MUCH has been written on the passing of Jimmy Hill: none of it mentioned the night he ended up in the briny at Frinton-on-Sea.

It was the annual Debs’ Delight ball, black tie and all the trimmings, in that Essex enclave for the elite. “We’d been carousing, I’m afraid I pushed him in,” confesses Peter Freitag, retired estate agent and man about Darlington. “I don’t think either of us were debs.”

Peter also recalls the time that he and Hill were charged with erecting an awning over Frinton high street, promoting the forthcoming tennis club tournament.

“Jimmy fell into the awning above a butcher’s shop. I had to use the pole meant to put up the awning to prod him out again.”

In Frinton, he adds, the great football innovator was particularly friendly with the bankers who ran Arsenal. “They ate out of his hand. Jimmy was a great character – plain, simple, straightforward and effective. That was rare. I liked him very much.”

FOR reasons that may need little explanation, Christmas presents included the 10p programme from the 1971 FA Cup final, Arsenal v Liverpool.

Ads included Double Diamond, Castella – “the man-sized cigar for the man who likes his pint” – Goal magazine (9p), and the Moscow State Circus at the Empire Pool, seats from 60p.

The band played Elizabethan Serenade, Paint Your Wagon and Mancini Magic.

The programme also had a section in which the day’s broadcasters offered their thoughts on its outcome. Kenneth Wolstenholme, Brian Moore and John Bromley all tipped Shankly’s Liverpool.

Jimmy Hill was “convinced” not only that the Gunners would win but that the score would be 2-1. Indelibly, he was spot on.

WITH evident excitement, Ian Wright sends a photograph of a good-looking and carefully groomed young man in football kit. It’s captioned: “Entertainer Frankie Vaughan signs for Wingate, aged 27, 1955.” Sadly, this proves not to be the once-familiar Wearside League side, but a different Wingate, in London. Close but no Castella, as they may have said in the FA Cup final programme 45 years ago.

COULD a double whammy await for Simon Henig, the Durham County Council leader made CBE in the New Year honours list?

Simon’s also the region’s most fervent follower of Leicester City, the surprise package of this or any other Premier League season.

“It’s impossible to predict, but hopefully Leicester’s form in recent months can give everyone outside London and Manchester hope that with a lot of dedication and hard work it can happen one day,” he says.

“If we do break the domination of the football elite, it would arguably be the biggest achievement by anyone in at least the last 20 years.”

Then caution kicks in. “A top four finish would be enough to cap a memorable year.”

THE funeral takes place today at Esh Laude Roman Catholic church of Brian Suddes, an outstanding football manager. He died on Christmas Eve after a long illness.

In his six years as manager of the Durham County youth side in the 1990s, they three times won the national title and three times the northern title.

Brian had also successively been player, manager and chairman at Northern League club Consett, leading the team to joint top position – with Spennymoor United – at the end of 1965-77. The Moors won the play-off.

He returned as chairman after the steelworks closed, fighting to sustain the club in challenging circumstances.

Brian farmed near Langley Park, played cricket for the village team and Sunday football, into his 40s, for Esh Winning.

“His life was cows, sheep, football and cricket. Sometimes I didn’t know how he found time to sleep,” says Charlie Ryan, then as now Esh Winning’s chairman.

“He was a strong disciplinarian, took no nonsense from the lads and that appealed to me,” says long-serving former Durham FA president Frank Pattison. “He was the most successful manager we ever had.”

AMBROSE Fogarty, the former Sunderland and Hartlepool United player who has died aged 82, may not have expected to last quite as long.

In 1984 he was seriously injured in a car crash in his native Ireland, leaving him with chronic neck and chest problems – something about which he spoke at a Brandon United sportsmen’s dinner in 1989.

By that time he was back in the North-East and seeking more conventional medical help, but in Ireland he’d been sent on an acupuncture course which really did involve putting needles down his finger nails.

“When that happens,” said Amby, “you soon forget you’ve got a bad chest.”

….and finally, the goalkeeper with whom Petr Cech shared the record for most Premiership clean sheets (Backtrack, December 17) was David James – though James had played almost twice as many games.

Graham Phelps today invites readers to name the four Test cricketers who’ve scored more than 2,000 Test runs, claimed more than 200 wickets and held more than 100 catches.

That famous foursome next week.