In with both feet as usual, our last column recorded Big Jack Charlton's thoughts on the dirtiest player he ever knew.

The usual black book suspects were lined up and eliminated: not terrible Tommy Smith, pernicious Peter Storey nor even Ron Harris, indelibly - ineffably - Chopper. The muckiest of all, said Jack, was Albert Nightingale, at Leeds in the 1950s when he himself was a bit bairn from the back of the shaft.

A chap on a Leeds United website also reckons that Albert invented diving. "He could be tripped on the halfway line and hit the penalty area; a great player, though."

While he may not be singing quite so lustily, Albert Nightingale is still very much alive, still smoking like a Huddersfield mill chimney. His nephew, by happy chance, is former Darlington player-manager Lol Morgan.

"Oh he was dirty, quite bad, and also won more penalties than anyone I've ever known," concedes Lol, now 73. "Albert was absolutely renowned for it, but off the field he was very gentle, as soft as a brush."

Nightingale - slicked black hair, black moustache, looks of a 50s film star - was born in Thrybergh, south Yorkshire, described on the village website as "a true sporting legend."

Uncle and nephew were together at Sheffield United, where Albert's also remembered by Malcolm Bailey in Norton-on-Tees, himself a Blades apprentice from 1949-51. "Replaced the late, great Jimmy Hagan," Malcolm recalls.

When Albert moved to Huddersfield, he recommended they sign the lad, too. After a spell with Blackburn Rovers, Albert ended up at Leeds, where he hit 48 goals in 135 appearances between 1952-57 and is said to have combined well with John Charles.

Lol Morgan - who later tried to sign the 39-year-old Charles for Darlington - had reached Rotherham - training in the morning, flogging advertising for the Rotherham Advertiser in the afternoon and remembered for his ability to run as fast backwards as forwards.

"We played against each other once or twice but I don't think we clashed," says Lol. "He wouldn't have hurt one of the family."

Thanks also for memories to Paul Atkin in Northallerton and John Briggs in Darlington, and to all those who spotted a typing mistake in the report of Big Jack's appearance at Willington - he'll be 70, not 60, on May 8.

Lol himself had a 15-year Football League career in which he made 300 full back appearances and never once scored a goal. "I remember one of my grandchildren giving the fact a few moments consideration, then all bright eyed asking if I'd ever taken a corner," he recalls.

He succeeded Eddie Carr at Feethams in 1964, initially billeted on Charles Brand, club secretary and former town clerk, who in his 70s still rode to the ground on his bike.

"Throughout my career there he never once called me Lol, or even Lawrence, just Morgan. He was a nice enough chap, just old- fashioned."

In 1966 he steered the Quakers to a first promotion in 40 years, having inherited crowds of 3,000 and doubled them, despite admission rising to four shillings.

"I'm no financial expert," he says, "but I remember reading somewhere even then that Manchester United made more from selling programmes than we did on gate receipts."

The league's lowest paid manager, he was offered an extra tenner a week for winning promotion, left for Norwich City, returned to his native Rotherham after being sacked - "He's absolutely in love with the place," says Pauline, his wife - and hasn't worked in football since.

"I've only been to watch Rotherham two or three times this season," he admits. "I think all this borrowing players has stopped the chances of youngsters developing." Instead he's junior golf organiser for the Sheffield Union, back on the course himself, despite a knee replacement last September. The other knee awaits expectantly.

Uncle Albert, now 81, lives in Huddersfield, still gets in a game of bowls ("You can't dive in bowls") still sports a moustache and combed back hair.

"He never looked tough," says Lol. "Tommy Smith and Ron Harris looked as hard as they were but Albert was just 5ft 8in and quite slightly built.

"Eventually he got a nasty knee injury - cruciate ligament, you know - and they wanted to experiment with a plastic ligament. It was a serious operation in those days and he wouldn't let them do it, he retired at 32.

"He's not as well as he was and doesn't shave as often as he should. If he did, people would still recognise Albert Nightingale. They'd probably run a mile."

Originally it was just a throw-away paragraph, tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings, now former England amateur international footballer George Brown finds himself at the centre of a "campaign."

George, a Tow Law season ticket holder, suggests in the Albany Northern League magazine that chips should be compulsory on all grounds. Esh Winning's were the best, he said - frying high - Peterlee's a sizzling second.

Now, reports Mike Moffatt from Hyde in Cheshire, the hot topic has been aired as far away as Greater Manchester Radio. Fat in the fire, Mike's keen to offer support.

"Quite how it would be incorporated into the FA's pyramid structure I don't know, but it is significantly more important than some of the more obscure ground grading requirements now being imposed upon us."

That little set-to between Messrs Bowyer and Dyer stirred memories for Eric Henderson in Marske: it wasn't, he says, the first time in the North-East that two players from the same side had been sent off for fighting.

Eric, a former president of the Football League Referees' and Linesmens' Association, was assessing a night match at Darlington about 20 years ago - "referee Jim Parker, opponents Grimsby, I think" - when civil war broke out in the middle of the field.

"It was two visiting players, and even when Jim had sent them off the fight continued on the way to the dressing room. He was an underrated referee, very strong, and I went in afterwards to compliment him on the way he'd handled it."

Eric's unable to recall any more details of the fight night. Further accounts welcomed.

Cricket resumes tomorrow, the good folk of Stockton already gearing up for the four-day championship match from May 6-9. Collingwood and Harmison for Durham, Trescothick and Jayasuria for Somerset should all be available - and so, promises Stockton committee member Richard Thurston, will the renowned home-made grub beneath the score box.

Sponsorship packages - entrance, coffee, lunch and tea - are available on all days, details from Ray Waite on 01642 606468. The club receives all sponsorship income - and all the gate money, too.

And finally...

the column on March 29 sought the identity of seven English international footballers since 1966 whose surname begins and ends with the same letter: Paul Scholes, Nobby Stiles, Dennis Tueart, Gary Stevens (Spurs), Gary Stevens (Everton), Keith Newton and John Scales.

A reader whose e-mail has, wretchedly, been mislaid, correctly adds goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer, who appeared for 45 minutes against the USA.

Paul Chinery in Darlington recalls that the first floodlit Football League match was between Portsmouth and Newcastle on February 22 1956 - but who, he asks, were the first Football League club to install floodlights.

Illuminating as ever, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 12/04/2005