WHO'S the best cricketer never to play for his country? Someone posed the question in the Guardian's ever-entertaining Notes and Queries column - now in book form - and received a surprising answer from Paul Thompson. His dad, he said.

Vincent Mather Thompson captained the first XI at Darlington Grammar School in 1938 and 1939, his name still gold writ upon the oak honours boards which line the corridors of what is now Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College.

After that, however, Thompson may have under-achieved - though the lad once saw one of his dad's shots not just reach the boundary but continue across a tarmac playground as wide as the cricket pitch, smack into a wall and bounce back again.

"On leaving school he was offered a place in the Durham county side but turned it down in favour of a career in the civil service, " wrote Paul, from Perth, in Scotland.

After the war his dad turned out in the Lancashire League, captained every team he represented, played until his late 50s before taking up tennis.

Short of that writing on the college wall, research has revealed little, though Denis Towlard in Thornaby (to whom many thanks) discovers V M Thompson's name in a 1945 school magazine, among former pupils with wartime service in the RAF.

From the DGS Magazine in the early 30s, Denis also finds several innings by Chapman Pincher, to become one of the century's great journalists. "Most seemed to be ducks, " says Denis, "though there was a glorious 23."

Google's selection of Vincent Thompsons includes a champion cheese maker, a 7th dan black belt, a countryside warden and a film maker from Sussex but none suggesting that he should have played cricket for England.

Other old boys - perhaps very old boys, by now - may be able to offer memories. And if Vincent Mather Thompson isn't the best cricketer never to be capped by England, then who is?

CONSULTED cap in hand - or not, as the case may be - the Beardless Wonder at once nominates Glamorgan off-spinner Don Shepherd, whose 2,218 first class wickets at 21.32 are more than any non-international in history.

Martin Birtle's suggestion that "Yorkshiremen always say it's Jimmy Binks" may be discounted on the grounds that that enduring wicket keeper played twice in England's 1961-62 tour of Australia.

Though Shepherd's batting was described as "hectic" - he once hit a 15 minute half century against the Australians - an average of 9.67 suggested that he stick to what he was finger licking good at.

Now 78, he was also included in 1981 when the great John Arlott set about his choice of the Great Uncapped.

Arlott's side also included Charles Kortright, said in the early 20th century to have been the fastest bowler in all England and to have been the only one ever to have gone for six byes, after the ball bounced between wickets. Readers may know differently.

Sadly, Arlott considered but rejected the claims of Haverton Hill lad Harold Stephenson, whose senior cricket career began at Billingham.

Stivvie was Somerset's wicket keeper from 1948-64, made 746 catches and 344 stumpings and despite best bowling of 1-0 had career figures of 1-135. Now 85, he still lives in Taunton.

In batting order, Arlott's Unlucky XI were John Langridge, Maurice Hallam, Emrys Davies, Edgar Oldroyd, Jack Newman, Harry Martyn, Peter Sainsbury, Wilfred Wooller, Shepherd, Kortright and Nottingham's Tom Wass, known for some reason as Topsy.

Perhaps with a post-war qualification date, readers may care to name a Nearly Men team of their own.

ANOTHER of the Guardian's queries asked how horse racing is regulated. Weatherby's control it, usually pretty tightly, though those who allowed Who Gives a Donald may have known little of Cockney rhyming slang. Lisidore Kerman named his horse Kybo because when he was at boarding school, his mother always ended her letters KYBO. It stood for "Keep your bowels open." Not many people know that, either.

QUESTION three: "What is the most blatantly wrong decision ever made by a referee in a major football match?"

Inevitably someone mentioned the infamous case of Bayern Munich v FC Nuremberg, when from six yards Thomas Helmer put himself into the net and the ball about five feet wide. The referee gave a goal.

The first answer was much closer to home, however - Sunderland v Oxford, February 9 1993, when referee Stephen Lodge was so aghast at what he'd done, he reported himself to the FA.

It was a wet Wednesday, the Roker Park crowd just 13,300.

Terry Butcher, player/manager for five days, gave games to youngsters Martin Gray, Michael Gray and Anthony Smith.

"They are the foundation for the future, " said Butcher, though Smith made just 19 Sunderland appearances and Martin Gray not many more.

