Backtrack: There's nothing glossy about Horden

"It came totally out of the blue, a bit strange really," he says. "They also asked me to become a vice-president. I asked how much they wanted."

Benefit of the doubt? "Well, it did seem a bit overdue," says Horden secretary John Stubbs.

Horden may have been England's biggest colliery village, rough hewn and constant above a black-benighted beach. No matter how deep they dug, how far beneath the sea, Horden lads were in it together.

Even then, it's recalled. miners would happily have a few coppers docked from their wages in order to support the Colliery Welfare state.

Geoff Wade was the outsider, the university boy from Durham City, the toff of the tracks.

"Oh yes, they thought I was posh," he recalls. "I didn't even swear in those days. Everyone just called the Horden lads pit yackers, and a lot of them were, but they sort of adopted me and that was one of the things I loved about it. It was a very good time of my life.

"It's only now when everyone says I must have been stupid that I realise I probably must have, but I wouldn't change a thing."

As a centre half he made a record number of appearances - around 900, he guesses, possibly above 1,000 if friendlies were included. As manager he led the Colliery team in November 1981 to a famous FA Cup first round tie against Blackpool, Cup winners just 28 years earlier.

The programme, which he also produced, listed some of Blackpool's internationals - Matthews, Mortensen, Mudie, Armfield, Taylor, Farm - and some of Horden's. too.

"J Cranson (darts), J Honour (pool), G Hogan (head tennis)" it said, spuriously.

We meet in the dear old Dun Cow in Durham, still his local, Geoff bearing a copy of the programme and a rich seam of stories, like the time Horden travelled to Enfield in the Rothmans Cup.

"Enfield were waiting for us at the hotel with gifts and pennants and all sorts. All we had was what was on the bus. We got a pennant, they got a crate of brown ale."

Or the time that the FA Cup draw sent them to Bangor, in north Wales, funds found to stay overnight in a smart hotel.

"This time we were met by the manager and his staff, all dressed up. The concierge gave us the spiel, asked if there were any questions. ‘Aye," said one of our officials, ‘where's the lavvy'?"

So what did he think about that? "I though ‘Oh God'," says Geoff.

He'd been playing minor league football for Ushaw Moor St Joseph's, was noticed by a neighbour who'd also played for Horden - "he must have thought I was half-decent" - was signed by legendary manager Charlie Thomas, who remained an FA Council member until nearly 90.

"Charlie was a ruthless manager but a real gentleman. I liked him very much," says Geoff, a man no less engaging.

Back then they were in the Wearside League, joined the Northern league in 1975, the team including several former Hartlepool United players. Some may have been on as much as a fiver; young Wade started on ten bob, and that included travelling twice weekly from his job in Rochdale.

"I gave Horden CW my life, I gave them everything. I turned down jobs to stay there, struggled with my missus to stay there, turned down offers of professional to stay there.

"Even when they put my money up to £1 they said I'd better keep quiet about it. I thought I'd better had, because the others were on five times as much. It didn't really matter; I was just proud to be involved."

His family lived in Gilesgate, Durham, near cathedral, university and meandering, oar-struck river. Horden was near Peterlee.

"Horden was absolutely a pit village, great long streets from First to Twenty-First or something, but it was a real community, very close, and they took to me. Most of the players were from round the doors - Horden, Blackhall, Peterlee - and that was their strength. Most of them were very loyal."

Horden's ground, now one of the Northern League's best-equipped, was very different 45 years ago - one big, communal bath and courtesy dictating that visitors first took the plunge.

"When we got there," Geoff recalls, "it was like washing in mud."

The club was so tight-knit that when an official died, his family asked for his ashes to be spread across the Welfare Ground. The parish council refused permission. "We marked the pitch with him instead," says Geoff.

He became assistant manager, player/manager, manager and much else. "I took the strips to the launderette, got sponsors, sold tickets, wrote the programme.

"Ronnie Robinson the secretary was an absolutely lovely feller but he was a pit lad and got pneumoconiosis so I ended up writing his letters on the quiet, too."

When police refused permission for it to go ahead at Horden, the Blackpool game was moved down the road to Hartlepool. "I'd have loved to face them on our own midden," he wrote in the programme, another labour of love topped off by a splendid coast-to-coast cartoon.

"I wrote it and got someone to do the drawings, persuaded my secretary to do the typing and the university to print it on the sly. There was nothing glossy about it, but there was never anything glossy about Horden."

Some of the players had a beer or two on the way to the Victoria Ground - "It was no use me trying to stop them" - problems compounded when, an hour before kick-off, the referee asked for a cup of tea.

"Hartlepool had neither tea nor sugar so I was asked to get some. Less than an hour before the biggest game of our lives and I'm running down the road for tea and sugar."

At 2.40pm, the ref noticed that they were wearing black stockings and insisted they change. We had to borrow socks from Hartlepool. When we should have been going through our final routines, we were taking our boots off again.

"When the game kicked off I was still in the dressing room, exhausted."

Blackpool included the likes of England under-21 goalkeeper Ian Hesford, centre forward Dave Bamber, emerging talents like Ricky Sbragia, Wayne Entwistle and Wayne Harrison. Horden were still pit yackers. They lost 1-0.

"Really we should have won," the manager insists. "Gerry Hogan hit a post and then it bounced across and hit the other post. We were the better side."

Soon afterwards, things started to go wrong. "They got a money man in, owned a factory in Peterlee, said they wanted to attract some big names."

One of them was John Coddington, who'd been assistant manager at Middlesbrough, brought in as assistant at Horden without telling the manager. "John Cook, my assistant, was out training the players and I was at a committee meeting when they told me he'd been sacked.

"I was manager of the club and hadn't even been consulted. I walked out on the spot, point of principle. All that time, and that was that."

He's now 65, a retired director of a care homes group, has occasionally returned to Horden - "I just loved the place" - but never expected to be asked back for a testimonial.

He hopes to play for at least part of it - "I've still kept myself pretty fit" - and to persuade Northern league contemporaries to join a few minutes of the action.

It's likely to be in September. "I don't care how much my testimonial costs me, it'll be just great to be back" says Geoff. "I'm going to enjoy every minute."

BILLY BROOMFIELD, ENGLAND AND West Auckland

Billy Broomfield, winner of 13 England amateur international caps and West Auckland's inside-right in the 1961 Amateur Cup final, has died. Stan Skelton, his fellow inside forward at Wembley, died last November.

Billy was a Sunderland shipyard worker, played for Cornsay Park Albion after leaving the army, married an Esh Winning girl and joined West.

Two years ago he gave his Wembley shirt, unwashed and still grass stained, back to the club. It's now framed in the bar.

"It's a very prized possession, Billy recalled those days with great affection," says West secretary Allen Bayles.

He also played midweek games for Leeds United reserves, was offered full terms but declined because it would have meant he could no longer play amateur football.

Billy moved south, joined Enfield - for whom he was also on a losing side at Wembley, against Crook Town in 1964 - and later successfully managed Waltham Abbey before coaching junior sides.

"He never lost his love of the Northern League and still followed the progress of West Auckland and Esh Winning," says his friend George Hutchinson, from Waterhouses.

Billy moved six years ago to Welton, Lincolnshire, where his funeral will be held on July 8.

AND FINALLY ...

the only team other than Old Carthusians to have won both FA Cup and FA Amateur Cup (Backtrack, January 25) is Wimbledon.

Chris Orton in Ferryhill today seeks the identity of the manager who in 1968 managed three different clubs in six weeks.

Still managing, the column returns on Saturday.