A bit of a do last night, whistling Pat Partridge was honoured for 50 years membership of the Referees' Association. It was also his 43rd wedding anniversary, an occasion - he said - to play the "poor farmer" card.

"It's good of you to save me the expense of taking Margaret out for a meal," he told guests at the North Riding FA dinner.

Whatever the top table delights, however, the repast may neither in quantity nor quality have matched the farmhouse spread laid out a couple of days earlier when the column went calling to Cockfield.

There were piled platefuls of ham and peas pudding sandwiches, perfect pork pies from Joe Simpson's, great doorsteps of fruit loaf rich with butter. "We like to make people feel at home," said Pat, and Kevin Keegan is among regular visitors.

The man many reckoned Britain's best referee is 70 now, looks ten years younger, reckons his hair won't turn grey no matter how hard he tries to look his age.

The house is called Law One - "Field of play" - and overflows with football mementos from the days when men were men, shorts were short and whiskers grew like wisteria.

The views are stupendous, the snow still in the hedge backs, the peace perfect. "We are in heaven," he says, simply.

His car's REF 1 and Margaret's REF 47, the age at which referees had to retire; even the dog kennel has REF 1 over the entrance.

Now, save for an unscheduled cameo at a Bishop Auckland match earlier this season, he's winding down. Golf has taken football's place, an end to magistrates court and prison visiting duties means more time for Margaret and for cruising on the QEII.

"I've had my time and I enjoyed it," he says. "I have no regrets whatsoever. You won't ever hear me bleating."

He was the only man to referee two World Club Cup finals, controlled the FA Cup final in 1975 and the League Cup final three years later, had charge of more than 100 international and European matches, officiated or coached in 57 countries and collected so many souvenirs that the village school kids used to come round for geography lessons.

Last night's award will join them. "As a referee I always believed in saying please and thank you to players. It's nice when other people can do it, too."

His CV, updated for the occasion, includes other appointments as far flung as life membership of the Zambian Referees Association and of Shotley Bridge Hospital FC.

Equally little known is that he was also a senior water polo and basketball referee. "Whether being a referee was because I wanted to be a powerful figure I don't know, but I don't think so.

"Every referee's egotistical, let's not beat about the bush. You're being watched by people and you want to be noticed, but I don't think it's the power thing with me."

The introduction to his 1979 autobiography said that he had been described as a person who has walked into some of football's biggest trouble spots with the air of a pin striped diplomat rather than the defiance of a man off a gun boat."

Every game, however humble, has been recorded in a book like a tallyman's ledger; many are still vividly recalled. His memory is phenomenal.

"There was North Ormesby Boys Club v Linthorpe Tennis Club," he begins, "abandoned after 46 minutes when the only ball burst in a hawthorn hedge...."

Opened at random, a page records three games at the start of the 1979-80 season. September 12 Burnley v Celtic, September 23 Shildon Juniors v Spennymoor Juniors, September 28 Ajax v Atletico Bilbao.

"I never believed in picking and choosing games, you just accepted them gratefully because it was a football match. There were 22 players on the field and they deserved your best.

"I hardly ever used first names; everyone was treated the same whether they were big names or nobodies. If something had to be done, it was done.

"It was about getting on with people, not currying favour. You can't buy relationships."

The Burnley match, Anglo-Scottish Cup, became known as the Battle of Turf Moor. "The crowd were pulling railings up and using them as spears, all sorts.

"In the end I brought the players off, not because of that but because I'd seen glass on the field. Billy McNeill, the Celtic manager, did his nut and I had to tell him to shut it.

"If a player had fallen on the glass, it would have been the referee who got it in the neck."

He was born in Billingham, son of an ICI man and former Airborne Division regimental sergeant major who won the MBE - "for doing my job properly," his dad would modestly insist.

Pat himself failed the 11+, became an electrician at Head Wrightson's, was persuaded - "nagged" - into taking up refereeing when a tendon injury ended his playing career at 18.

Harry Bage and Alec Brown, work colleagues, were senior referees. "I had no ambition to be a referee and it took them two years to persuade me," he recalls. "I only went on the course to shut them up."

