Fitting tribute to Tino, the Big Fella

So he had. Tino was an 18 stone goalkeeper of huge ability and rare agility, a man who played and lived with a smile the size of a plate pie.

He died last October, aged 32, just days after being diagnosed with leukaemia.

An ANL XI played Gretna, tomorrow's Scottish Cup quarter-finalists just 14 years after themselves leaving the Northern league.

"The side that beat the side who beat Celtic, " someone said after last week's 4-0 replay thrashing of Clyde.

"I've heard that one a few times already, " said Brooks Mileson, benevolent chairman of the Arngrove Group and catalyst of Gretna's reputation ripping romance.

Tino was a Hartlepool lad, saved three penalties when Hartlepool Lion Hillcarter won the FA Sunday Cup in a shoot-out, stopped an awful lot more than he had any right to do but never once stopped enjoying life.

Norman Stephens, his boss on the building sites, told how wet-eared newcomers would find a single bite out of each of their dinner time sandwiches or fruit, Tino and the rest of the gang gazing innocently at the bait cabin roof.

A little more disconcertingly, perhaps, Norman also recalled the Big Fella stripped to his boxer shorts, pole dancing round an unfinished stair support.

Jason Ainsley, now assistant manager at Horden, remembered his time at Spennymoor United when the Big Fella had been persuaded to fill a hole at the back.

All morning Steven had been on the phone, wondering how he'd squeeze in, how they'd react to his sizeable presence. Jason told him to be there by 1.45pm, he finally arrived at 2.15.

None ever forgot his first words to his new team-mates: "Sorry I'm late, there was a big queue at the pie shop."

He and his partner Dottie Atkinson had a daughter, Emily, and children Michael and Carly by Dottie's former marriage. Michael, Tino's almost inseparable companion, led the teams onto the field.

There was music from the Houghton-le-Spring Pipe Band - we'd first seen Gretna piped onto the field in an FA Cup tie at Rochdale, no doubt a case of Spotland the Brave - a presentation from Gretna and a minute's silence, emotionally but impeccably observed.

With the associated prize draw and Gretna's cheque, the evening will have raised £10,000 for Steven's dependants. It was a good night, but it would be awful to have to do another.

THE match was at Billingham Synthonia, a nostalgic return for the munificent Mr Mileson.

He was the raggy-trousered lad from Sunderland who at the age of 11 broke his back when the quarry bank on which he was playing gave way beneath him. They said he'd never walk again.

Seven years later, coached at Billingham Synthonia Athletics Club by local legend Gordon Surtees, he became English junior cross country champion and won his first international vest.

"Brendan Foster was seventh or eighth, " he recalls. "Mind, he had a fat backside in those days."

Sometimes he'd catch the train from Wear to Tees; when times were hard he'd hitch. "I wouldn't mind a quid for how many times I've run around that track, " he said.

"I can still see Gordon standing there with his stopwatch. I've had some good times here and some bloody hard times as well. After about 21 I just messed about. I'd proved what I wanted to prove, that I wasn't going to be a cripple."

Things had changed. Though the track was just as clarty as he'd remembered it, no chemical works chimneys emptied into the evening sky. Since there's also a no-smoking policy beneath the stand, the Marlboro heavy Mr Mileson took himself outside and smoked like an ersatz ICI.

He's on Five Live tonight, getting excited about tomorrow. On Tuesday, he'd vanished into the night before anyone could properly thank him.

It was a bit like the Lone Ranger, Mr Brian Quigley a trusty Tonto to the chairman's Kemo Sabe. "I suspect, " said Brian, "that you may hear from him again on Saturday."

THE match programme, a superb tribute to Tino, was produced by Horden CW programme editor John Collings and Dave Lealman, his counterpart at the Synners.

Unfortunately they'd listed tomorrow's quarter-final opponents as St Johnstone; astonishingly, assiduously, they'd prepared a replacement paragraph and pasted it into all 750 copies.

About 500 of those copies remain unsold, the guy and the programme worth an altogether bigger circulation. They're just £1, available from me at the Echo, and like everything else about Tuesday evening, every penny will go to the family.

HOLIER than thou, Tuesday's attempt to pick two teams of professional footballers with biblical surnames - Old Testament v New Testament - brought a nostalgic letter from Dave Kilvert in Darlington. It's the gospel according to Roy Paul.

Not considered good enough for the village school team despite three playground trials, Paul was a former miner who became an anthracite wing half for Manchester City and Wales.

