Barry Robson was a self-styled "rookie bouncer" at Wetherell's night club in Sunderland. Everyone went there in the 60s, both to watch the top-line turns and to see Sunderland's footballers, some of whom seemed almost to be part of the fantastical fittings.

Best known and perhaps most familiar of all was "Slim" Jim Baxter, a Scottish international midfielder of intuitive genius who'd arrived from Rangers in May 1965 for a £72,500 fee.

Barry, then just 17, particularly remembers the night of Friday March 3 1967, Baxter in the club with young team mate Bobby Kerr - a scrawny 20-year-old from Dumbarton - and his cousin George Kinnell, the centre half.

Baxter, he recalls, was polite, friendly and personable. Kinnell was lean and mean and never said a word. The following day all three were due to play in the big derby, at home to Newcastle United.

"I'm not sure what manager Ian McColl's views were on players clubbing and drinking before a game," writes Barry in a new book, "but the language would have been choice, Scottish and blue."

At 2.30am he was on the door - "waiting for the dregs to go home" - when a taxi driver announced that he was looking for three passengers.

"At the top of the landing, to all intents carrying a stiff, were Kerr and Kinnell. They gently carried the comatose Baxter down the stairs....the two Ks looked and sounded fairly sober but Slim Jim was well and truly gone."

The match kicked off barely 12 hours later, 50,000 in. Sunderland walloped them 3-0, Kerr scoring twice and George Mulhall the other.

Barry recalls Baxter's breathtaking brilliance, mesmerising the Magpies.

Frank Johnson wrote in the following Monday's Northern Echo of how Baxter ended up taking the Mickey out of Newcastle and of Kerr's rich promise.

"This kid looks like being Sunderland's best outside right since the days of Harry Hooper. He has the heart of a lion and a snap-crackle-and-pop brain."

Barry Robson, now chairman of the North Yorkshire branch of the Sunderland Supporters Club, retains his astonishment. "The guy's recuperative powers must have been amazing.

"To transform from dead drunk to midfield general in less than half a day leaves me wondering how his career might have been if he was a fitness buff and went light on the tipples."

A month later, Baxter dazzled the world champions in Scotland's 3-2 win over England at Wembley. That December he signed for Nottingham Forest and three years later he retired, still just 30, to take a pub. It wasn't a good move.

As his star faded, his drinking became a problem and then an addiction. He had two liver transplants in 1994, never fully recovered, and died of cancer in 2001.

March 4 1967? Third division Queens Park Rangers defeat West Bromwich Albion in the League Cup final at Wembley after being 2-0 down at half-time, a Don Rogers hat-trick helps Swindon beat Middlesbrough 4-1, the match between Bishop Auckland and Tow Law ends in a punch-up and a "brilliant young Billingham runner" becomes the first North Yorkshire and South Durham athlete to be chosen for the England junior cross country team. Brookes Mileson still runs and runs.

A1995 paperback called The Best of Times tumbles almost wilfully from the shelves. "Like me," begins George Best in chapter 11, "Jim Baxter has fought a battle with the booze.

"I know he won't mind me saying it, but Jim went a lot further down that dark and dismal road than I did....."

Black Catalogue, in which the story of Slim Jim's big night out appears, is a vividly illustrated collection of memories and anecdotes from Sunderland fans.

"That was the story which generated it really," says editor Ken Gambles, a teacher from Knaresbrough. "Barry would tell the tale and we thought it deserved a wider audience."

There are also brief guest appearances from the likes of Charlie Hurley, Niall Quinn, Bob Murray - "being a Sunderland supporter is part of your birthright" - and Sir Tim Rice, who claims to have become a Sunderland fan because as a child he liked the name.

"I thought it sounded like a sun blessed Caribbean island."

Ken's a Yorkshireman, Barnsley lad and cow heel accent to boot, started supporting Sunderland 41 years ago because he liked Jimmy Montgomery. It was January 2 1965, at Leeds.

No matter that they lost 2-1 or that Sandy McLaughlin kept goal, he was smitten. "I just thought Sunderland were brilliant," he says.

Once again, of course, times are rather less bright burnished. "I didn't think it could get any worse than the nightmare season, but maybe it can. We've been through it so many times, you almost grow accustomed."

Barry was born in Seaham Harbour, went to Durham University, now teaches in Harrogate. "There are worse clubs than us in the four divisions," he insists.

"It's like those stickers in the back of cars which say that a dog isn't for Christmas it's for life. No matter what happens, it's exactly the same with Sunderland."

*The book, well produced and excellent value, offers the perfect Christmas present to Sunderland fans in urgent need of cheering up. Available from Ottakars, Waterstones and from the club shop, it's published by PDG Books at £11.95.

Big Jack Charlton, 70 and still straight-backed, spoke at Spennymoor Town's do last Thursday. He drank water, swore it was his last after-dinner speech. Like some of his stories, people had heard that one before.

Perhaps the most memorable line came from Tyneside comedian Terry Joyce, lamenting the fact that Newcastle/Gateshead had lost out to Liverpool in the City of Culture bid.

"I did a show there last week," he said. "When I came out, my car was propped up on four encyclopaedias."

Over 40s League secretary Kip Watson, 88 yesterday, rungs to report that Doug Grant of Newton Aycliffe scored in 16 seconds against Wearmouth CC on Saturday. This is the same deadly Duggie who, when a local businessman promised a colour television to any Shildon player hitting a Northern League hat-trick, managed five in a season about 15 years ago. Kip doubts if he'll be so similarly set fair this time - "but if he's lucky, we might give him a tankard."

Discussing bizarre bookings, The Guardian's "Knowledge" website recalls legendary Bishop Auckland goalkeeper Harry Sharratt going into the book for building a snowman on the Kingsway goal line. Harry always reckoned the story apocryphal. Did anyone actually see the thing under construction?

And finally...

Billy Smith's "first" for Huddersfield v Arsenal in 1924 (Backtrack, December 2) is that he scored direct from a corner - which no Football League player had done previously.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to name the youngest player to appear in a competitive match for two different Premiership or Football League clubs.

Old as you feel, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 06/12/2005