Backtrack: Topical secrets of a local referee

It was published by DC Thomson - they of Broons and Beano, of Dandy and Desperate Dan - reckoned the first weekly paper with an emphasis on football coverage.

It was launched in October 1919, died with issue 1,071 on March 25 1940 and is exhumed because of something in last Saturday's column.

A Seaham miner called Harry Nattrass, we'd discovered, had been referee of both the 1936 FA Cup final and of the Scotland versus Germany international later that year, when swastikas flew over Ibrox Park.

The Internet offered more. A company called Soccerbilia was selling a June 1936 Topical Times, issue 865, with the front page promise: "Great new revelations begin: Secrets of a famous referee by Harry Nattrass."

No matter that inflation had attacked the Topical Times, that a magazine which cost twopence in 1936 was going at £7.50 75 years later, it proved irresistible.

Dug from some six-foot seam, what were the secrets of Harry Nattrass?

There were 36 pages, usually with three picture cards - long swapped - as a twopenny teaser. There were columns by Fuse, Sentinel and Santoi. Ten shillings for the best joke, a page of "exclusive gossip" by Bohemian.

Rhapsodic or otherwise, Bohemian's best bit appeared to be about Bobby Gurney and other Sunderland people turning up to watch team mate Raich Carter play Durham Senior League cricket for Hendon.

Carter scored 26, Gurney cheerfully chiding as he walked back to the pavilion that he'd come to see him hit it out of the ground not bash one or two against the railings. "Horatio then made an uncomplimentary remark about Bobby's golf and they marched off arm-in-arm for a glass of lemonade." Exclusive.

Harry Nattrass's revelations were billed "No 1 in a great series of articles." Three-quarters of a century later, he appears to have taken a leaf from Bohemian's book.

It's noted, however, that he would train with the Sunderland players at Roker Park, was on first name terms with them, wasn't allowed to referee their league games but had charge of a Durham Senior Cup final in which Sunderland faced Hartlepool.

Sunderland wing-half Sandy NcNab - Scottish, red haired, former grocery boy - took exception to one of the referee's decisions, began to call him Harry and changed swiftly to "Mr Referee."

Nattrass assumed the dignity of office. "Get on with your game, Mr McNab. I'll tell you when it's a foul," he said.

Both appeared happy at the understanding. Familiarity, wrote Harry, breeds content.

Topical Times 865 also had a page on Mark Hooper - "My ten years at Hillsboro" - a man for whom the phrase about good stuff and little bundles might reasonably have been minted.

He was a diminutive Darlington lad, barely 5ft 4ins in his stocking feet, worked at the Rolling Mills. His uncle was Charlie Roberts, Manchester United and England, a players' rights champion who became founder and first chairman of the PFA but still stood for the council as a Conservative.

The whole family were footballers, come to think. Bill, his brother, played for Darlington; his sisters Sarah and Bessie were with the Quaker Girls, Sarah centre forward and skipper.

We'd met Sarah in 1990. She was 93, living alone, cooking lunch for her son and daughter-in-law whose golden wedding photographs hung on the wall. Not many may dance at their children's golden wedding.

Mark played for Cockfield in the inaugural Northern League Cup final, was spotted by a Sheffield Wednesday scout and invited to meet a club representative.

"I should have been on early shift at the foundry but I went to meet him," he told Topical Times. "The moment the Wednesday man saw me he said ‘Too small' and advised me either to go and grow up a bit or to get a job as a winger."

Mark was unimpressed. "I was an inside forward. I'd always been more or less disgusted at being a winger."

He followed Bill to Darlington, helped them gain promotion to the second division, found himself inveigled - "outflanked" may be more appropriate - into playing outside right.

He scored 43 goals in 144 games, finally became Wednesday's child but not before £1,950 - big, big money - had changed hands. At Hillsborough he helped the Owls to two first division titles, scored in a winning FA Cup final, made 258 consecutive appearances between 1928-32 and in those ten years scored 136 goals in 420 games.

"The finest uncapped winger in English football - a quick, energetic player who could beat a man on a sixpence and could score goals," said the Wednesday programme after his death in 1974.

Still, however, there'd been the small problem of his size - "the midget outside right," said Magnet comic, though Mark was a midget gem. When finally his boots wore out, Wednesday had had to have a pair specially made because none was available in the shops.

It prompted Mark to recall a game at Cockfield when he mislaid his footwear and had to borrow a pair from a 12-year-old boy. "By padding the toes a bit I managed to make them fairly comfortable" he told Topical Times 75 years ago.

The observation is perhaps topically timeless, but clearly it could never be said of Mark Hooper that he was a man too big for his boots.

That first piece on Harry Nattrass also recalled that the BBC's co-commentator for the 1936 FA Cup final was former Darlington Grammar School boy FNS Creek.

