Ironman conquers tempest

It was last weekend's World Cup Triple Ironman event in Virginia - an eight mile swim followed at once by a 336 mile cycle ride and then by a near-80 mile run.

"Your body gets accustomed to going without sleep," he says, as insouciant as insomnolent.

Arthur, 67, was 23 years the senior of the next oldest competitor, his feet held together at the end by a combination of duck tape and super glue.

"The doctor had worked with the special forces and said it was what they used," he says. "It certainly seemed to protect my damaged Achilles tendon very well." That wasn't the half of it. Let the still-practising barrister, latest in a ferrous line of Middlesbrough ironmasters, take the plunge.

"We started at 7am. The swim was fine at first but near the end we hit the tail end of one of those hurricanes. Normally the lake is nice and calm, lovely and warm, but suddenly the storm blew up so violently that we couldn't even see where we were going.

"The referee's boat was blown to shore, the official tents and some of our gear were blown away. Fortunately we were parallel with the shore and more or less knew where we were heading, but it was like the lake was on top of you as well as underneath." Dry land again - the phrase is figurative - he jumped at once into the saddle. "It was absolutely pouring down, utterly horrendous. At first I thought it was very English weather, and I should be all right." Half way, 2am, he decided on a couple of hours rest - "wet cycling clothes, no point in changing into anything else" - in a tent. They woke him at four.

"I could hear the rain absolutely slashing off the tent and thought 'Sod this'," says Arthur - the term may not be the usual legal expression - but got back on his bike, anyway.

The cycle completed, he began the triple marathon - in walking boots, further to protect his damaged Achilles. "I thought I could run down hill and walk up. Fortunately I was feeling all right but my feet were in a bad way." That's where the duck tape and super glue came in. Special forces, indeed.

The swim took six hours 20 minutes, the ride - 336 miles, remember - 28 hours 40 minutes, the triple marathon 31 hours. He was fourth overall, not quite golden Virginia - which headline writers and pipe smokers might have preferred - but utterly extraordinary, nonetheless.

Back home in Acklam, barely able to get up and down stairs, he still has other irons in the fire.

In Mexico next month there's a quintuple ironman contest, getting on twice as far. "I'll be OK by then," insists the peerless pensioner. "In that one we're hoping for world records."

NO picture postcard himself, Jimmy Greaves in his new autobiography recalls boy against man tussles with the granite hewn Jimmy Scoular, nearing the end of his shift at Newcastle United.

"He was built like a coke machine with a bald head and, at the sides, thick wedges of unkempt dark hair.

The most striking parts of Jimmy's visage were a forehead hammered flat through contact with a thousand muddy leather balls and a nose that made Karl Malden's look like Kylie Minogue's.

"If Tom Watts's voice could ever be turned into a face, it would look exactly like Jimmy. In addition to his Exocet tackles, every part of his body seemed to jut out wherever necessary, in order to inflict maximum pain." Signed to replace Joe Harvey in 1953 for a club record £22,250, Scoular made 271 first team appearances scoring just six goals but preventing many more. He became Bradford PA's player/manager in 1961.

LAST Saturday to Consett, where the Steelmen's 12 against poor old Guisborough Town provoked queries about a Northern League record. Hardly; South Bank once scored 12 in 45 minutes.

It was Monday April 29 1895, North Skelton Rovers late arriving and rather wishing they hadn't.

Rovers were nine down at half time - the second half, reported the Echo, even more disastrous than the first.

The paper having no room to record all the scorers, they recorded none of them. 21-0 remains a league record.

Sobriety the secret to success

TOP of the table, as it were, Tuesday's column noted that the George and Dragon at Heighington had won the national "combinations" 5s and 3s championship in Bridlington.

What we hadn't realised was their secret weapon. They stayed firmly on the wagon. The finals embraced 64 pub and club teams. It started at 10am and didn't end until almost 12 hours later.

"It's not hard to abstain," insists team captain Colin Holmes by way of sober reflection. "There are teams who start drinking at half past ten and by mid-afternoon they're ratted.

"We realise that to have a chance of winning, we mustn't drink at all.

Norman Kent, one of our team, reckons that when beer's in, brain's out. We reckon he's right." That the day didn't end until 9.