Sunderland won 2-0, the year's first victory, through Michael Gray and Don Goodman's fourth minute penalty - awarded when an Oxford defender handled on the line.

"The linesman flagged and Barnsley referee Stephen Lodge signalled a penalty before showing Ford the inevitable red card, " wrote Frank Johnson in the Echo next morning.

It wasn't all that inevitable. The offender was Andy Melville, to sign for Sunderland six months later.

Referee Lodge admitted it was mistaken identity: so far as he could see, anyway.

Two "Notes and Queries" compilations, one "People" and the other "Places", are published by Guardian Books at £9 99.

BUSY week? Ponder Arthur Puckrin's. His ferrous wheeling now familiar to Backtrack readers, Arthur's just back from the World Quintuple Ironman championships in Mexico.

He completed the 12 mile swim in 11 hours and 45 minutes, followed immediately with a 560 mile cycle ride - one day, 23 hours - and a 131 mile run which, including snatched sleep, embraced three days and 38 minutes.

His total time of five days, 12 hours, 12 minutes and five seconds made him tenth overall, first Over 50 and created a new Over 60s record.

Arthur lives in Acklam, Middlesbrough, and still practises as a barrister. He's 67.

"I was so tired by the end that a chap was running alongside, trying to teach me Spanish to keep me awake, " he reports.

"My feet were stiffening up, but it was worse if I stopped, so I thought it better not to stop."

They gave him a gold medal, and rather appropriately, a large statue of an Inca warrior - "I had a hell of a job getting that on the plane, I can tell you."

He plans a period of relative rest until Christmas, before resuming serious training. Next year there's a deca-ironman. It was only a warm up, really.

SUGGESTIONS hereabouts that Hartlepool United's 1972 record "Never Say Die" flopped - as opposed, of course, to the recently released re-make - are disputed by former Pools defender Malcolm Dawes.

"It was the age of chart rigging, payola and all that, " says Malcolm.

"The girl in Rumbewlow's used to tell me that it was going really well, but people couldn't say so."

Malcolm, 195 Football league appearances for Hartlepool between 1970-75, missed out on that evocative picture of the 1972 recording in last Friday's column. "I was out the back being interviewed by you, " he insists.

Now 61, still singing - "I'm no good, but I sometimes get the karaoke machine out" - he's a qualified coach at both cricket and football.

Whatever the record's fate, musical arranger Ed Welch did rather better for himself. Never say die, he wrote - among much else - the theme tune for One Foot In the Grave.

THAT Hartlepudlian reverie also included the story of Tony Parry's £2500 sale to Derby in 1972 in order to save the club from bankruptcy - a good will gesture by County manager Brian Clough.

It reminded John Irvine of the one and only time he played alongside Burton born Parry.

Long serving former teacher at Ferryhill School, now part-time clerk to Fishburn Parish Council, John's perhaps best remembered hereabouts as a Mainsforth cricketer. In 1968, however, Pools manager Gus MacLean spotted him in a trial and asked him to play centre half in a pre-season friendly, at Tow Law, the following Saturday.

Tony Parry was to his left, Alan Goad - 375 League appearances between 1967-78 - to his right. "Two nicer professionals you couldn't hope to meet."

Even with the senior players' encouragement, even without the usual six feet of snow - it was summer week in Tow Law - John was out of his depth. "It was a point, " he recalls, "which Sentinel made quite clearly in the Hartlepool Mail the following Monday."

Though with Hartlepool another two years - captain of the thirds, sometimes with the reserves - he never again got a first team call up.

"The standard of Tony and Alan showed how much I fell short. I was never good enough, and I knew it."

...and finally

WHAT goalkeepers Barry Siddall, David Harvey and Peter Bonetti had in common after football (Backtrack, November 15) was that all three became postmen.

Siddall, who made 189 Sunderland appearances after succeeding Jimmy Montgomery in 1976, does the rounds in Preston. David Harvey is on Orkney and ex-England international Bonetti had a remote post office on the island of Mull, where once Martin Birtle stumbled across him.

"It really was in the middle of nowhere, " says Martin. "You almost expected to find a hitching rail outside."

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today invites readers to name the sport with which the terms "low house" and "high house" are associated.

A full house, and doubtless something from last night's Local Heroes awards, when the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 18/11/2005