudly.

"It's no good crying, yowlin' on, because when you've finished crying nothing's changed," says Stewart, a high flyer, if ever.

"I like a bit of a challenge, not one of those who sits looking out of the window feeling sorry for himself. If you put your mind to it, you can do almost anything from a wheelchair."

Stewart, 51, spent almost a year in hospital - "12 weeks flat on my back, that was the worst bit of all" - after coming off his bike at a meeting.

"The bike hit me in the back and severed my spinal chord. I wouldn't care, it was my own bike as well.

"Before that I'd been a trials rider, never won owt but came close once or twice. I'd also played football for the school team; I suppose I should have stuck to the football."

Half in jest, it's the only suggestion of self-pity. "You just have to get on with things, don't you?" he says. Clearly it's something in the water.

Born on Stanley Hill Top - readers may imagine a little interlude in which we swapped stories of The Little House on the Prairie - he now lives in Crook, alone in a house full of fishing trophies and tight turning circles. There are koi carp out the back.

After the accident he was so desperate to stay active that he took up basketball, playing for a team in Milton Keynes which won an international tournament in France.

Then someone suggested angling, initially on the Tees, which quickly progressed to fly fishing from a boat. "It's a drug, it takes you over. Once you start that's it," he says.

"Lots of people still think that fishing is a just a matter of holding a rod out and waiting for something to bite, but in fly fishing you're always thinking, always working your arms.

"The man who thinks he knows it all would soon be in for a very big fall."

At first he fished from the bank, found access difficult, and now fishes from a boat in a seat he made himself in the workshop at the bottom of the garden.

He has also qualified as a boat driver. "I got sick of being stitched up by people. If you're in a wheelchair at one end and they're at the other, they take you where they want to go.

"I have no balance at all. If there wasn't a back to the wheelchair I'd be falling all over, but in a boat I can go anywhere."

He was first chosen for England's disabled team in 1999 and is also a member of the Rutland Raiders - their home water 175 miles away - who came second in the European championship.

Sometimes they practise for three days before a match. "They're a very good side," Stewart concedes, "Obviously they ask quite a lot of their members.

"You have to learn everything about the fish - how they feed, what they live, how important the weather is, what colour flies are best in different conditions."

Selection for the full England team came after a series of eliminators - "I do things the long way round" - firstly against the country's leading disabled fishermen and then against the best of the rest.

"The cheering that went up when my name was announced in the team was wonderful, I couldn't hear what the announcer was saying after that.

"A lot of people were very happy. Fishing for the disabled team was brilliant, but at the back of your mind you're thinking that they don't quite take it as seriously as the able bodied lads. It was always an ambition, but I never really thought it could happen."

The team announcement was in Rutland, too. "The journey back up the A1 seemed a lot shorter that night," says Stewart.

His ambition now is to win a Brown Bowl - the top award in a full international - which already he's won in a disabled competition.

In the season he fishes three times a week, ever looking to improve. "It's funny how things work out, I don't suppose I'd ever have been a full international at any other sport.

"I've done in a wheelchair what I never thought possible, really. My view's simple: you get out what you put it."

Backtrack Briefs

Several indulgent readers, including Martin Walker and John Smitheron, have pointed out a mistake in the question (Backtrack, October 4) about seven black footballers who've played for both Middlesbrough and England.

There were only six. Dean Gordon won Under 21 honours but never a full cap.

Boro paid Crystal Palace £900,000 for his signature in July 1998. After 53 League appearances he joined Coventry on a free, played at the end of last season in Cyprus and now owns a fashion and sports shoe shop in Darlington.

The question was traced back to Boro fan Alan Gray in Sadberge, near Darlington, who coincidentally bumped into Gordon at a Quakers match last week and put it to him directly.

Gordon, now 32, quickly reeled off six, without mentioning himself. Gray matter, that's when Alan began to suspect that he may possibly have miscounted.

Reckoned the world's oldest weed, mares tail continues to twitch. After recent columns on its cussedness, Billingham Town FC chairman Tom Donnelly was all but choked with suggestions for its extinction.

"One caller said we should steam it out and another use ice, exactly the opposite," reports Tom.

Another recommended a combination of brushwood and paraffin, without adding whether a match should be put to it.

Perhaps, however, the most practical solution came from a building contractor. "He recommended we concrete the whole lot over," says Tom. "I'm beginning to think he had a point."

Tuesday's column hinted at a major announcement that morning involving a Hartlepool sports equipment firm and the Northern Ireland FA. Crest Teamwear, now part of Brooks Mileson's Arngrove Group, are to sponsor both senior and junior FA cups for the next two years.

"The response has been tremendous. We want to get into Northern Ireland and this is a great way to do it," says Brooks.

The middle man is Tommy Cassidy, the Coleraine born midfielder who made 180 Football League appearances for Newcastle United between 1970-79, won 24 Northern Ireland caps and who now manages Workington.

"Tommy's a legend over there. He's been very useful," says Brooks. "We're delighted to be across the Irish Sea."

Marsden Inn v Houghton-le-Spring Cricket Club, Over 40s League, last Saturday. Andy Woollet scores for Houghton after seven seconds - from an intercepted back pass to the goalkeeper.

League secretary Kip Watson, who's been a canny few times around the block, is still trying to work out how it happened.

"Marsden kicked off and must have played the ball forward. The referee insists that it was only seven seconds in total before the ball finished in the back of their own net.

"I suppose that's what you get for negative football."

Downsized but always uplifting, Frank Keating in the Guardian recalls a royal snub at Seaham Harbour as the beginning of the monarchy's long standing indifference towards football.

It was 1890, just 2,000 people turning out to see Edward, Prince of Wales, launch a battleship at Seaham while, up the road, 25,000 watched Sunderland beat Blackburn Rovers 3-1 in their inaugural Football League season.

Persuaded nonetheless to become FA president on his accession, Edward VII at once attended a Manchester City match on the old Hyde Road ground but left hurriedly when someone - United fan presumably - tried to set light to the stand.

Though he reigned until 1910, Edward never again attended a football match. Prince William, Aston Villa fan and president-elect, will doubtless be more obliging.

And finally

The Yorkshireman who was capped for England against Australia and who in 1975 also helped Manchester United win promotion from the second division (Backtrack, October 4) was Arnie Sidebottom.

Among those who knew was John Briggs in Darlington, who recalls Arnie's observation that Tommy Docherty was prepared to let him finish the season early, to play cricket for Yorkshire, "provided there was nothing at stake."

Considering that 1972-73 and 1973-74 were both relegation battles, says John, perhaps he should have read between the lines.

Brian Shaw, again, recalls that only one player appeared both in the first all-London FA Cup final of the 20th century, in 1967, and in the second eight years later. Readers are invited to name him.

The column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 7/10/2005