EXACTLY 40 years since Willington hosted sixtimes winners Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup, not so much David v Goliath as David v the Rest of the Known World, the County Durham club’s players reunited last Saturday.

The crowd was 4,600 (or so), the wind was blowing a gale, the result a goalless draw. “We should have won it, Tommy Holden missed a sitter with just a few minutes left,”

recalls player-manager Brian Newton within ten seconds of reverie commencing.

“Mind,” he adds, “tremendous player, Tommy Holden.”

It was the Winter of Discontent, or maybe just one of them. The miners were on strike, electricity rationed.

No floodlights allowed, even if Willington had had them, and none for the replay, either.

“Brian had us going round the pubs with the begging bowl. I think we made 35 shillings,” says John Hussey, the inside right.

“It was just a way of whipping up interest. We weren’t after money at all,” insists the player/manager. It worked.

Cars, they reckon, were parked halfway to the former Brancepeth Army camp, three miles away. Willington had baked, the papers full of little else save for the outrageous 50 per cent increase in the price of a bacon sandwich – up to 21p – at Darlington bus station.

Though Rovers had fallen on relatively hard times, briefly in the third division, they were mill town millionaires compared to the thin seam toilers of the former colliery town.

Officially amateur, they were allowed (it’s conceded) a few bob petrol money. Floodlights forbidden, it meant they could train by car headlights.

The Hall Lane ground had little changed since the club’s Amateur Cup win 23 years earlier, the pitch a bit of a clart.

“It was pretty hard going, very much rough and tumble. We had to make the most of what we had,” says Brian.

Blackburn manager Ken Furphy, Stockton born and Darlington adopted, had also heard reports of a little old lady with an offensive umbrella.

“I’m a bit worried. The crowd gets right on top of you at Willington,” he said.

It was the Rovers supporters, Brian supposes, who had the biggest culture shock, however. “We’d made hundreds of ham and pease pudding sandwiches and they’d never heard of it. Can you believe it, a town like Blackburn and never heard of pease pudding?”

SEVEN of them are back in Willington, eight if Jimmy Lee – assistant manager in 1973 – is included. Forty years later, he’s again at Hall Lane, this time with the title director of football. “I think it means assistant manager,” says Jim.

There’s David Newton, Brian’s brother, John Hussey, John Suddes and John Fenwick, the stylish Howard Murray – later himself Willington’s manager – and the everexcellent Jackie Foster, Witton Park lad. It’s a lot preferable, they agree, than meeting up for one another’s funerals.

They group for a photograph. “I’m Charlton Heston, third right,” says the diminutive Jackie.

“We’ve hardly changed at all, I’m just a bit more bow legged,” says John Fenwick.

“It was that windy, they called Newcastle Races off the same day,” recalls Howard.

Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe had loaned the FA Cup, which stood in the middle of the little guest room.

Referee Colin Seel’s dad, who died between the first game and the replay, confessed surprise.

“It just looks like the real thing,” he said.

“The insurance arrangements must have been different in those days,” says Willington secretary Geoff Siddle.

Alan Stewart, now 55, had also played at Willington that cold November day – with the South-West Durham Battalion Church Lads’ Brigade band. “I can’t remember what the music was,” he says, “but I know that the excitement was fantastic.”

Willington pressed early and late, defended stoutly in the middle.

Rovers included long-serving goalkeeper Tony Parkes, former Newcastle United man Ben Arentoft and North-East lads Barry Endean and Terry Garbutt. “We had some exceptional footballers ourselves. We weren’t going to roll over just because it was Blackburn,” says Howard.

Brian Newton, long familiar in Northern League football, had encountered Bob Stokoe a couple of years later when Stokoe’s Carlisle faced Newton’s Bishop Auckland in the FA Cup second round.

“We were drawing, looking forward to the replay, when Ken Walmsley, the referee, abandoned it with eight minutes to go and we had to go back over there. The papers had a picture of me and Stokoe arguing like hell. I’ll never forget it, but that wasn’t the most memorable day of my sporting life.

“That was when little Willington should have beaten the mighty Blackburn Rovers.”

THOUGH the crowd’s about 4,500 fewer, Willington have baked again. The guest room is hung with past glories; the corridor, like the team, remains blue and white striped.

A glass case frames memories of that day in 1973: rosette, rattle, 40p ticket – “ground only.” The replay programme, 8p, had adverts for Players No 6 – “Part of the Christmas scene” – and for Park Drive, “the decent tipped cigarette.” Rovers book matches were 5p, duffle bags 93p, nightdress cases £2.20.

Willington’s programme acknowledged “three years of hard work and honest endeavour by everyone connected with the club.”

Postponed several times – “we got as far as Kirkby Stephen once,” says Brian – the replay took place at 1.30pm on Monday, December 3. The crowd was about the same as Willington’s, the result a 6-1 home win.

“Ken Furphy was very nice afterwards, but he had every right to be.

We didn’t disgrace ourselves at all,” says Brian. “If only Tommy Holden had put that chance away.”

THE column had also watched Willington on the 30th anniversary – “All we need is a sugar daddy or a few more people to buy raffle tickets,” secretary Bob Nicholls had said – before taking itself off to Blackburn, Ewood Park transformed with £40m of Jack Walker’s money. He probably bought a few bobs’ worth of raffle tickets, too.

It was a town famous for Barbara Castle, Thwaites’s beer, meat and potato pie and 4,000 holes. “These days it should be 4,000 CCTV cameras,” a letter in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph had said.

Blackburn were second bottom of the Premiership, Willington second bottom of the second division of the Northern League.

Tony Parkes was by then assistant manager. “The wind were bloody horrific,” he recalled.

Since then, the gap between the sides has narrowed. Blackburn are in the Championship, Willington on an 11-game unbeaten run in the Ebac Northern League second division.

Last Saturday, it narrowed still further. Willington beat neighbours Brandon United 2-1; Blackburn Rovers could only manage another measly goalless draw.