Don’t forget Donald (From The Northern Echo)

Don’t forget Donald

9:53am Tuesday 16th February 2010 in

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SEEKING to strengthen an archive of their unique achievement, Bishop Auckland football club had best not forget Donald Simpson Bell – as John Phelan points out, the only Football League player to win a VC.

Was he also the only Northern League man so honoured?

Most accounts mention only that 2nd Lt Bell was a professional with Bradford City. One or two include amateur days at Newcastle United and Crystal Palace.

The National Army Museum has no doubts, however, that D S Bell played also for the Bishops.

Born in Harrogate in 1890, Bell was a teacher at nearby Starbeck school and became the first pro to enlist in World War I.

Serving with the Green Howards on the Somme in July 1916, he led an attack on a German machine gun position, shot the operator with his revolver, destroyed the post with Mills bombs and threw other bombs into a nearby trench, killing 50 of the enemy.

His speed was said to be “incredible”, his bomb throwing arm strengthened by his prowess as a fast bowler.

Five days later he was killed in another attack, his helmet – “through which a bullet had passed with little more resistance than a can of beans to an opener” the column observed 20 years ago – is in the Green Howards regimental museum in Richmond.

At sunset on July 9, 2000, a memorial carved by Thirsk stonemason Neil Collinson was unveiled on the spot where the gallant officer fell.

IT WASN’T really the Railroad to Wembley, rather what the bus companies used to call a dupe – Marske United v Whitehawk, FA Vase 5th round replay, 12.35 from Darlington and from thence into the Middle House.

In truth it resembled the Marie Celeste. Four full pints sitting round the next table but no one on the chairs.

The explanation, it transpired, was that the Middle House is one of those happily situated pubs with a betting shop next-door-butone.

Elders and betters, the quartet returned morosely.

It was also St Valentine’s weekend, or month, or whatever the greetings card industry now demands.

Thus it was that Marske were missing star striker Benn Thompson, attending a wedding (and not even his own.) Defender Stuart Jackson, having missed the original game at Brighton because his wife might go into labour, dutifully missed this one because she had.

Valentine’s was also the 65th birthday of the magnificent Mike Findley, sponsoring the match in honour of the occasion.

Diagnosed five years ago with motor neurone disease, made an MBE in the New Year Honours, the former mayor of Redcar and Cleveland remains indomitable. Unlike his team, alas.

Peter Collinson, who does so much for club and community, had bought a job lot of air horns for the younger fans. “People say there’s no atmosphere at our ground,” he explained.

There seemed more horns than a rut of stags, temporarily silenced after three minutes when the visitors snuck in front.

Two down after 70 minutes, United were level two minutes later, behind again after 73. Still, they’d done wonderfully well and the skilltrainingltd Northern League still has three teams in the last eight, on February 27.

We’d gone with Mr Kit Pearson, after 60-odd years his first ever match on a Northern League ground. “I loved absolutely everything about it,” he said. As it says on the welcome packs, just give it a go.

AMONG those not in evidence at Marske on Saturday was local MP Vera Baird QC – also the Solicitor General – whose 59th birthday it was. Mrs Baird, indeed, was born on the same day as Kevin Keegan, the erstwhile Newcastle United messiah. It would be impossible to say which of them is the richer.

MENTION in Saturday’s column of Dugald McCarrison, whose last kick for Darlington was to a Fulham player’s backside, sent Andy Ferguson in Newton Aycliffe onto the Internet.

It was November 1989, McCarrison on loan from Celtic, where his mark was made less prominently.

In the summer of 1988, reported the Scottish Sunday Herald nine years ago, Celtic had contemplated a bid – “the most audacious transfer swoop in the club’s history” – for Paul Gascoigne.

Assistant manager Tommy Craig, the ex- Newcastle player, was keen.

Manager Billy McNeill hesitated, and lost. Gazza stayed on Tyneside.

“It was an example of the caution and parsimony that was to characterise and cripple Celtic,” said the paper.

Instead they signed Dugald McCarrison. The title, adds the Herald, was lost for a decade.

AT HOME in the Vase quarter-final after 18 successive away ties, Shildon have clearly grown accustomed to being on the road. On Saturday they played Bishop Auckland at West Auckland and booked a 33-seat supporters’ bus. West Auckland is four miles away.

KNOCKING up a decent score, we asked a couple of columns back if anyone could beat the 62 grounds on which the redoubtable William Ainsley – he of Spout House – had played competitive cricket.

Doug Arnold, late of Beamish and East Tanfield and of Coxhoe, recalls 92, across the North West Durham, Mid Durham and East Durham leagues and “various cup competitions”

plus maybe a dozen on Army service in Germany.

The most northerly, he supposes, may be Bomarsund in Northumberland, the most southerly Richmond, the most westerly Cleator Moor on the Cumbrian coast and the most easterly Hartlepool.

William, still recuperating in the Friarage Hospital at Northallerton, has been Spout House secretary for 60-odd years.

We hear, however, that Feversham league secretary Charles Allenby, a man of meticulous records, nay have played on 144 different grounds.

Net and gross, there may be more of that next time.

DOUBTLESS on the basis of official publicity, a piece in yesterday’s paper claimed that Whitby Regatta – fast approaching its 170th anniversary – was the country’s oldest. Peter Jefferies, Durham lad and proud of it, sticks his oar in at once.

Durham Regatta began in 1834, the first race between University College and a Sheriff’s crew, and marked its 175th anniversary in 2008 with a big firework display.

Though older then Henley, even Durham wasn’t the first. That distinction belongs to Chester. Whitby’s still a little way down river.

... and finally

IT IS doubtless because of the great affection in which still he is held that an extraordinary number of readers knew that the only footballer to gain an FA Cup winner’s medal either side of World War II (Backtrack, February 13) was Raich Carter – in 1937 with Sunderland and nine years later with Derby County.

Norman Robinson, among the knowledgeable, follows with his customary supplementary – an England football international of the 1970s, the referee of the Newcastle v Burnley FA Cup semi-final in 1974 and a north London railway station all have the same name.

Right lines, the column returns on Saturday.