West back in the black

Allen's secretary of West Auckland FC. Their "World Cup" colours, he reports, are about to make a comeback.

West, it will be recalled, won the Sir Thomas Lipton trophy in 1909 and 1911, both times beating Juventus in the final. Like Henry Ford, more or less, they believed in any colour so long as it was black - in West's case, with an amber V on the shirt.

Though Dennis Waterman and friends dressed the part for "A Captain's Tale", the Northern League, says Allen, have always refused to allow them to play in so sable a get-up lest they end up passing to the referee.

Now, however, Durham FA has granted West Auckland Social Club, their Sunday morning side - perhaps that should be Sunday mourning side - permission to join the almost all blacks. (They also have amber rings on the socks, says the Cowboy.)

The first game's on August 10, 10 30am, when the World Cup will also be on well guarded display. "It's taken nearly 100 years," says Allen, "but it's nice to be back in the black."

Same evening, a bit nearer the witching hour, the column's eye falls upon a remarkably coincidental paragraph - in the Sunday Times gossip column, of all places - about our old friends at The Old Fashioned Football Shirt Company in Gateshead.

Atticus claims that Alan and Michelle Finch are now sponsoring the soccer shirts at Eton. The word "TOFFS", the column adds, is therefore emblazoned across the chests of those sons of gentlefolk.

The Sunday Times is aghast - "Tony Little, the school's head master, may not be the brightest bulb in the light shop but even he must realise this doesn't help Eton's new classless spin" - and may be more horrified yet should our truly learned friends hear of their gaffe.

"It's nothing to do with Eton, it's the Old Etonians - real toffs," says Alan Finch.

Eton, in truth, has been trying to show egalitarian intent for very much longer - most memorably in the 1930s when the college "adopted" a group of out of work miners from West and St Helen's Auckland, staying in the Wear Valley Hotel in Bishop Auckland when they visited.

"Taking part in the sing-songs, the village teas and suppers and dances gave them an insight into that quality of warm hospitality that is the quality of the North," reported the Auckland Chronicle.

Later the Durham lads went to Eton. "We took to each other like ducks to water," Reuben Jones, one of them, once told Backtrack. West Auckland Social Club aren't Toffs, however. Like the black stuff of old, their shirts come from Horden.

Up the road at Evenwood, the born again Albany Northern League club is threatened with outer darkness - a lower league, anyway - unless they can raise £40,000 for new floodlights.

Nine months ago they needed two new bulbs. Then someone said they'd best look at the pylons while they were about it. The pylon people said there should be a structural survey of the bases, costing £2,500.

Now, flood tide, the whole lot has to be replaced for health and safety reasons.

Team manager Ken Houlahan, he of the three degrees, hopes to get a 90 per cent grant from the Football Foundation and to raise the rest before the end of August.

All manner of things are planned. "If we don't raise the money for the floodlights we could be relegated," says Ken. He's on 01388 776633.

The Crack, a magazine ubiquitous on Tyneside, points out that the annual lesbian football tournament takes place on Sunday (2pm) at Exhibition Park in Newcastle.

"I'll be expecting a full report in Backtrack," writes Kevin O'Beirne from Sunderland, but won't get one because the At Your Service column will be near enough 100 miles away, in Pickering.

Though the prideontyne.com website is presently inaccessible, The Crack has action pictures from a previous tournament.

"One of the teams appears to be made up of big ladies wearing ball gowns," says Kevin. "It's really very scary."

And finally...

When Friday's column sought the identity of Middlesbrough's 14 post-war England internationals we'd not expected the full set to arrive, before noon, from St. James' Park.

"We feel a bit ashamed really," confesses Newcastle programme editor Paul Tully, who cracked it with Mark Hannen from the United press office.

The famous 14 are: George Hardwick, Wilf Mannion, Brian Clough, Eddie Holliday, Mick McNeil, Alan Peacock, David Armstrong, Gary Pallister, Nick Barmby, Paul Merson, Paul Gascoigne - the last three of his 57 caps while at the Riverside - Paul Ince, Ugo Ehiogu and Gareth Southgate.

Paul's also looking forward to tomorrow's friendly between Bishop Auckland and the Magpies' reserves at Dean Street, Shildon - the 121st ground at which he will have watched a United team in action.

"It's almost becoming an Olympic sport. The record's held by some chap from Gateshead with 220 different grounds," he says.

For the moment, however, back to Sunderland - where Gary Bennett was just the second black player to appear in the red and white stripes. Readers are invited to recall the first.

Black and white and read all over, the column returns on Friday.

Backtrack briefs

John Noddings's tragic death at Tow Law on Friday night - reported on page one on Saturday - stunned us all. Though 56, he'd looked as full of running as of enthusiasm before collapsing 25 minutes into the Tow Law Charity Cup final. He'd told them he'd play the first ten.

"He was the sort of lad who'd have been enthusiastic about a game of tiddleywinks," said match organiser Charlie Donaghy who - another coincidence - had been his games master at Tow Law secondary modern.

John, who lived at Westgate-in-Weardale, was also in the celebrated Evenwood Town team which won successive Northern League championships in 1970 and 1971.

"He was football daft, a really genuine lad who'd do anything to help anyone," said friend and former Evenwood teammate John Suddes.

"I doubt if he was booked once in his career. He just played the game for the sheer love of it," said Tony Monkhouse, another former Evenwood colleague who managed the Weardale "select" XI on Friday.

John died despite valiant resuscitation attempts by referee and Bishop Auckland police sergeant Nigel Miller. Funeral details have yet to be announced.

Our old friend George Brown, England amateur international and hero of Tow Law's 1967 FA Cup win over Mansfield, was back at the Ironworks Ground on Friday. Though the beard suits him, George isn't keeping over clever, either.

Lovely lad, he has had heart problems for 30 years and has undergone two bypasses.

He wrote a piece in Friday's programme.

"It's really just the medication that's keeping me alive."

Gary Bennett, Sunderland legend and former Darlington manager, is back in football - unpaid player/coach to Stables FC, a Sunday morning side in East Herrington.

Hoss work? "He's absolutely brilliant, has us three times a week for training and has scored some amazing goals," reports Mark Lathan, the pub team's secretary.

Benno, he adds, has them doing things no one would have thought possible for a Sunday league side.

Bennett, whose 444 first team matches make him fifth in Sunderland's all-time appearance list, is recruiting a team of old Roker Park men - Monty, John McPhail, John Kay, sundry Atkinsons, Bobby Kerr, Jeff Clark, even Billy Hardy - for a match against the Stables as a memorial to former team manager Roland Hedgley, who died, another heart problem, last month. He was 57.

"He was a great guy, knew all the Sunderland players, worked wonders for us," says Mark.

The match is at Ryhope CA on Sunday August 10, kick-off 11am.

Published: 15/07/2003