AILING fellows, well met, we again gathered to celebrate the birthday - 87, and accelerating - of Harry Clarke, the only man to play professionally for Darlington at both football and cricket.

It seems to come around ever more quickly - or, like Easter, to be a moveable feast.

"Young" Harry Clark was there, too, Quakers legend Ron Greener and his mate Bob Sharp - the Raith rover - made their debut appearances, older hands like Jim Scarborough, Joe Liddle and Jim McMillan again had their feet beneath the table.

Old Harry, for whom Darlington had received a record fee when he went to Leeds United, was teased about his hair cut, or lack of it. He had a look of Private Godfrey about him, though without a sister Dolly.

The talk turned to Brylcreem and to centre partings, to Lance Robson - dental surgeon centre forward - and to Dickie Deacon, the Quakers' long-serving trainer, rat catcher and boilerman.

"If it hadn't been for Dickie, Feethams would never have had hot water," said Ron. "He was the only one who could work the blinking thing."

On the subject of swearing, Ron also recalled his long-time fellow defender and great mate Brian Henderson, a full back hewn from Durham coal. "Brian hardly swore at all but one day he'd really done for this outside right.

"The poor lad struggled to hit feet and told Hendy he was the ugliest full back he'd ever seen.

He got both barrels after that."

As usual, the yellowed cuttings were passed round with the coffee. "Harry Clarke scored his 24th goal and fourth hat-trick of the season."

"Yes," said Harry, "and they still called me a ****house."

The lunch was as usual at the Lord Nelson in Gainford, as usual a most convivial occasion.

Old Harry had also made 46 appearances for Durham County Cricket Club. "Unless he gets run out," someone said, "he's going to make 100."

THE following evening to Northumberland FA's 125th anniversary dinner in Newcastle, Sir Bobby Robson - incomparable, indomitable - the enthusiastically applauded principal guest.

He's now had cancer five times; none of his four brothers has had it. "I keep saying that I've had my share, but I consider myself lucky," he said. "Thanks to the wonderful treatment from the NHS, my life has been saved."

With him was Michael Hogan, whose dad kept the Fir Tree outside Cornsay Colliery - one of the great unspoiled pubs, now demolished. "I was never really a pub man," said Sir Bobby.

Until the River Tyne came between them, Northumberland FA ran for four years jointly with Durham FA. "They were difficult people; nothing's changed," said NFA president Alan Wright, jocularly.

Durham FA marks its own 125th anniversary with a dinner at the Stadium of Light on May 24.

We sat next to Whitley Bay FC chairman Paul McIlduff, anxiously anticipating the FA Vase semi-final second leg match the following day. "It's going to be like the Alamo,"

said Paul, and the siege mentality just about summed it up.

THE Alamo lasted 13 days.

Whitley Bay, 4-0 down from the first leg in Lowestoft, had but 90 minutes. "Up and at them," urged the programme, and every Wild West metaphor - including a visiting goalkeeper essaying a passable impression of Hopalong Cassidy - might have been employed thereafter.

The Arngrove Northern League side had 12 times scored four or more goals this season.

They believed they could make it 13.

After two minutes they'd scored, slightly fortuitously; after nine minutes Paul Robinson's 30-yard rocket made it two. After 20 they scored a third, hope rising inversely to the thermometer.

I'd already written a one-word headline. "Lowestuffed."

Sadly, the fortress thereafter remained inviolate, despite countless corners, innumerable half-chances and Hopalong's brilliant save from centre forward Chow that left Lowestoft with the first leg still to stand on.

Remember the Alamo? "No one," said Paul McIlduff, "could have been more gallant than us."

PERHAPS mercifully withholding the score, the NFA dinner programme recalled in passing the day that Shankhouse met Aston Villa in the FA Cup fourth round.

Shankhouse was a littleknown village near Cramlington. Villa, described in The Northern Echo as "the famous Birmingham club", were the cup holders.

It was December 17, 1887, two years before the Football League kicked off but still with a healthy entry in the Cup.

North-East teams included Scarborough, beaten by Shankhouse in the first round, Redcar, Darlington, Elswick and Middlesbrough, who beat Whitburn in the first round and lost to Crewe in the quarter-final.

It was also the season that Preston beat Hyde United 26-0, still a record score for the competition.

The Shankhouse match took place on the Stickley Farm ground, also used by Newcastle West End, the crowd said to be "fully 8,000 persons" and to have contributed towards the first £100 gate in Northumberland football history.

Whatever the sensation in Shankhouse, however, it appeared not greatly to interest the Echo. Our Saturday morning football notes - "by Offside" - concentrated almost exclusively on Darlington St Augustine's 2-0 defeat the previous weekend at Stockton.

"The dovecotes (in Stockton) did ring last Saturday night and it was with difficulty that the jubilation was kept within bounds," Offside observed.

The following Monday's paper also reported that Barnard Castle had beaten Bishop Auckland 2-0 on the Agricultural Show ground - Bishop protested that the goalposts were illegal - that Darlington had beaten Morpeth Harriers 5-0 ("one of the most scientific and dashing games seen this season") and that Bishop Auckland Church Institute third team had thumped Witton-le-Wear 14-0.

Turnbull had scored for Aston Villa after nine minutes, after which our Stickley Farmer appears to have lost interest. The game, he concluded, had been one-sided.

Though no further scorers were recorded, the Villans of the piece managed eight more.

SHARON Gayter, athlete extraordinary, has completed a 190km race across the Libyan desert in just 36 hours - first woman, fourth (of 100) overall, loved (she says) every minute.

Sharon, from Guisborough, carried her own pack, had to do her own navigation, some of it in total darkness, and sort out her own problems.

Chiefly they were sunburn and the numerous blisters caused by sand in her shoes.

She'd trained on Redcar beach: they'd seemed all right there.

Bottom line, the race website lost some of this in the translation and reported instead that she'd been suffering from piles.

"Even if I had been, I certainly wouldn't have said as much in a post-race interview,"

says Sharon, 43. "I was only troubled by the blisters and the sunburn."

Something about heat and kitchen, she's now in the middle of a seven-day, 245k, kitcarrying Sahara race that may make Libya seem temperate by comparison. More from the sand stormer on Friday.

...AND FINALLY

THE only Englishmen apart from Ryan Sidebottom to have taken a wicket with their first ball in a Test match (Backtrack, March 28) are Maurice Tate (1926, Leeds) and Geoff Arnold, at Birmingham in 1974.

After much debate in the pub, John Briggs in Darlington today invites the identity of the last player from English football's second level - presently the Championship - to win an England cap. Whilst about it, readers may care also to name the five post-war players capped while playing at the third level.

Same level as always, the column returns on Friday.

8:58am Tuesday 1st April 2008

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