When he left home at 23, John Elliott was one of a family of six in a two-up, two-down.

Now he and his wife Margaret share five bedrooms, six netties, a swimming pool, snooker room and much else in the house near Crook once owned by Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips.

There are 150 sheep, too, but they don't usually get allowed in.

There's also a bar on which a hand pump displays a clip for something called Miss Whiplash but which, said John, was purely for show. Bad crack, as probably they say of Miss Whiplash.

It was there that we gathered on Friday night for a race night to help West Auckland FC of which John - the most unassuming of men - is president.

He ran the bar, Margaret made the pies and peas.

Others played on the snooker table used in the 1978 Embassy World championship, the last table on which Joe Davis ever played.

"I don't know about Joe Davis, this lot's more like Bette Davis" said former Darlington goalkeeper Phil Owers, now West's assistant manager.

John Elliott, the genius behind the Ebac empire, was at home in more ways than one. He's a racing man, too, several horses in training with Howard Johnson at Crook.

The best's Khastari, bred by the Aga Khan. It won at 9-4 at Doncaster yesterday.

It was a good night, West also supported by Ken and Anita Wynne, a Darlington couple who in 2001 won £3.6m on the Lottery and who wear their wealth lightly.

Ken, Man City fan, had just won 15 pints on the Archdeacon beer draw and ten at Hogan's. "They called me worse than clarts," he said - or words to that effect, inevitably.

At Smith's on Newcastle Central station the following evening, 6pm was just like the good old days.

The Magpies' game at West Ham having kicked off half an hour late, the Pink was similarly delayed.

Football men hung awkwardly around, leafing through magazines - only the titles have changed - like Loaded, Airline World and X Box 360 (The official X Box magazine.")

There were lots of copies of The Economist, too, though none seemed in a hurry even surreptitiously to read them.

It won't happen again. After 110 years of helping stoke Saturday night fever, the Evening Chronicle's sports edition was appearing for the last time.

Other Pinks, not least the dear old Despatch in Darlington, had faded long ago. The problem these days is that when Saturday comes, it doesn't always bring a football match.

John Gibson's nostalgic piece in the final edition recalled that last season only 14 of Newcastle's 38 Premiershop matches had a Saturday kick-off of 3pm or earlier.

This season there've been ten blank Saturdays out of 21.

He also recalled the long gone afternoon when phoning his report from St James's was interrupted by the copy taker saying he'd have to go because the building was burning down. As he returned, the sports editor was being helped from the window by the fire brigade.

Earlier at the Newcastle Blue Star match, stories had abounded of eager queues outside the paper shop, of bundles of newspapers seized upon before they even reached the shop, of reading the sports edition until the Billy Cotton Band Show and finishing it afterwards. Times change, the Pink is now the late final.

Pipes and drums playing in High Northgate - he swears it was coincidence - Gretna FC supremo Brooks Mileson arrived in Darlington yesterday for his annual ham and pease pudding sandwich fest at the Brit.

They're 11 points clear at the top of the Scottish second, sold more replica shirts last week than they did all last season, have recently held a competition among fans - top prize £500 - to design a new strip.

One of the suggestions featured a shirt with £50 and £20 notes all over it. "We gave it an award for the most bizarre," says Brooks.

Perhaps by way of diverting attention from the club's disappointing form of late, Durham City's programme on Saturday carried the story of a Birmingham feller buying lots of stuff from the gent's outfitters in that Midland city.

"Finally," he said, "I'd like a kipper tie."

"Certainly replied the assistant, "milk and sugar?

With his wife and daughter-in-law, John Littlefair - Methodist local preacher and former chairman of Shildon FC - reports watching his grandson play rugby for Mowden Park seconds in Darlington.

A dust-up between two players was followed by what John calls a bout of "extremely foul" language.

"The referee took action to discipline the offenders but then, to our amazement, left the field to come over to us profusely to apologise for what we had heard and witnessed."

Mrs Littlefair - "who understands rugby even less than soccer" - was particularly impressed. John now looks forward to a referee at an Arngrove Northern League match having the "bottle" to act simultaneously.

"Of course," he adds, "pigs may yet fly."

So they may. The Christmas edition of the ANL magazine reports that attempts to get the FA to play by the laws of the game - using "offensive, insulting or abusive language" remains a sending-off offence - have failed.

The FA has told referees to differentiate between swearing with "venom" and that used out of "frustration."

"The FA has virtually given players carte blanche to swear their silly heads off for 90 minutes," said a near-speechless League spokesman.

"I don't think people any longer find the f-word offensive," said FA referees director Joe Guest.

Another Shildon lad, Alan Morland, was up with Shildon Railway at Wheatley Hill on Saturday - "a very strong and physical side who easily beat us 5-1." Halfway through, the chimes of the local ice cream van came wafting across the pitch. "Most play Greensleeves or Match of the Day," says Alan. "This one played the theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Once a reporter in the Echo's Newcastle office and still an ardent Sunderland supporter, Chris Nelson is now news editor of the Calgary Sun, which every year runs a Christmas appeal. Chris offered $100 for every goal Sunderland scored against Charlton - and when, perhaps predictably, they didn't score any, he wrote a $100 cheque, anyway.

And finally...

All sorts of people tried to strike it lucky with Friday's question - the only team of the English "92" whose name, in capital letters, can be spelt out in match sticks without bending or breaking.

Halifax was a popular choice until it was pointed out that they're no longer in the League. The answer was Millwall.

Paul Dobson in Bishop Auckland today invites readers to name the ten footballers who've appeared in every Premier League season since its inception.

We'll try to squeeze the answer in when the annual review makes its festive appearance on Friday.

Published: 20/12/2005