If it's a good man who learns from his mistakes, what of one who fills a quiet post-bank holiday column with their embarrassing aftermath?
Friday's column supposed that a recently-erected statue of Jinky Jimmy Smith stood at Hill of Beath, his birthplace, in Scotland. The memorial, as readers rushed to point out, is to Slim Jim Baxter.
Though both were Scots, both played for North-East clubs and both (shall we say) liked a drink, the error was egregious. There's still a Shildon connection, however - and first word in 40 years from John Dinsley, with whom we'd been at Bishop Auckland Grammar School.
"You've been fed duff information," John over-kindly supposes.
Baxter, a former miner who'd done National Service with the Black Watch, joined Sunderland from Rangers for £72,500 in 1965. The Sunderland history All the Lads calls him "cavalier" and "maverick", the Wikipedia website talks of his "womanising, frequently getting drunk and gambling."
Asked in his later years if modern footballers' wages would have made much difference to his lifestyle, he swiftly agreed that they would. "I'd have spent £50,000 a week at the bookies instead of £100," he said.
The lad could play a bit, though, particularly remembered by his countrymen for his part in ten-man Scotland's 2-1 win over England in 1963 - scoring both goals after Eric Caldow broke his leg - and in the 3-2 win in 1967, England's first defeat since the World Cup.
Baxter taunted the English with a one-man show of keepy-uppy, the Scots claimed to be the new world champions and when they sought a name for the new Wembley bridge, the Tartan Army flooded Radio 5 Live with nominations for their chieftain.
After 12 goals and 98 games for Sunderland, he moved to Nottingham Forest and then back to Rangers, retired at 30 and - perhaps unwisely - took a pub. After two liver transplants, he died in 2001, aged 61.
Jim Smith was 60 in January, still lives in Dudley, on North Tyneside, had a heart attack several years ago, was last heard of driving a taxi and is hardly ever seen at St James' Park.
"Luckily his former team-mate Ray Ellison was with him when he had the heart attack. It probably saved his life," says our man in Gallowgate.
The Magpies' first £100,000 footballer, Smith signed from Aberdeen in 1969, made his first appearances for the reserves - 8,000 turned up to watch - and though he played in the 1974 FA Cup final was generally reckoned to have under-achieved.
Neil McKay in Lanchester reckons Jinky's finest hour in a Newcastle shirt to have been at West Brom in the 1973-74 Cup run. "He controlled the game after coming on as a sub for the injured Terry Hibbitt, watched by 20,000 ecstatic Geordies."
Neil also saw Smith control the midfield three years later - "shirt outside shorts, socks around his ankles" - but for Whitley Bay against Shildon (the connection at last) at Dean Street.
Five minutes from time, however, Smith got himself sent off, Shildon scored against ten men and the game ended 2-2.
Derek Breakwell, Whitley Bay's long serving secretary, also remembers when the four times capped Scottish international jinked around the Northern League. "He was," says Derek laconically, "all right."
We all make mistakes, of course, as evidenced by a "correction" in the June issue of the admirable Upper Wensleydale Newsletter. The previous edition had reported that vandals had destroyed a memorial tree planted at Hawes cricket ground. It now transpires, however, that the vandals were dressed in sheep's clothing - or to put it differently, that they were sheep.
Interviewed on all manner of weightier matters - life influences, favourite Bible passages, the situation in Palestine - the Rev Philip North makes a humble confession in this week's Church Times. He's an "appalling" cricketer.
Absence of ability didn't, of course, prevent his playing for our old friends the Durham diocesan clergy team while a curate in Sunderland and vicar of Holy Trinity, Hartlepool.
The boys remain on their knees, alas, though the Rev Richard Wallace - vicar of Cockerton, Darlington - did score 41 the other day in a force-nine match against Wakefield, at Bedale.
"It was a despicable day. I don't think I've ever played cricket in a gale before," says Richard.
"One ball would hold up and the next come through like a bullet, depending on what the gust was. In the end I played on, which was infuriating.
"The match was closer than the score suggests. I think we could win one this season."
Seven years ago they reached the quarter-final of the Church Times Cup, he reckons, though it is not a memory the column shares. They haven't won a game since.
Philip North is now priest administrator of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, in Norfolk. He puts it charitably. "I seem to remember," he says, "that our results were in inverse proportion to our enthusiasm."
The Arngrove Northern League dinner last Friday was again blessed with a table of golden oldies - well remembered lads like Ralphy Wright, Dave "Jock" Rutherford, Neil Walton, Willie White and George Brown.
There, too, was Gerry Donoghue, Sunderland born and raised but still a Scarborough legend after appearing in three FA Trophy finals in the 1970s.
Gerry, still on Wearside, later became a Newcastle youth coach and a regional FA scout when Graham Taylor and Lawrie McMenemy were at the England helm. Billy Ayre, his former Scarborough team- mate, always reckoned that if he hadn't been a professional footballer he could have been a professional comedian.
His first Wembley final was in 1973, the week before Sunderland's famous victory - "the best seven days of my life," Gerry recalled.
Scarborough's opponents were Wigan, now in the Premiership. The Seagulls start next season, if they start it at all, in the UniBond.
As befits the League president, former FIFA referee George Courtney was on the ANL top table. Just a pity that some non-footballing employee of the Ramside Hall Hotel got the place cards a bit confused - he was listed as George Chutney. It added spice to the occasion, anyway.
AND FINALLY...
Friday's column sought the identity of the last club to reach the FA Cup final and be relegated. To some surprise, none recalled that it was Middlesbrough, beaten 2-0 by Chelsea in 1997 and down in 19th place after losing three points for failing to fulfil the Blackburn fixture.
Steve Tindale in Durham, who supposed that the answer might be Leicester City in 1969, further wondered if any team has ever won the FA Cup and been relegated in the same season.
None has, though Sunderland fan John Briggs somewhat painfully recalls that Norwich City - League Cup winners against his lads in 1985 - were relegated that season.
John also points out that, last Saturday, Peter Murphy of the Republic of Ireland became the first player since the 1960s to win an international cap while with Carlisle United.
Who, asks John, was the last? We attempt to cap it all in three days.
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