He was also Dave's childhood hero, prompting a homework poem in which "Paul" rhymed - not entirely surprisingly - with "ball" and after that it got tricky.

He's up with the forwards and leaves the defence Hence many goals for and many against.

It went down like an eight stone winger. "Poetically speaking, I think I was 20 years ahead of my time," says Dave.

Particularly he remembers an FA Cup replay, Manchester City v Newcastle United on January 9 1957. He'd bunked off from RAF Padgate, winged it, in order to watch the great Paul.

City, the holders, were 3-0 up in the first 25 minutes, the first an own goal by Magpies' skipper Bob Stokoe. "Newcastle," wrote the Echo's Special Correspondent, "looked a very dejected and well beaten team."

Then things were transformed.

Tom Casey scored from a penalty early in the second half, Bedlington school teacher Alec Tait - in for the injured Jackie Milburn - hitting a spectacular second with 15 minutes remaining.

Though Bill Curry headed an equaliser on 86 minutes, City again went ahead in extra time. Two from Len White put United through.

The Echo's man contrived a journalistic classic - "To single out any man for special praise would be an injustice to the others, but Scoular. . . .". United historian Paul Joannou was less equivocal.

"It ranks as United's finest Cup display in a history of marvellous cup exploits," he wrote in 1986, and nothing thereafter has compelled reconsideration. Newcastle lost to Millwall in the next round.

STILL scripturally, the Stokesley Stockbroker professes surprise at the omission from the New Testament side of Mark Lazarus - no longer a dead certainty but perhaps the only player to qualify with both Christian and surnames. "For the overseas signing," adds the Stockbroker, "look no further than Aston Villa and Juan Pablo Angel."

OUTSTANDING for Colchester in last weekend's FA Cup tie at Chelsea, our ageless old friend Aidan Davison reveals a secret of the Essex club's present success - they've been told to go canny on the tea.

"Phil Parkinson, the manager, says it's a diuretic. I'm getting terrible withdrawal symptoms, " says Aidan, from Close House, near Shildon.

"When I was a kid we lived on fish and chips and tea. I'd rather give up a few pints than my cup of tea."

It's working, for all that, Colchester pushing for promotion and Aidan - who began with Spennymoor United and the Fox and Hounds in Shildon - still starring at 37.

"I'd planned to retire at 35, but Colchester is a lovely little club and Phil has everything absolutely spot on. I'm really enjoying it here."

Despite several times being on the bench for Bradford and Bolton it was the first time he'd played at Stamford Bridge - "they usually dropped me for the big games," he insists.

It was 1-1 at half-time. "When they bring on the likes of Lampard, Crespo and Cole at the start of the second half, you know you're going to have a busy time. I'm afraid that's the way it proved."

TUESDAY'S column confessed to losing a note about the five former Sunderland players sacked as managers this season. Several more organised readers, to whom thanks, confirm them as Chisholm, Scott, Turner, Harford and Burley.

HARRY HERRING? There really were other fish in the sea. After recent recollections of the Hartlepool United player of the 1950s, Philip Steele in Crook confirms that there's also an actor of that name in the North-East.

"Whenever the television companies do anything dramatic about the region, the chances are Harry will be involved, a real trouper of the old school," he says.

The Internet confirms that he's played everything from Marley's Ghost to Old Father Time - "age range 60+" - but probably never played for Hartlepool.

BOBBY Folland (Backtrack, Tuesday) wasn't the only Hartlepool player to hit five in a Football League game - Harry Simmons did it against Wigan Borough on New Year's Day 1931.

Sunderland lad, Simmons signed from Bankhead Albion, managed just 12 in his other 30 appearances and went on to Preston and Aldershot.

Pools have had ten four-timers - Kenny Johnson achieved the feat three times - the most recent Paul Baker against Stockport County in 1990. One was a 25-yard overhead kick, captured by Tyne Tees Television.

"Get your video running, Paul" observed Roger Tames at the time.

"This is one for your grandchildren."

...and finally

THE player who scored twice in the same European Cup final - but on different days - was Vladimir Smicer of Liverpool, against AC Milan last year.

The match was played in Turkey, the penalty shoot-out extending beyond midnight.

Bill Moore in Coundon today invites readers to name the four clubs who've reached the FA Cup final and been relegated in the same season.

More ups and downs on Tuesday.

Published: 24/02/2006