Ray of light at Coxhoe

"Well, it was only spitting on at dinner time," insists Stan Reid of Coxhoe FC, where - alone apart from dire need Darlington - a ball was kicked on Saturday.

Five of them - Stan, John Purves, Gary Forest, Eric Allen and an irreverent Peter Mullen - griped the pitch for two hours that morning.

"There was a bit more rain when the fog came over the hill, as it does, but we were pretty keen to get the game played," says Stan. "It's amazing what you can do if you try."

The crowd was around 20 - "a bit less than usual" - the cover non-existent, the game the only one played in the Durham Alliance. Coxhoe beat Durham Victoria 5-0.

"The pitch broke up a bit as things went on, but everyone wanted to finish," says Stan.

What still had to come out in the wash, of course, was the filthy kit. Stan does the washing as well.

"The shirts are all right, but the shorts are having another go in the machine and the socks are out in the garden. I'm going to have to take the hose to them."

Was it worth it? "It was a very canny game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's better than stopping in the house, isn't it?"

Quite a week for Chester-le-Street FC chairman John Tomlinson, among the party (Backtrack, January 30) at the FA Youth Cup match at West Ham United last Monday.

John's also a partner in the Big Lamp Brewery, by the Tyne at Newburn - and after honourable defeat at Upton Park, better news from Burton-on-Trent where their Blackout bitter took a bronze medal in CAMRA's national winter ales festival.

The gold award went to Old Freddy Walker, a beer from Bridgwater.

Blackout, 11 per cent alcohol by volume, is what the Good Beer Guide calls "a strong bitter fortified by roasted malts" and what others calling falling down beer.

John hasn't been available. Brewery partner George Storey is delighted, however. "You win some, you lose some. I'm sure they say that at Chester-le-Street."

Friday's column also promised more on West Ham v Sunderland, October 19 1968: our boys went down 8-0, Geoff Hurst hitting six.

"No team in Britain, possibly the world, could have lived with West Ham in such form," wrote Frank Johnson in the following Monday's Echo.

Hurst, in fact, had palmed the first into the net - "you need a little bit of luck in this game," he said unapologetically afterwards, though you had to hand it to him for the other five.

"You didn't dare to blink because the ball would be in the back of the net," said Charlie Hurley. "I have never faced a more dangerous attack."

Hurst, now 62, is also remembered as one of the two first-class cricketers to play in the same FA Cup winning side. The other was Jim Standen, West Ham's goalkeeper.

Sunderland, memory suggests, suffered another 8-0 defeat at Watford, circa 1982 - but that's another hiding entirely.

October 19 1968? Hartlepool schoolgirl Margaret Auton, 17, reached the semi-final of the Olympic 100m butterfly in Mexico City, goals from Eric McMordie and Derrick Downing against Fulham took Middlesbrough to the top of the second division, and Darlington's 0-0 draw at Colchester was, said the Echo, the club's record-breaking eighth successive clean sheet.

The record books suggest that it was only seven, a run in which Darlington themselves scored just five goals, including a penalty. The following week, at any rate, they lost 2-1 at home to Exeter.

Among the Quakers' more improbable hour-of-need subscribers, incidentally, is high-profile former Hartlepool United chairman Garry Gibson. His fiver went to the Supporters' Trust last week.

"At the end of the day I've no doubt Darlington will survive," he says.

Garry got in touch following our piece on retiring Pool chaplain Brian Rice, who'd recalled an incident when his directors' box guest was the Rt Rev Alan Smithson, the Bishop of Jarrow.

The box, and the bishop, were behind the goal. When a wayward shot from Lenny Johnrose seemed about to do the eminent cleric a serious mischief, the chaplain saved, spectacularly.

Garry sympathises. "It wasn't unknown for Lenny Johnrose to shoot wide.

"So whenever he lined up a shot the Rink End regulars knew to brace themselves. Visitors, unfortunately, didn't."

The chairman had signed Johnrose from Blackburn Rovers in a room at the Swallow Hotel in Stockton, Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish never rising from his bed.

"It struck me that his fawn socks were similar to the bairns' school socks; it's strange the things you remember," he says.

He also remembers a letter of appreciation from the bishop, signed Alan of Jarrow.

"It put me in mind of Robin of Loxley. Whenever I see a Robin Hood film, I think of the Bishop of Jarrow."

The Quakers, of course, have never been off the news placards of late. "Duffield's Darlington move falters," announced one of last week's contents bills, prompting much consternation in the Brit.

"Crumbs," said Mr John Briggs, "I didn't know that Alf Duffield was in for the club, an' all."

He's not. This was 34-year-old Peter Duffield, seeking to move from Boston United to his former club. Alf Duffield, Middlesbrough's chairman in the 1970s, is these days involved in little more stressful sporting activity than 5s and 3s in the Travellers Rest in Cockerton, where the team is also in the bottom division of four.

Yesterday he was neither at home in nearby Ingleton, nor in the pub.

"Alf's like the wind," says a lady in the Travellers, "but you can safely assume he won't be putting in a bid for the Quakers."

Chip off the old block, the younger son - he who will seek apprenticeship in the inky trade - won an Arsenal website writing competition last week, the prize to produce the match report of the Man City game.

It involved press box, post-match press conference, the lot - and it also involved a little early learning.

When Toure's brilliant tackle blocked Anelka, the little 'un involuntarily applauded and had to be reminded that they didn't do that sort of thing among the fourth estate.

So what when Henry hit the winner? "I sat on my hands," he said. More on arsenal.com

And finally...

last Friday's Backtrack - a floodlight column, as it were - noted that in 1953 West Ham were the second Football League club to play under lights and wondered who was the first. It was Arsenal, aforesaid.

Bob Foster in Ferryhill today invites readers to name six Premiership players whose Christian name and surname both end with the letter 'o'. (You know, like Marco Polo.)

Fresh from the o zone later, the column returns in three days.

Published: 03/02/2004