So he was. We even have the cutting of his appointment, long-time commentator and former Northern Echo reporter George Allison having asked to stand down on the perhaps reasonable ground that he was manager of one of the finalists, Arsenal.

Memories are rekindled by Les Wilson in Guisborough who recalls a 1954 school trip to the Great Yorkshire Show when he bought a copy of Creek's Teach Yourself Cricket - "great stuff" - with a picture of Len Hutton on the front.

He also wrote "Teach yourself" books on football, athletics. Lawn tennis and rugby. The cricket book's a fiver on Amazon.

Born in Darlington in January 1898, Norman Creek joined the Durham Light Infantry in 1916, transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and won the Military Cross.

Home again, he gained two Blues at Cambridge, won five England amateur caps and one for the full side, scored prolifically for Corinthian Casuals and made two Football League appearances for his home town team.

He was a public school master, author, made MBE in 1943 and became the FA's assistant coaching director and manager of the England amateur team. He got up to Bishop Auckland when he could, he once said in answer to claims of a southern lop-sidedness, but it was difficult because the journey couldn't be done in a day.

In 1997 his son, then in Canada, sent several of his caps to his old school - now the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College - with the hope that they would go on permanent display,

His own sons, wrote Carey Creek, were more interested in ice hockey than football. "They are ignorant of the symbolism associated with an international cap. I am asking if you might wish to find a home for them in the school."

Though they were indeed put on display in the reception area - "I was thrilled to bits with them," says David Heaton, the former principal - they aren't there now. Thereby hangs a little mystery.

Mr Heaton recalls that, perhaps ten years ago, a former chairman of Darlington FC asked to put them on display. They aren't there either. "I've not heard of them, though quite a lot was sorted out when the administrators came in," says Alan Murray, the Quakers' recently appointed general manager.

College archivist Linda Chadd is convinced they're not there, either. Further information much welcomed; for the moment it's all Creek.

BACKTRACK BRIEFS....

No longer business as usual, the Hartlepool United fanzine Monkey Business is marking its last issue after 20 years. They've been hung out to dry by technology.

"Like the late lamented Footy Mail, killed off by Ceefax and Teletext, Monkey Business has succumbed to the pressures of the modern world," says an editorial.

"The Internet, 24/7 instant news media access and the many message boards all offer instant gratification. Within ten years it will be all but impossible to buy a newspaper in physical form. That's sad."

It's not been a frequent treat - this is only issue 103 - but it's hung on in and will be much missed. Contributors, too, will continue in cyberspace.

Sunderland are staging meet and greet nights with Niall Quinn - "helping to build bridges with the fans," says the club.

There was one on Monday at Whiteleas Social Club, in South Shields.

Among those who went was former Tyne Tees Television journalist Bob Whittaker - Shildon lad, now running his own television production company from Alnmouth - and Daryn Robinson, his brother-in-law.

Daryn's been a supporter for 40 years, a season ticket holder for 15. He also uses a wheelchair. The gathering was on the third floor; there was no disabled access.

"Daryn was furious, especially as he'd told the club he was disabled when he applied for the tickets," says Bob.

Undeterred, they hope still to attend one of three Quinn evenings being lined up. "Let's hope," says Bob, "that by then the organisers of Monday's fiasco will have been fired."

Speaking of Sunderland, the indefatigable Paul Dobson and his gang from Bishop Auckland like to make a London weekend of the Arsenal match. Thus it was that in an Oxford Street shop window last Saturday - the Lamb not having opened - they came across this three-foot poster. Paul kindly forwards the image, and a Jake the Peg upon which to hang it.

Back to electronic communication, and The Guardian has a jolly, football-based website called The Knowledge on which a question appears from Owen Amos. We are related.

Has there ever been a final league table, he asks, in which the teams have finished in alphabetical order?

Though it may seem a pretty transparent excuse to have Arsenal back on top, the bairn reckons there's a "decent chance" that somewhere in the world - however small the league - it's happened.

He's also consulted his maths master mate.

The odds, says the maths man, are "huge." Only Backtrack readers can help, it's said.

In 1892-93, the six-club Northern League was won by Ironopolis (Middlesbrough), followed by Newcastle United and Sheffield United. After that, however, things got a bit out or order.

Nine years later Bishop Auckland were champions, Darlington second, Stockton third and West Hartlepool and Whitby the bottom two positions.

Pity about the six in the middle. However disoriented, we may still have to cope without the A-Z.

AND FINALLY...

the former County Durham lad who made a record number of appearances for Queen of the South (Backtrack, March 8) was goalkeeper Allan Ball, from Hetton-le-Hole. He's still in Dumfries.

Speaking of F N S Creek, as we have been, readers are today invited to identify his Darlington Grammar School contemporary who became Football Association chairman.

With or without a paddle, the column returns on Tuesday.