Guiseppe was no ordinary Joe

Last Friday's column recalled as much following a piece in an Italian football magazine. That at the time we were unable to find out much more was because the search engine had been fired with bad coal, or more precisely with a spelling mistake.

Giuseppe's amazing story featured hereabouts in 1992, as Colin Smith in Darlington knew because he still keeps the cutting. It wouldn't do simply to repeat it.

While pursuing wit and Wilson, however, we have also discovered the former Middlesbrough player who's now an IT millionaire in the States, the former Newcastle United player who's a cult commentator on American television and raised questions about the Boro boxer who also tried to punch his weight across the Atlantic.

The Italian job is making work for idle hands.

JOSEPH Wilson was born in Arnold Road, Darlington, on October 27 1945. His father was Dennis Wilson, who'd worked at the Forge, kicked around the local football leagues and met Lina d'Francesca while on army service in Italy.

Lina couldn't settle, Darlington's winters a little too alfresco. Just six months after the baby was born, the family headed forever for Italy.

"It went against our Dennis's grain but he had to make a new life in Italy, " recalled Lil Cowan, Giuseppe's aunt - a sort of Anglo-Italian relation - back in 1992. She still knew him as Pino.

Lazio, a hard bunch, interrupted Guiseppe's law degree to sign the young left back from Internapoli. Tipped for international honours, he did 15 months national service and changed his name in order to gain Italian citizenship.

Lil had been to see him.

"Pino met me in his Mercedes and took me back to his wonderful apartment. He's a marvellous man, tall like my husband was and handsome like him, too."

Giuseppe - with thanks also to Martin Haworth in Morpeth - is now a wealthy lawyer in Naples. That's the brief briefly, anyway.

GIUSEPPE Wilson also spent a season with New York Cosmos in the fledgling North American Soccer League. An Internet image shows him tussling for the ball with Alan Willey of Minnesota Kicks.

Remember Alan Willey? He was a Houghton-le-Spring lad whom Jack Charlton signed for Middlesbrough in 1974, spent a couple of summers in America and after fifty fitful first team appearances for the Boro settled permanently in the States.

That match against the Cosmos was probably his finest - five goals in a record 9-2 win, Charlie George scoring one of the others and Sunderland hero Dennis Tueart in an opposing side managed by Charlton's Eddie Firmani. It's in information technology that he's making his fortune, however.

"The amount of money is ridiculous at the moment, I don't know how much longer it can last, " he concedes from his uptown villa in Bloomington, Minneapolis.

An avid Sunderland fan - "Don't talk about it, I can't wait for Niall Quinn" - he recorded the UEFA Cup final, cheered for the Boro but wished it could have been his own lads.

"Even when I was at Middlesbrough, I'd go to watch Sunderland at Roker Park if I wasn't in the squad. I don't think Big Jack knew that, mind."

Signed as a 17-year-old, unable to gain a regular place, he was sent to America to gain experience. Though the Kicks had average gates of 24,000, most - it's said - where there for the tailgating and the Frisbee tossing in the parking lot out the back.

That the local paper talked of Charlie George being at the crease probably only added to the confusion.

"The Kicks were coached by Freddie Goodwin, the former Birmingham manager, who was taking Frank Spraggon and saw me while he was over in England, " recalls Alan.

"When John Neal became manager he brought Billy Ashcroft and I didn't get a lookin at all. Finally, I just stopped over here."

In the NASL's early days, teams had to have a minimum of two home-grown players. It rose to five.

"There should be something similar back in England, " he says. "It's silly that teams like Arsenal sometimes have no England qualified players at all.

Things seem to have turned full circle and our own players can't get jobs."

In 1976 he married Jane Slater, a Middlesbrough machinist, when both were 19.

It ended several years later, when she wanted to come home and he didn't.

Now he has daughters aged 19 and 17 and a 14month-old son - "a little bit of a surprise" - to whom shortly he hopes to teach soccer (as over there they all call it. ) His father married an American and lives just down the street - Clinton Avenue.

Everything in the garden's so Bloomington lovely, that Alan hasn't been back to Houghton for six years.

"I've no regrets at all about settling here, " he says. "I just wish they could do something about Sunderland."

AMERICAN television football coverage uses what they call "color commentators". By common consent the brightest and most vivid - "a man who puts in so much passion he sounds like he's making love to the game, " a US columnist once observed - is Ray Hudson, known to his Bigg Market marras as Rocky.

Hudson was a Dunston lad, once remarked that the Tyne was so mucky you didn't always need a bridge to cross it, trained as an accountant in Newcastle.

"It was really Dickensian, like something out of Oliver Twist. The best part of the day was going into the city centre at lunchtime and breathing the diesel fumes, " he recalls.

Signed by Newcastle United, he scored once in 20 midfield appearances before spending a 70s' summer with Fort Lauderdale Strikers, in Florida.

"I didn't know places like that existed, " he recalled.

"When I first heard of it, I thought it was an Indian outpost or something."

Like Alan Willey he stayed, enjoyed much success, managed teams like Miami Fusion and DC United - "Like a flea ridden dog, without a lick of respect, " he said of his team on taking over.

