The ‘Lake Room’ almost lived up to its name

Officially it was to mark Gordon Lake’s 60 years service to the club and to cricket, a surprise 70th birthday present on Christmas Eve. Usually, muses Gordon, it’s just a pair of socks.

Then the Lake Room became the leak room, and almost lived up to its reincarnation.

“It was only a couple of days later when we found water coming in. It was really quite embarrassing,”

says Gordon.

“I had to meet some people to get it stemmed, otherwise it really would have been the lake room and I don’t think I’d ever have lived it down.”

He first watched Stockton cricket when he was nine, attracted by the likes of former England batsman DCH Townsend and of Herbert Trenholm, who became NYSD League secretary for 48 years and after whom Stockton’s gates are named.

Until Christmas Eve, none other had been honoured in that way. “It was a total surprise,” says Gordon. “My wife said we were going down to the club at 7 30pm and I reckoned there was no point because on Christmas Eve no-one arrived until nine.

“When we got there it was full; they’d kept the secret very well. It’s a huge honour, but there are others equally as deserving.”

By 14, promising righthand bat, he’d made his first team debut. “I wasn’t very good,” he insists. “Results weren’t as important in those days as they are now.

You could bring kids on more.”

A consistent scorer, he played three times for Durham County but was content when the time came to drop down to Stockton thirds. “I know there are those who aren’t, but I enjoyed cricket whatever the level.”

Twice captain, he was club secretary from 1965-83.

“Then I stood down. We had a dinner, they made a nice little presentation and I thought that was it.”

Fifteen years ago he retired early from teaching – “It wasn’t the job I’d gone into” – and in 1998 the club again asked him to be secretary.

Now he combines that voluntary role with being secretary and inspiration of the Cleveland Schools Cricket Association. “I love it,” he says.

“The kids look at you and think ‘What does he know’?

Then you show them what you know, or what you think you know. I really like looking after the kids, getting letters from parents saying how much they appreciate it.”

So how, after 61 years, does he maintain his enthusiasm?

“If I were a better golfer, I’d probably have lost it,” says Gordon.

“As a batsman I was a nudger and a pusher, not a hitter and a stroke player.

My occasional drives were developed on the golf course, but my real interest has always been cricket.”

A couple of years back he won an OSCA, one of the Outstanding Service to Cricket Awards. The Lake Room, says Gordon, almost reduced his wife to floods, as well.

“She’s had to put up with this all these years, so she was particularly delighted and a bit overcome. It was a nice Christmas present for her, too.”

Lake constant, he has no plans again to stand down.

“My wife would probably like me to. “I’m a bit of a moaner, probably have a reputation for being a grumpy old devil but most of the time I really enjoy it. You have to do something, haven’t you?

“I’d love someone else to take over if they could do a better job, but in the meantime they’re stuck with me.”

■ Stockton CC historian Richard Thurston has compiled a vastly comprehensive club statistical history, available through www.stocktoncricketclub.co.

uk The site embraces NYSD records from 1896-1999 and North-East Premier League from 2000 to date. It does take some time to download, mind. “Start it going and then make a cup of tea,”

suggests Richard.

Knee bother for the returning Stafford

FAR from the winter chill, our old wicketkeeping friend Tom Stafford – he of the born-again knees – is back from a trip to the West Indies that saw his debut at Kensington Oval.

Save for five minutes when he was laid out – “an enthusiastic West Indian hit me with the bat when going for a hook shot” – it proved wholly memorable.

Tom, a retired newsagent from Yarm, was part of the Yorkshire Over 50s team which took part in a West Indies tournament in Barbados.

Having won, they then played the top West Indies side at the Oval. “Just seeing my name up on the scoreboard was unbelievable,” says Tom, 62 Opening bat John Flintoff from Sessay, near Thirsk, hit 50. Tom prevented any byes, got whacked, troubled the medics more than the scorers.

Things also got a bit hairy when a West Indian quickie – “Curtly Ambrose lookalike” – started spraying the ball round their ears.

Still, the new joint bent to order and he didn’t even need his WD40. “If you ever want the name of a good knee surgeon,”

says Tom. “I know the very man.”

IT takes more than a few feet of snow, of course, to deter king of the groundhoppers John Dawson from ticking off a new venue.

