Linlithgow Rose flourishes still: any amount of readers have been in touch - several just to salivate about Scotch pies - following Tuesday's account of the FA Cup Final Escape Committee's get-away day to those northern regions.

Eddie Stout, Scotland via Shildon, reckons that the locals pronounce it "Lithgae" and recalls familiar former Northern League centre forward Andy Gordon - once the Shildon Wagon Works manager's chauffeur - who hailed from those parts.

Kevin Tennent, a Durham based Forfar Athletic fan - a club known, he insists, as the Loons - wonders if former Forfar fatty Mark Anthony still plays for Linlithgow.

He does, though last time Kevin heard of him he was in a bit of bother, having allegedly head butted an opponent on his debut.

Perhaps it was the same match to which Martin Haworth in Morpeth refers, and may also explain the uncommonly abrasive atmosphere when Rose met Hill of Beath Hawthorn on Saturday.

Last time the teams met was a Scottish Junior Cup fifth round tie. Hawthorn won 4-1, Rose had four players sent off and clearly there was no love lost.

"A pity," says Martin, "it was played on St Valentine's Day."

Nearly 50 years after he was last in a recording studio, Sunderland's singing winger Colin Grainger has brought out a 17 track CD - fittingly called Down Memory Lane.

"Though I say so myself, the old voice is still going pretty strong," says Colin, the only man to play football for England and to sing at the London Palladium.

At Roker Park from 1956-59, he hit 14 goals in 124 games and between matches could be heard at clubs throughout the area. He won seven England caps.

The CD, every copy autographed, includes favourites like Last Waltz, Unchained Melody, The Wonder of You and My Mother's Eyes. The sleeve has a photograph of him representing England against Wales at Wembley.

The singing winger has shelved plans for an autobiography, however, after the publishing company sought £15,000 up front. "I'm not one of these modern day footballers, it would be peanuts to them," says Colin, 71 next month.

The CD is a fiver, plus 72p postage, from Colin at 7 Elmfield Drive, Skelmanthorpe, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire HD8 9BT.

Though the deals had been done, Tuesday's meeting of Darlington FC's creditors still proved entertaining - particularly in relation to a patch of land behind the old Feethams ground which may yet come to be known as the Polam Lane triangle. Outgoing club owner George Reynolds was closely questioned about it. "Ah," he replied cheerfully, "you have to remember I'm bent."

Stirred by the Spring sunshine, heliotropic Hails of Hartlepool not only queries last week's question about Arthur Conan Doyle - did the great author really play football for Portsmouth as well as cricket for MCC? - but wonders if his ears now deceive him.

Watching Monday's man of the match presentation to England debutant Andrew Strauss, Ron could have sworn that the MCC president was called Charles Fry. Any relation, he wonders, to Charles Burgess Fry.

Indeed he is. Charles Fry is the great man's grandson, also played for Hampshire in the 1970s - the third generation to do so - and toured with the MCC to Bangladesh in 1978-79.

Unlike his grandad, he played neither football or cricket for England nor held the world long jump record for 21 years. C B Fry also boasted a county batting average of 58.9, Hampshire's highest ever. The bairn's was an altogether more modest 11.

Yet more on "forgotten man" Brian Fletcher. Abe Stewart in Chilton, near Ferryhill, is another who's written to complain - this time to Richard Pitman at the BBC - about the perceived bias against the three times Grand National winning jockey.

"Every time they showed you Red Rum's wins it was always when Tommy Stack was riding him," says Abe. "I wonder if it might have been different if Brian hadn't been a Co Durham lad, from Cockfield."

The BBC never replied - but, says Abe, they still only show Tommy Stack.

Still black over Bill's mother's, and not least after a stern and not entirely unwarranted e-mail from Dave Cadman in Darlington who couldn't understand Tuesday's piece no matter how many times he read it.

"It's on the kitchen notice board," he says. "I'm hoping one day it'll make sense."

Stan Johnson, also in Darlington, recalls his grandfather quoting the sportsman's favourite forecast when they lived in St Albans before the second world war - and his grandmother trying valiantly to explain it.

the only player to score two penalties in an FA Cup final (Backtrack, May 25) was Eric Cantona - as Keith Bond in Brompton-on-Swale recalls, in Man United's 4-0 win over Chelsea in 1994.

