Two decades on we're still happily on the back track

The Backtrack column is 20 years old tomorrow. Though it has won two national sports journalism awards and many more regional honours, the back track is where, contentedly, it has remained.

That first wet eared effort reported principally on the "No swearing" campaign at Ryhope CA FC - they'd lost 6-0 to Crook, "enough to make St Mirren swear" - wondered (and still does) why "flapping tracks" are so called and announced the birth of a son for Peter Mullings, 6ft 8in star of the QRS Sunderland basketball team.

We also noted that West Auckland farmer and former Grand National winning jockey Brian Fletcher would that day be saddling Mr Kan - his first runner as a trainer - that the angling club at redundancy threatened Coles Cranes in Sunderland had lifted a 7oz dab between the lot of them and that "chirpy" Eric Gates had bet £20 at 66-1 on Sunderland to win promotion after his side lost their first five games.

That the column has for so long been sustained is due entirely to an extraordinarily faithful band of readers, whose contributions and interest are forever welcomed.

Some have become good friends, others remain at technology's extremities but feel like good friends, anyway. A few have simply led us astray, most memorably Mr Paul Hodgson and friends to Cardiff via Milton Keynes.

There may be a year or two yet before Backtrack reaches the final straight. As for Mr Kan, he couldn't; as for Sunderland, they finished 18th in the second division.

Kip Watson, 87-year-old secretary of the Over 40s League, has probably contributed more column inches than any man alive - or in the other state, come to that. Last Saturday, he reports, Alan Foster of Langley Park - now 54, once familiar in the Northern League - scored after just five seconds against Wingate. Off to a flyer, Langley Park won 10-0. It's not a record, however. "He still has three seconds to beat," says Kip.

Where, too, would we have been these past 20 years without the folk who live on Stanley Hill Top?

Mention on October 21 of Stanley United's demise prompted Paul Beken in Durham to recall the late, great Doug Raine, a binman off the field and a fabled hard man on it.

"The type, to be honest, who everyone would want in their team if they could find one," says Paul - but wonders if the story that Doug was twice banned sine die can really be true. New meaning to getting a life, anyway.

Harry Brook, that indomitable veteran athlete from Crook, not only remembers happy days on the Hill Top - "We Billy Row folk regularly climbed up Billy Hill to shout for the Nops" - but sends copies of cards he's discovered while researching the International Order of Rechabites.

It was, perhaps still is, a temperance and friendly society. On the 20th anniversary of so affable a column, it seemed, in part, appropriate.

At 7.30pm two Sundays ago, a BBC lady called Rosie rang about a programme on non-league football grounds. The following day they were filming at Consett, that characterful old ground built 55 years ago by voluntary labour from the steel works.

Rosie wanted to know where else they might usefully point the camera and was at once referred to Tow Law, that home of many heady delights, and to dear old Stanley and the Little House on the Prairie.

Four days later she reported enthusiastically back. Tow Law was wonderful, she said, Stanley United beyond imagination.

The show, presented by poet Ian MacMillan, goes out in a couple of weeks. It's called The Culture Programme: what else?

Culture upon culture, Tow Law FC plan the inaugural World Skilful Dominoes Championship - "unofficial", they insist, but novel, nonetheless.

The idea is that, playing singles, each player on either side of eight tables picks up the same pre-selected dominoes and has the same number of downs.

"It sounds complicated but it's not," insists Charlie Donaghy, the organiser. "All it does is take the element of luck out of the game."

Entry is £5, qualifying rounds for 16 players on November 18 and 25 with a round robin final on December 9. The world champion receives £150 and a trophy, the runner-up £50. Details after 7.30pm each evening from Kevin McCormick on 01388 731443 or by sending a fiver to the club. We've entered, of course.

That Pires penalty a couple of Saturdays back puts both Dave French in Hartlepool and Tom Clark in Stockton on a familiar spot.

Tom recalls the same thing in a match between an "All Star" side and Leeds United, then managed by Sunderland legend Raich Carter.

"The All Stars did exactly the same. It was only a few quid for charity but Carter went absolutely berserk. It shows nothing's changed; football people still don't know the rules."

Dave and his pal Barry Venus - whose lad Mark is now Tony Mowbray's No 2 at Hibs - tried it in the Hartlepool Junior League 50 years ago. "I touched the ball forward and it stuck in the mud. As the ball didn't travel its full circumference, the referee gave a free kick to our opponents, though Barry had belted it in."

Ten years later they did it again, more successfully. Dave claims he got the idea FROM Raich Carter - what goes around comes around, he says, but only so long as it's travelled the full circumference.

Noting in our last column the death of Johnny Haynes - the "passing" might perhaps have been more appropriate - we recalled his part in Fulham's 4-1 FA Cup victory at Sunderland, January 4 1969.

Sunderland were 17th in the old first division, Fulham bottom of the second. To add insult to injury, recalls Peter Charlton, the Londoners played after a colour clash in light blue shirts and black shorts - Sunderland's rather raggy kit from the memorable 1963-64 FA Cup run.

Sunderland were woeful, Haynes - at the slightly portly end of his career - magnificent. "For some reason Allan Brown didn't have anyone marking him," says Peter, aghast despite a few pre-match cordials in the Howard Arms.

After a few post-match comforters in the Argo Frigate he was able to put things into perspective. "I'd been weaned on great passers of the ball like Stan Anderson, Ernie Taylor, Johnny Crossan and Jim Baxter. I'd now been privileged to see one of the all-time greats at the top of his game."

Manager Brown argued that Sunderland were simply at a transitional stage. "With Allan Brown," says Peter, "we always were."

Ian Crumplin, scorer of an extraordinary 401 goals in ten seasons with Newcastle Blue Star - including the 1978 FA Vase final - was among top table guests at Blue Star's 75th anniversary dinner on Friday.

Now 51, the legendary Crumpy drives a bus in Newcastle and rarely has Saturdays off.

Ideally, he'd still love to be playing. "If anyone drives a bus and fancies swapping shifts," he said, "I'd be up for it tomorrow."

And finally...

The highest scoring Englishman in the Premiership never to have been capped by his country (Backtrack, October 21) is Kevin Campbell.

John Briggs in Darlington today invites readers to name the Premiership or Football League club whose ground lies closest to the River Mersey.

The score - plus two days - on Friday.

Published: 01/11/2005