John had got himself down to Bedfont Green – Middlesex, somewhere – against Frome Town, learned from a taxi driver that the motorway was closed and that Frome were stuck on it.

The match finally began at 8 15pm, the only problem that John had re-ordered the taxi for 9 30 and the last train back to London left 20 minutes after that.

“By the time I had to leave, the pitch was freezing over and so was I,” says the retired Hartlepool postman, now 69, having decanted at 6am from the overnight bus north.

Frome were winning 4-0, but does two-thirds of a match count? “This one does,” says John.

PETER Livingstone, a great guy who helps keep football alive in South Bank, has sent round an email advising of his new mobile phone number.

“My year-old rottweiler chewed the last one,” he adds, and you can tell by the tone that the dog has real problems.

AUSTIN Elliott, a former Hartlepool United director and latterly treasurer of the North-East Over 40s League, died suddenly on Wednesday.

He was 64, and turned out for South Shields-based Marsden vets on his 60th birthday.

“I’d like to say I played a blinder and scored from 25 yards, but can only say that I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he told the column.

An accountant, he joined the Hartlepool board under Garry Gibson’s high-profile chairmanship in the early 1990s and played alongside Gibson in the directors’ football team.

“Garry couldn’t kick a toffee apple,” he once observed.

We’d last seen him, with Over 40s League founder Kip Watson, at the Local Heroes dinner in December. Kip reckons his friend was never the same after returning from a trip to Egypt.

“He seems to have picked something up there. He was in hospital but they thought he was getting better. He was a lovely man and an invaluable treasurer. We’re all going to miss him no end.”

FLIP answer, a report in the Daily Telegraph – based on supposedly scientific research at the university of British Columbia – reckons that tossing a coin may have a skill element, after all.

It also suggests that former England cricket captain Nasser Hussain’s 14 successive lost tosses may make him the world’s most unfortunate sportsman, though they may never have heard of Shildon’s footballers.

Old Nasser was veritably Mr Lucky compared to those guys – due next Saturday at Stotfold to play their 17th successive away tie in the FA Vase. The odds against that are 131,792-1. The way the weather is, the odds against the match taking place may be even higher.

The Canadian research, at any rate, prompted a letter from John Dobson, now in Norfolk, recalling his childhood days as “lookout” when Cleveland’s ironstone miners played pitch and toss, illegally, in a wood.

On one occasion, he recalls, an old miner with the happy name of Cheerer tossed 14 successive pairs of heads.

“I would think that old Cheerer, now long gone, could have taught scientists a thing or two about predictability and the skill of coin tossing.”

SUCCESSIVE columns have increased Bob Hardisty’s record collection from one to two. He may not entirely have been playing the game.

The former Bishop Auckland stalwart, widely reckoned the best amateur footballer of all time, taught PE – and “modern dance” – at Middleton St George teacher training college, near Darlington.

Usually, stuck record, they played Banana Boat Song by Harry Belafonte. Two-step, former student Bill Bartle had added Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. “I still cringe when I hear it,” he said.

“It seems a bit odd because Bob was a huge Presley fan,”

says Alan Adamthwaite, Hardisty’s biographer.

“Maybe the education authority thought that Elvis wasn’t their kind of modern dance.”

The biography – called Never Again, from a list of 74 possible titles – still seeks a publisher. Alan hopes that it’ll appear in time for a major Hardisty exhibition, planned by the Durham Amateur Football Trust in the autumn.

... and finally

TUESDAY’S column sought the identity of five men, in charge of Premier League or Football League clubs on December 18 when the question was posed, who’d played for Hartlepool United. It even beat the sports editor.

They were Mark Cooper (Peterborough), John Trewick (Hereford United), Neil Warnock (Crystal Palace), Phil Brown (Hull City) and Sean McAuley – 81 games at the Pools and, up until yesterday, caretaker manager of Sheffield Wednesday.

Browsing the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Bishop Auckland, John Phelan paid 50p for the programme from the 1982 Scarborough Cricket Festival which sought the identity of seven England Test batsmen who’d also played on the wing for (then) Football League clubs in London.

This one’s especially dedicated to Mr Alf Hutchinson, who was probably at the festival and who will richly have earned a pint at the doms on Monday evening if he gets it.