Steve Smith today harks back to Saturday's final, the one we hasted to Lithgae to avoid. By appearing for Millwall, says Steve, Dennis Wise became only the second player to make FA Cup final appearances in three different decades - Wimbledon in the 80s, Chelsea in the 90s.

Who, he asks, was the first? The column again spans the decades on Tuesday.

Ben's banking on play-off glory

After an unforgettable couple of weeks, former Middlesbrough goalkeeper Ben Roberts - Crook lad - turns out for Brighton in Sunday's second division play-off final.

Ben, who played for Boro in the 1997 FA Cup final - he won't forget di Matteo's 43rd second screamer, fans won't forget the Alice band - kept his sixth successive clean sheet in the 1-0 semi-final first leg win over Swindon, despite playing with a broken toe.

A seventh would have been a club record. Though Albion lost the return 2-1, a crucial penalty shoot-out save helped see them through - and between the two games Ben was back up in Shildon for his grandmother's funeral.

His grandma Violet, it might be added, was a lovely, caring woman.

"It's all been pretty traumatic but he's coped very well," says Ben's dad Hughie, a retired newsagent in Crook.

Ben, 29 next month, made his Boro debut in the 4-2 Premiership win against Sheffield Wednesday in January 1997 and also played in the League Cup final defeat that season.

Subsequently something of a loan ranger, he played for Hartlepool, Wycombe, Bradford, Millwall, Luton and Reading before joining Charlton in July 2000 and kicking little more than his heels.

"No offence to him, but Dean Kiely never once got injured all the time Ben was there," says Hughie.

Loaned to Brighton in January 2003, he made just three first team appearances before a virulent gastro-enteritis attack. Brighton, relegated, came back for him in the summer. As usual it was on a free; despite the round Britain tour, he's never cost anyone a penny.

"Charlton offered him a new deal but he liked Brighton and was happy to go there," says his dad. "After the past fortnight, we're just hoping for a happy ending."

Billingham born Tommy Mooney, who missed Swindon's play-off penalty, is another much travelled player.

A chap we bumped into at Trimdon Juniors dinner the other night seeks his career record.

Now 32, he began at Aston Villa, first played League football at Scarborough and in 1993 was transferred to Southend for £100,000. Subsequently he's played for Watford, Birmingham, Stoke, Sheffield United and Derby.

The play-off second leg was his 417th League appearance.

Smartly turned out in lounge suit and collar and tie, the MC at the Trimdon Juniors do was Paul Farrer. Among the top table guests was legendary former Sunderland skipper Bobby Kerr. "Bobby had been effing for about ten minutes when he asked what my day job was," reports Paul. He is a Roman Catholic priest in Middlesbrough.

Bet on Callum to make it big

In Sedgefield, where an enterprising taxi owner once got handsome odds on their young MP becoming prime minister, Malcolm Dawes is looking for another generous bookmaker.

What odds, he wants to know, on Callum Brodrick playing county cricket for Durham.

Callum's just six, a bit bigger than two pennorth of copper but not much taller than the stumps. Last week, however, he bowled an Under 11s opponent middle stump and on Wednesday repeated the feat first ball - only for it to be called a no ball.

"He's an absolute diamond, the best I've ever seen at that sort of age," says Malcolm, the former Hartlepool United defender who is now on the county youth coaching staff.

The first victim came at Wolviston. "The whole ground was stunned, just mesmerised, but then they all began chanting his name," says Malcolm.

In Wednesday's match at Preston, Eaglescliffe, he'd had just three deliveries when struck in the eye by a ball that would have hit anyone else on the knee. After ice treatment, he carried on.

"It's the sort of lad he is," says Malcolm. "His line and length is amazing, all he needs now is the height."

Callum's dad Steve plays for Sedgefield's first team. His paternal grandfather played for Cambridge University and Northumberland and his maternal grandfather is Colin Boulton, who made 272 league appearances between 1961-74 in Derby County's goal and - like Malcolm Dawes - also played for New York Cosmos.

"He's been chasing cricket balls since he was two and looks quite useful, but when he bowled someone middle stump he just went wild," says Steve.

Callum's first press conference had to be curtailed, however. It was nine o'clock in Sedgefield's clubhouse and past the bairn's bedtime. "His mum's going to kill me," said Steve. A good bet, anyway.

Published: 28/05/2004