On another well remembered occasion he'd stormed into the obligatory post-match press conference, announced that he had nothing to say, asked if there were any questions, answered a moment later that there weren't and stormed out again.

Fusion had won 5-0. None dared wonder what he'd be like if they'd lost.

Now, Rocky of ages, he's best known for his television work and for his one-liners. A defender was said to stick to his man like a stink on a monkey, a forward to be so light on his feet that if he ran on snow, he wouldn't leave a footprint.

"Some think I'm a nut case but that's all right. I just enjoy it all, " he says.

He'd also called, as they say, the UEFA final. "He says some outrageous things in his Geordie accent, " says Alan Willey. "There may only be me who understands him but, believe me, the guy really is kinda funny."

THE boxer was Middlesbrough based Neil Malpass, a 6ft 4in heavyweight who in the same breath as Alan Willey - or at least in the same sports report - was off to America in order to learn the ropes.

A month later he was back, tipped as a future British champion. It never quite worked out.

Malpass, above, fought all over the world against little known opponents like Proud Kilimanjaro, Christian Poncelet, Alfredo Evangelista and Mary (it says here) Konate.

The central area title was the best, briefly, that he could manage.

In 1990 he fought Manny Burgo at the Borough Hall in Hartlepool, was stopped in the third and stopped, thereafter, for ever.

Though it wasn't too hard to find Alan Willey in Bloomington, it has proved impossible to find Neil Malpass around here.

Anyone know what happened to him?

Backtrack briefs....

TUESDAY'S column portentously noted that Steve McClaren was England's second second-choice manager, Alf Ramsey being the first, and asked readers to name the man the FA sought before Sir Alf. It fooled even the most regularly omniscient.

It was Ashington lad and future Sunderland manager Jimmy Adamson, who'd been Walter Winterbottom's assistant in the 1962 World Cup in Chile but turned the boss's job down.

Brian Shaw in Shildon, incidentally, notes that Winterbottom was the last England coach who didn't pick the team - it was done by a committee.

Adamson, right, captained Burnley to the Football League championship, in Europe and in the 1962 FA Cup final - when, notes John Briggs in Darlington, a side managed by Hetton-le-Hole born Harry Potts also included North-East lads John Angus, Tommy Cummings (late of Stanley United), Ray Pointer and Pelton-born Jimmy Robson, who scored.

Any amount of other Northumbrians were at the club. "The last time a NorthEast side reached the FA Cup final, Middlesbrough v Chelsea, I don't think there was one Englishman in the starting 22, never mind a North-East lad, " says John.

Now 77 and a former Footballer of the Year, Adamson still lives in Burnley but declines all public appearances - even to draw the Turf Moor half-time raffle.

THOSE deeply concerned by such things should know that the Brainless Britannia B went out of the 5s and 3s League Cup on Monday, former Football League assistant referee Martin Robinson losing the deciding leg only because (he said) he had food poisoning. We don't claim that the poor lad was nobbled, of course, but there does seem an awful lot of it about.

TUESDAY'S piece on Mainsforth cricket Club president Bob Welsh's 90th birthday noted that he'd played football for Chilton Colliery Welfare. It reminded former referee Stan Evans of Hartlepool that in the 1950s he'd taken the last-ever game there.

The crowd was four, two officials from each side. Game over, they asked Stan how much he wanted - 12/6d match fee, he said, plus four bob expenses - bus from Hartlepool to Thinford and from Thinford down to Chilton.

"The home officials seemed to be having trouble raising the money and said that they were skint. I agreed just to take the expenses, four shillings."

Grateful, the officials told him to look round and take anything he wanted. "After a quick shufty, I spotted the first aid box and thought a bottle of embrocation would be nice.

"Upon opening it, I discovered just four sticking plasters and took them home. I'd heard of people being paid in washers, but it was the only time I've ever been paid in plasters."

AS may perhaps be imagined, Armourpost of Gateshead make security shutters. They also sponsor the DRV Cricket Cup, in north Durham. It was unfortunate that last year the column called it the Amourpost - "amour" being French for passion - and perhaps more unfortunate that our sport fixtures still refer to it in that way. The trophy was at once dubbed the Lovestick - and Lovestick, reports competition secretary Keith Nicholson in West Boldon, it seems destined forever to remain.

ZOE Birtle in Billingham, brainbox daughter of one of our regular correspondents, got her first degree at Cambridge. While she was there, Cambridge United were relegated from the Football League.

Her post-graduate year was at York. They, too, went down during her residence.

Zoe has now completed her researches at Oxford, who succumbed to the Conference at the weekend. "It took her two years but she got them in the end, " says Martin, her dad.

Zoe's now looking for a job.

"I've begged her, " says Martin, "not to take anything in Hartlepool or Darlington."

JUST seven £30 tickets remain for tomorrow's Scottish Cup final, Gretna v Hearts at Hampden. Take them on their own, take them as part of an Arngrove Northern League coach package from Billingham or Darlington - £12 a head extra - but just take them off my hands. Ring 01325 505085 during the day or 07787 568181 tonight.

Thanks.

...and finally

WORLD Cup almost upon us, Brian Shaw invites readers to name the nine players who've been sent off - one of them twice - while on full England duty.

Another off-day on Tuesday.

Published: 12/05/2006