JUST when it seemed that they wouldn’t leave their little wooden hut for anyone, our friends at Spout House Cricket Club finally have their new pavilion, inaugurated last week.

The crowd, usually confined to Sid and Doris Bonkers – and not even Doris if there was anything decent on the television – had swollen to an estimated, unprecedented 11.

The old one, timeless and glorious, had stood – if a state of semi-collapse may so be described – was redundant when shifted from Thorntondale, Pickering way, in 1976. In truth, it was knocked down before it fell down.

“We’ve had wrens and sparrows nesting in there,”

reports club secretary and Echo columnist Harry Mead.

“If the sparrows had come back this summer, I think it would have brought it down.

“It’s done very well really, but we entered with trepidation, just to demolish it. At least both the scorers’ flaps can open on this one.

We had to keep the other one open with a woodworm eaten 1955 Len Hutton bat.”

Spout House is between Stokesley and Helmsley in North Yorkshire, its hillside ground inclined towards the incredible, the players great lads, the call of nature never very far away (and not just out the back of the old cree.) Thus at last week’s match, when Robin Garbutt strode out to open the Spout innings, he decided first to check his mole trap at square leg and discovered that he’d nabbed one of the blighters.

Thus it was that Harry, acting as club umpire, found himself not only holding the usual flotsam but a mole and mole trap, too.

“It was quite difficult,” he says. “When I swapped the coins from one hand to the other to count the balls, I had to remember not to drop the mole.

“When Robin finally got out, I told him to take his mole with him.”

Harry also called 25 wides in visiting Gillamoor’s innings, prompting home player Antony Plowman – good name for a village cricketer – to claim that all of the fund raising for the new hut could have been saved by simply having sponsored wides.

Much the same size as the old one – that way the National Park people don’t get their flannels in a fix – it was built by club chairman Eddie Farrow and subscribed by local fund raising efforts.

The team which last season fielded Prince Harry is now hoping to persuade local landowners Lord and Lady Mexbrough – she once described the old hut as “sweet” – to perform an official opening.

“The new one’s a miracle, something we thought would probably never happen,”

says Harry. Thus enthused, they won by one run.

AS ever on the first Friday in June, the Over 40s League presentation do was held at Sunderland Catholic Club.

As ever, they proved ageless.

That the Metro from Newcastle was packed to the gunnels was apparently coincidental – something to do with Take That, a group of some sort, at the Stadium of Light.

Though some things never change – Kip Watson, now 91, still revered thereabouts – you can tell the Over 40s are getting on a bit when they start bringing their daughters.

There were special awards for Martin Johns of the Hardwick at Blackhall – first player in the league’s 29-year history to hit eight in a match – and for Les Faith, the man who steered the team to promotion.

Kip, as ever, provided the best biblical quote: “Faith without works is nothing.”

Particularly, however, it was good to see the premier division’s outstanding player accolade go to Corbett Waistell, a man who first appeared in these columns 37 years ago.

Then he was emergency goalkeeper and man of the match for Toronto Youth Club, near Bishop Auckland, beaten 17-3 by Marshall Richards of Crook after leading 3-2 at half-time. “We only had nine men and two of them were drunk,” he said.

Long grey, Corbett’s now secretary and emergency goalkeeper for Chilton Community College, near Ferryhill. He was 56 on Saturday.

PRESENTATION over, the band played on. More of them at the foot of the column. Last man standing appeared to be the lustrously named Stanley Crystal Woods who plays for Ivy Legends in Sunderland and scored his only Over 40s League goal in 1983. Two weeks ago, however, his header rebounded from the bar, goalie beaten. They gave him an award for that, an’ all. Mr Woods is 66.

THE skilltrainingltd Northern League’s annual meeting the following morning proved the usual laugh-a-minute affair, the chairman’s report so longwinded – perhaps the only football document ever to use the word triskaedekaphobia – that the unlucky-for-some West Auckland contingent missed the chance of a bet on the 2 40 at Hexham.

It proved particularly unfortunate because they’d been advised to have a few bob on Ebac, owned by club president John Elliott and named after his dehumidifier and refrigeration business along the road.

Recovering from a wind pipe operation, the horse was third at 66-1. “It could have kept me in beer all weekend,” protested West secretary Allen Bayles.

There, too, was Bishop Auckland secretary and No.

1 England fan Tony Duffy, foregoing a trip to the World Cup qualifier in Kazakhstan. “The Northern league annual meeting’s more important,” Tony insisted – but he’ll be back at Wembley tomorrow.

TOASTING a chip off the old block, former Durham County cricketer Chris Thomas was in Norton sports club after the Northern League meeting.

Chris is now sports master at Yarm School, where the under 15s last week played the Royal Grammar School from Newcastle. Opening bat Brett Thomas, Chris’s son, completed his century off just 51 balls in the 12th over – nine fours, four sixes – and was out in the sixteenth over for 116.

Yarm totalled 149-7 from their 20 overs – and to the young un’s dismay, they lost.

THAT evening to the annual sponsors’ dinner at West Auckland FC, where excitement mounts over the World Cup “replay” with Juventus, now scheduled for Saturday August 1.

The game, against a youth side, will be at the club’s training ground amid the hills – and the vineyards – above Turin.

The provisional schedule shows that a coach will leave West at 11pm on the Thursday, arriving in Turin at 1pm the following day.

It’s going to have to shift a bit. They return from Turin at 2pm on the Sunday.

The package costs £250, including two nights hotel bed and breakfast and transfer to the match.

The club is newly managed by former Hartlepool Untied favourite Brian Honour, who knows many big-name players. “If West cant raise a team,” he says, “I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of willing guests.”

The first match, West’s second “World Cup” victory, was in 1911. After scoring four in the first 15 minutes, they thrashed Juventus 6-1.

And finally...

SATURDAY’S column sought the identity of the smallest town – until Burnley’s arrival – to host Premier League football. For once, it beat everybody. It was Watford, around 91,000.

Today back to the Over 40s League do, where the band was called Tonto’s Horse. Without reference to the Internet, readers are invited to say what Tonto’s horse was called.

Lone ranger, the column returns on Saturday.