BARRIE Richardson, whose passing we noted last week, was a lovely guy, an all-round sportsman of much ability and a considerable quaffer, too.

The man his friends called Barfy was one of that happy breed who didn’t just enjoy a pint after the match but before it, too.

As a cricketer he’ll most affectionately be recalled at Mainsforth, as a goalkeeper at Evenwood and Spennymoor, as a darts player in pubs throughout the region.

He’s remembered as the first Durham County League batsman to essay the reverse sweep, as a footballer who once turned out with twigs in his hair – he’d spent the night in a hedge – and as a games player who instantly could compute any three-dart finish that mathematically was possible and quite often hit it, too.

“A rough diamond with a heart of gold. He’d do anything for you once you had his confidence,” says former Evenwood Town manager Graeme Forster.

Occasionally he’d feature in Backtrack, perhaps most memorably after being booked while playing for Ferryhill John Dee in the Auckland and District League for having 20 fags and a half-consumed four-pack in the back of the net.

“The referee said it was ungentlemanly conduct. I was too drunk to argue,” said Barrie.

There was also the occasion, captaining Mainsforth in the National Village Cricket Cup at Liverton Mines, in East Cleveland, when he’d been distracted by a topless blonde sunbathing behind the bowler’s arm. When Mainsforth fielded, he knew exactly where to stand.

John Irvine, both former Mainsforth team-mate and Barfy’s teacher at Ferryhill Comp, still talks of the century he hit against the formidable West Indian Barrington Brown while the rest of the team was “petrified.”

“He was one of the best local sportsmen it’s been my pleasure to play with. You’d never be in trouble with Barrie at the crease,” says John.

“He had a lot of friends and was incredibly kind, but there’s many a time we’d be chasing round West Cornforth before a match, trying to find him. The thing about Barfy is that he was always worth finding.”

Doc Forster recalls a Northern League game against relatively weak opposition in which Barfy insisted that a youngster get a chance in goal while he took the place of a no-show linesman.

The game hadn’t long started when a visiting player accused the stand-in assistant of cheating. “Barfy waited until half-time, walked into the opposition dressing room, grabbed the offender and told him that if he said that again, the flag would be relocated where the sun didn’t shine. He then went into the ref’s room for his half-time cuppa.”

Doc also tells of the penalty shoot-out – against Northallerton or Guisborough, he forgets – when Barfy saved three of the first four only for Evenwood’s kickers to be similarly wayward.

Barfy himself insisted on taking the fifth, scored and turned to the rest. “That’s the way to do it lads,” he said – and then saved the last.

He was landlord of the Slake Inn at West Cornforth, near Ferryhill, which is where we’d last seen him. Linda Ithurrallde, Darlington lass and Slake team captain, had won the BDO World Masters and the pub was celebrating.

“God didn’t give me a figure and he didn’t give me a face, but he gave me the ability to throw three darts,” said Linda.

Barrie and his wife Andrea, who died last year, had been on holiday at the time of the world triumph and had been in tears at the news.

He was 54, was killed when his van left the road and will be greatly missed by many.

Family commitment

MUCH cause for celebration in the Ellis family. Robert is marking 25 years since he successfully re-formed Spennymoor Boxing Club; son Reece, 24, has won his first England belt.

The new-born in the Spennymoor Boxing Academy babygro is an awfully bonny bairn, too.

We’re old friends, gathered over Friday fish and chips at a pub in Kirk Merrington figuratively to swap a few punches.

Robbie was himself a good amateur, fought with Shildon and with Darlington, reached the ABA quarter-finals, saw Europe.

Reece was considered a better footballer, on the books of each of the North-East’s big three, scored a hat-trick for Newcastle in a junior game against Sunderland.

Then the surprising bit. “When I was 14 I just fell out of love with football. In the end I hated it. My dad said you could make a lot more money that way, but I used to cry on the way to training.

“As soon as I stepped into a boxing ring, I knew that that was what I wanted to do. I love everything about boxing, even being hit in the face, so long as I can hit them back.”

Starting with big Michael Hopper at the Royal Albert Hall, the club has had many more champions, many headlines, many adventures.

They began in a tiny gym – “about as big as a bedroom,” says Robbie – in the local leisure centre. The watchword, then as now, was about getting kids off the streets, about – they say – turning gangsters into gentlemen.

The rules are easily summed: no drugs, no lip and no subs no training.

A window cleaner by day, head coach Robbie is in the gym four or five nights a week and at weekends, too. Reece, quietly spoken and deceptive in designer glasses, works with the family firm.

“My dad’s not really on my case,” he says. “He leaves it to the other coaches.”

Long practised, they list their overseas tours: New Zealand, Australia, Chicago, Las Vegas, Canada four times, Norway, Sweden, South Africa.

As easily, they recall some of their guests: Ernie Shavers, Alan Minter, Glenn McCrory, John Conteh, Mad Frankie Fraser.

Mad Frankie? “Three times,” says former club secretary Paul Hodgson, there on a where-draughts-can’t basis. “Lovely lad, Frankie Fraser.”

The motivation, says Robbie, is just to see the kids do well – and to see them win. “It doesn’t matter what the level, just to see the look in a kid’s eyes when the referee raises his arm is always amazing.

“Boxing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but 90 per cent of the time the opponent you’ve just beaten becomes your best friend.

“Every time we go away I think it’s the last trip, there’s so much work involved, but it’s the sort of thing that changes lives. We took 18 to Las Vegas, some of them 13 and 14-year-olds and hardly been out of Spennymoor."

Robbie was also one of those true local heroes chosen to carry the Olympic torch. “It’ll never get better than that,” he says, and swiftly changes his mind. “Not until our Reece is chosen to box for England, anyway.”