He qualified in 1953 ("February 24th"), joined the Referees Associatuion three weeks later ("St Patrick's Day") became a Northern League referee in 1958 and, eight years later, the first man to be promoted directly from Northern League to Football League middle.

By 1971 he was on both FIFA and UEFA lists, which suggested that he was making a decent fist of it.

"I suppose someone must have seen potential but I've never said that I was any good," he insists. "I suppose I must have been able to do the job to some extent but I could never say that I didn't spoil a game through bad refereeing.

"I've dropped some real clangers in my time. Players would come galloping towards me and I'd just hold up my hands, admit I was wrong and walk away. It defused the situation; I think it's what they call man management.

"I've many a time run past a player and told him that if he did something again I'd kick him over the stand. They'd look at me, but it worked. I got respect."

Though they met at Head Wrightson's, Margaret was a farmer's daughter. In 1973 they moved to the family farm in west Durham and whichever end he was thrown in at, it was usally a pretty messy one.

"I've never been a very efficient farmer but I knew enough to get me around and I had two very good teachers.

"Margaret's father told me to treat a cow like a woman and he was right. I spent hours talking to the calves, playing with them, chasing them up and down the field in welly boots - perfect training."

He'd begun refereeing on half a crown a game in the Under 16s, 3/6d in the under 18s and had graduated to £25 when obliged to stand down in 1981. Now Premiership refs are on £1,000 a match and a handsome annual retainer.

Happily, says Pat, he never did it for the money and would have wasted an awful lot of time if he had.

"I don't miss it and I don't criticise it. I knew I had to retire at a certain age and I accept that. It would be a bad job me moaning and groaning about refereeing when there's all those other lads haven't been so lucky.

"That's probably what made the difference. I've been the most fortunate referee in the world."

Chocolate fish filleter recalled

His e-mail beginning "Gidday Mike", New Zealand sports journalist Tony Smith writes kindly about these columns - particularly the recent obituary on former Middlesbrough centre half Tommy Blenkinsopp, Witton Park and proud of it.

The subsequent exchange has included memories of John Bracewell - once Bishop Auckland cricket club's hard drinking professional, now the Kiwis' national team manager - a grave digger when he broke into the Test team but usually (says Tony) gave his occupation as "chocolate fish filleter".

Since his great grandfather was born in Stockton and grew up in West Hartlepool, Tony plans an English odyssey in the autumn. "Can you recommend Stockton in September?" he asks. The answer was monosyllabic.

Buoyed by recent results, Darlington's travelling supporters had another reason to be happy last Saturday.

The railways quoted £42 10 return from Darlington to Macclesfield. The Quaker boys booked instead to Manchester (£29) and from Manchester to Macclesfield for another £5 40.

A week tomorrow they're at Doncaster, £30 return. The day return from Darlington to York is £13, however, and from York to Doncaster £8.

"It's fair to admit," says one of the seasoned travellers, "that we might be breaking the journey at York."

Amid all the column inches about the late John Charles, Ian Forsyth in Durham expresses surprise that no one's rescued the old joke about the rest of the Leeds United team of the early 1960s.

Charles was sold to Juventus, the rest to Fray Bentos.

To prove that they're not just old 'uns around here, John Briggs in Darlington asks the difference between Leicester City and Manchester United.

Leicester still have three players in Europe.

Still seeking to complete biographical details of every Durham County cricket in history, club scorer and statistician Brian Hunt seeks information on John Anthony Tate and James Henderson.

Tate, born in Chester-le-Street in 1892, lived in West Stanley, made four appearances in Spurs' goal and also played football for West Stanley and Shildon Athletic in the North Eastern League. A fine opening bat, he left for Canada in 1923.

Henderson was the architect behind the pavilion at Ashbroke, Sunderland, played for both Sunderland cricket and rugby clubs and also went to Canada in 1906.

Brian would also welcome information on E Brown, Seaham Harbour and Sunderland around 1930. We'll pass on information.

...and finally

The only 1990s FA Cup winning captain who wasn't a full international (Backtrack, March 9) was Steve Bruce.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to name the side which won the FA Cup in the 1960s and 1970s with sides entirely comprising English players.

Queen and country, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 12/03/2004