30pm was partly down to the singles competitor who took an hour to play 40 holes - dominoes men will understand. "It was terrible, we were going up the wall," says Colin.

The team comprised Colin and his brothers Alan and Brian - what might be termed a north Holmes service - plus Steve Smith, Brian Anderson and the ubiquitous Norman Kent.

The Co Durham pub team had also won the national title in 1999 and 2000, in both years with Colin Stainsby plus Billy Walker in 1999 and Alan Stainsby the following year.

Having beaten their neighbours from the Grey Horse in Darlington in the finals showdown last Saturday, the lads then retired to their hotel and, by way of a change, played 5s and 3s until 3am.

"This time," says Colin,"we had quite a few pints to make up for lost time."

Durham great plays final innings

JACKIE Keeler, reckoned one of the best blokes and greatest batsmen ever to play cricket for Durham, has died after a long illness. He was 81.

His finest hour was against the West Indies at Sunderland in 1950, 18,000 crowds - paying £1,200 each day - watching Jackie hit 90 and 97 against an attack which included the legendary Sonny Ramadhin.

Clive Walcott, the West Indian captain, told him he must be one of only two Englishmen - Len Hutton the other - who could read Ramadhin.

"Could I hell, no one could," Jackie told the column many years later.

"If it was down the right hand side it was his off break, down the left his leg break and if it was down the middle I didn't know what the hell it was." The tourists had scored 375 and 214-4, Ken Trestrail hitting two centuries and Jeff Stollemeyer bagging two ducks. Durham managed 163 and 214-4, Jackie out in the second innings as he went for his century.

After 14 fours, said the Echo next morning, it was his only false stroke.

"I was so knackered I wasn't bothered about centuries," insisted Jackie, a Coal Board wages clerk. "I was just glad to get out." Afterwards, Horden offered him £17 a week to be their professional.

"I told them I'd not be able to sleep if I played for that. Cricket was there to be enjoyed." That same July day, Freddie Brown hit 122 in 110 minutes for Gentlemen against Players, Wardle and Firth wagged Yorkshire's tail and former Hartlepools United full back Harry Hooper became the club's full time assistant trainer. He died in 1970.

John George Keeler, usually known as Chip - "it was after Keiller's Little Chip maramlade, different spelling mind" - was born in South Moor, Stanley, and was happy to remain there.

He played for the village side from the reputedly haunted pavilion at Quaking Houses, was professional at Benwell, Burnmoor and Chesterle-Street, turned down Leicestershire and made 62 Durham appearances with a top score of 135, against the touring Indians in 1952.

Brian Hunt, Durham's statistician and scorer, recalls the nicest of men. "He wasn't the height of two pennorth of copper, but like a lot of little men he was a very good cutter and puller." "A really good technical player and a smashing lad, always good value for money," says former Durham team mate Jack Watson.

Jackie had made his county debut as an 18-year-old in 1942, run out without scoring. "It was a blodger," he'd recalled, a little inexplicably.

"My grandfather was cricket daft and very proud. He never forgave the chap who did that."

Shortly afterwards he was called up for the Royal Navy, carrying a cricket bat in his hammock and vowing he'd play cricket anywhere, even submarines.

In a Durham career which lasted until 1957, he was also involved in the county's then record opening stand, 215 with Harry Bell against Yorkshire II at Scarborough on the day after his first bairn was born.

They'd all had a few the night before. "Ronnie Burnett, the Yorkshire captain, took one look at us, decided we were all poorly and put us in on a beauty, Our first three got centuries that day.

"I saw Ronnie Burnett the year after. He still thought we'd conned him." Jackie died in a South Stanley nursing home. His funeral is at Mountsett Crematorium at 1 15pm today.

And finally ...

THE Englishman who in the year 2000 became the oldest player to appear in the Champions League (Backtrack, October 11) is John Lukic, then 39.

Still in safe hands, John Briggs in Darlington not only points out that the three oldest Premiership have all been goalkeepers - dear old John Burridge, Steve Ogrizovic and David Seaman, in that order.

For good measure, John adds that Portsmouth's first ever goalkeeper was Arthur Conan Doyle, playing as A C Smith.

Still on a literary note, the Stokesley Stockbroker today invites readers to name the only winner of the Novel Prize for Literature to appear, in his own right, in Wisden.

To book again on Tuesday.

Published: 14/10/2005