MR Mike Riley, known sometimes as Red Card Riley – neither because he is perceived to be a diamond geezer nor because he is all hearts – spoke last Thursday evening to Bishop Auckland Referees Society.

Lovely feller, he at once agreed that the talk could be reported. “There’ll be nothing contagious,” a wellmeaning local ref assured him. It’s possible he meant contentious.

Mr Riley, a Premiership referee since 1996 and on the FIFA list these last ten years, spoke on everything from smiling to swearing – “I don’t mind players swearing at me, it’s when they call me a cheat” – and even recalled his formative days at Spennymoor.

The Moors were briefly in the Northern Counties East League. Young Riley had been assessed both by Terry Farley, still the Bishop Auckland society’s elderly secretary, and by George McKellar, now the vicechairman.

Terry had been critical of his leniency in an early clash involving two players – “Young man, you’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression,” he’d said, doubtless essaying his best Brian Clough impression – while George had warned about the Spennymoor slope.

Mr McKellar remembered the match. “It pittled down,”

he said, stretching the law on offensive language to its very limit.

Mike was a Rotherham lad, started as a goalkeeper, conceded 17 four times in a season – symmetrical, if not wholly secure – and at 14 decided that his football future might lie elsewhere.

“I was crap,” he concluded, unambiguously.

Rarely far from the headlines, he was the referee who in a Reading v Newcastle match in 2007 sent off Kingsley Royal, the Reading mascot, after one of his assistants damn near flagged the mascot offside.

He was the ref who in 2004 gave Manchester United the contentious penalty which ended the run of Arsenal’s invincibles, and no matter that Mr Rooney had gone down like the Dow Jones Index, the ref who so greatly upset Mr Sam Allardyce – an admittedly not impossible task – that the then Blackburn manager was fined £2,000 for improper conduct.

At Bishop Auckland he was engaging, affable and honest, in the middle of a little discourse about trying always to be in the right place when someone asked that the owner of a silver Audi kindly move it.

It was his, of course. “Ah,” said someone in his audience, “positioning.”

Simulation, he continued, was the curse of the modern game. Knowing you’d been conned was the worst feeling in refereeing.

There was an instructive video; they played The Great Pretender.

Now 44 and not a picking on him – Mr Riley may make Mr George “Butcher’s Dog”

Courtney appear corpulent by comparison – he has developed a necessarily thick skin.

“I don’t have Sky Television, I don’t take a newspaper, I seldom listen to the radio. There are people who’ll tell me soon enough if I’m in the news.”

The Respect campaign had been effective in the Premier League, he believed, would take more time lower down.

In the Leeds park near where he lives, he can no longer take his daughter on their Sunday morning walk.

“There are about 20 pitches. The amount of effing and blinding is staggering.”

Bishop loved him. Whether the Newcastle fans among them will have changed their minds after last night’s crucial match with Portsmouth – referee, M Riley – remains to be seen from today’s back page.

The elderly secretary, himself a former Football League referee at the highest level, had been involved with the Bishop society since 1952. “This,” he said, “has been one of the best nights we’ve ever had.”

AMONG those things which Mike Riley and Norman Hunter have in common is that both now live in the Leeds area. Among the differences is that Mike Riley doesn’t charge for speaking but talks for about three times as long.

Mr Hunter, now 65, spoke for 25 minutes at a Stokesley cricket and football clubs do the following evening – usual stuff, damned United, some nice tales about Gary Sprake.

“We used to call him The Cat,” said Norman, Gateshead lad originally.

“He used to give us kittens.”

Though still singing for his supper, he has given up radio work. “I’m too old for all the travelling,” he said.

These days Norman may only bite your legs if he’s remembered to put in his dentures.

ON Saturday to Ryton, nicely situated in the Tyne Valley, where Chester-le- Street became the latest club this season to play their 1,000th Northern League game. Colin Wake, remarkably, has appeared in around half of them.

In total he’s made 564 starts plus another 26 games as sub, since signing from Ferryhill Athletic in 1995.

“His loyalty has been fantastic, especially in an age when most players will go anywhere for an extra fiver,” said Chester chairman Joe Burlison, who helped form the club as the Garden Farm – a pub team – in 1972.

Skilltrainingltd Northern League secretary Tony Golightly, himself a former Chester-le-Street chairman, presented a 1,000th game plaque to 38-year-old Wake – who celebrated by scoring a penalty, only his tenth goal for the club, to put them 2-0 up.

No matter that ultimately they lost 3-2.

Young Wake will be back next season for more.

LONG identified as the red, red Robins, York City will play in unfamiliar purple – archiepiscopal purple, it should be said – when they meet Stevenage in the FA Trophy final a week on Saturday.

The change strip is a genuflection to Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York and the club’s highest profile supporter. The shirts will subsequently be auctioned in aid of the Archbishop’s Youth Trust.

“I think it’s an absolutely marvellous gesture,” says Dr Sentamu, tackled on Sunday after conducting centenary celebrations at East Cowton parish church, between Darlington and Northallerton.

Though he declines to say if he’ll be at Wembley – “It’s a surprise” – he’s likely to be in the vicinity. “I hope to be with the lads on Friday evening and to pray with them,’’ says the charismatic Dr Sentamu, now a Kit Kat Crescent regular.

“I’m the noisiest person on the terraces.

I know all the phrases, I tell them to open their legs.”

Despite reaching Wembley, City have only just secured their Blue Square Premier place. “I watched them when they need help and I have been praying for them,” says the Archbishop.

“People thought I was joking, but why should I joke about something like that? I hope we will win 5- 0.”

This Saturday he plans to be at Middlesbrough’s crucial home game with Manchester United. Just one snag: before coming to York, Dr Sentamu was an “avid” Man United fan.

ACCUSTOMED to anxiety, the Boro fanzine Fly Me to the Moon uncovers a fullpage success story, nonetheless. After 26 years of trying, Norton and Stockton Ancients have been promoted from the Northern League second division.

“Norton,” says FMttM, “are golden testament to the fantastic football on offer in the region.”

And finally...

THE former top-flight managers who’ve both managed Willington (Backtrack, April 25) are Malcolm Allison and Alan Durban. “We’ve also had former top level players like John Hope, Tony McAndrew and Eddie Kyle, but none of them got us out of the second division,” recalls John Phelan. Norman Robinson today invites readers to name the player signed from Skelmersdale, who scored for Liverpool against Arsenal in the 1971 FA Cup final – and who was the other graduate in the team? Whatever the degree, the column returns on Saturday.