AGE by no means wearying him, John King marked his 70th birthday by doing what he does every Saturday – pulling on his football boots and playing in the Over 40s League.

“I have good games and I have bad ones, but you have those when you’re 22. There are people earning £100,000 a week who have bad games,” he says. “My secret is that I don’t tell the opposition how old I am.”

So what particular qualities does he bring to the team? “I suppose you could say experience.”

Trimdon Veterans team-mates gave him a bottle of vintage champagne – “they must have known I have a taste for it” – while John in turn delivered an unequivocal message. “You won’t be getting shot of me any time soon,” he said.

A footballer since childhood in Deaf Hill, and at St Mary’s Grammar School in Darlington, he formed Trimdon Vets in 2001 after the Sedgefield United side for which he played became (as he puts it) a bit too competitive.

At Trimdon they rotate the players – regardless of age or ability – so that everyone gets a game.

John, who lives in Durham and has run construction and property companies, still loves it. "It makes for a good spirit in the team. We still want to win, but people are more important.

“There are times when it’s raining or snowing when I’m a bit reluctant to get out of bed on a Saturday morning, but once I’m on the football field, I’m happy.

“I’m lucky that I’ve always had good health, and it’s a lot better than sitting at home all day watching television, isn’t it?”

Team-mate Colin Wharton, the team’s webmaster, reckons that, since he started keeping records, John has played 155 games at full back, scored four with four credited assists and been man of the match three times.

“He’s a true gent who lives and breathes Trimdon Veterans,” says Colin. “No matter who we play, everyone has a good word for John. His performances are consistent, week in and week out.”

Six times a Great North Runner, John once played Over 40s football on the Saturday morning and completed the Tyneside half marathon the following day. Still he and his wife undertake strenuous hill walks in the Lakes, still they put in several miles on Saturday afternoons.

“I’ll have a shandy and my sausage and chips in the pub after the match and then go home. I’m just warming up by then,” he says.

“I’m 70 and I don’t feel any different from what I did 30 years ago. I certainly don’t feel an embarrassment to anyone. When we were young, we thought people in their 50s were old; it’s not like that any more.”

Just one thing threatened to spoil the birthday party: they lost 2-0 to Shildon Grey Horse. It shouldn’t happen to the Vets.

A SLOW process for a phenomenally fast bowler, Frank Tyson graduated from Durham University in 1955. Academically no-balled, the son of a Lancashire bleach factory foreman had been required to re-sit a year of his English degree.

Contemporaries in the university cricket team included Bishop Auckland footballer Warren Bradley, the only man to win English amateur and full international honours in the same season and perhaps the first to play floodlit croquet. They met again at a reunion at the university ground in 1999, the table melodious with cream horns.

“Other than at cricket teas,” the column observed, “cream horns may have totally disappeared from the nation’s tables.”

The Typhoon, who has died aged 85, had his first taste of the North-East during National Service at Catterick. “Officially I was an OKC, operator keyboards and cyphers,” he recalled.

“The lads called it operator keyboards and cricketer, because I was hardly ever there.”

At the start of the 1954 season he’d also signed as Redcar’s professional, played in a pre-season friendly against a Yorkshire II side that included Hutton and Trueman, but never managed an NYSD League game. He was spotted, and signed, by Northamptonshire.

In a book by the splendidly named Tim Quelch – not, it must be assumed, the chap who made poor Billy Bunter’s life such a misery – Martin Birtle discovers that it was Hutton himself who wrote to selectors’ chairman Gubby Allen after watching Tyson blow through Redcar.

Called into the England team for the 1954-55 Ashes tour, still with a degree to complete, he packed both books and boots and in the second Test claimed 10-30 and was felled by a vicious bouncer from Ray Lindwall. “Tyson wasn’t very impressed,” says Martin, which may be an understatement.

It also helped convince the 24-year-old undergraduate that his studies would have to take second place. “I had Ray Lindwall to worry about first,” he told the column.

He bagged 28 wickets at 20.87, the key figure in the series victory, before returning to Durham and to his degree.

He’d long lived in Australia, back in England in 1999 for a six-month reunion – older, probably wiser and certainly more arthritic. Again amid academia, he even resorted to a couplet he claimed had been inspired by Wordsworth:

The more he bowls, the truth to tell

The more it makes his ankles swell.

He’d also been a guest at Darlington Rotary Club, where the speaker – Jack Watson, the great all-rounder – recalled that Tyson had once dropped him, a sitter, at Gateshead Fell.

Frank put an arm around him after the meal. “I’m sorry I missed you,” he said.

He retired at 30, having claimed 70 wickets in 17 Tests at an average 18.76. Lovely chap, he remembered Durham with affection. “I only recall wonderful summer days,” he said over another cream horn. “The sun always shines when you’re young.”

Frank Tyson’s obituary appeared in Monday’s Times. The following day, a letter from fellow former Durham student David Day recalled an inter-collegiate final in 1953 in which he’d had to face the formidable Frank. After he’d hung around for a while, Day’s off stump was sent cartwheeling in the direction of the cathedral. “Medium pace half volley, David,” said Tyson as he departed. “I hoped,” wrote Day, “never to face such an easy delivery again.”