In the column ten days ago we re-printed a photograph of the Ayresome Angels - as good as their name, by all accounts - taken from a 1968 Football League Review.

Though it tempts comparisons with cloud cuckoo land, at least one of those Angels still flies the under achievers' flag.

"I really believe we'll win something one day soon," says Mike Greenup. "It may be luck more than anything else, like avoiding Chelsea in cup finals or not playing teams in blue, but we're the most loyal fans in the land and when it happens there'll be an awful lot of happy faces."

Now, of course, Middlesbrough diehards are more likely to be known as Smoggies, angels with dirty faces. Mike insists he doesn't mind. "I was at a golf day on Tuesday when someone called me a Geordie. I told him I was a Smoggie and proud of it."

That's Mike standing at the back on the extreme right. Then he was a 13-year-old schoolboy, now he runs a hardware company almost within sight of the Riverside Stadium, still has a season ticket, watches most away games and even goes on pre-season tours.

"It's the only way we can get into Europe," he says and admits that there've been moments of despair.

"I remember a cup tie at Birmingham when we'd bashed them home and away in the league and it seemed a foregone conclusion. Thousands went down and we lost to a silly goal. The devastation was unbelievable."

Conversely, of course, there were Emerson, Juninho and Ravanelli. "I've never seen as a good a footballing side in my life and still we got nowhere. It does make you wonder what we have to do, but I'm sure McClaren's getting there."

Angel delight? "I really believe that this season we'll win a cup at last."

Another for Mike Greenup and the Boro brigade: John Wilson has come across a Middlesbrough programme for New Year's Day 1886, believed to be the third oldest football programme in existence. The next oldest Boro programme is from 1903.

It's seen better days, variously described as "delicate" and "fragile" - aren't we all? - but is manifestly a treasure.

It was three years before the Football League even kicked off, games restricted to friendlies against the likes of Great Lever and Gainsborough Trinity and to the FA Cup, in which Boro were to lose a quarter-final to Redcar three weeks later.

New Year's Day marked the visit of Blackburn Olympic - "a splendid match" noted the Echo next day - before a record 6,000 crowd and with record receipts of £67 12s 1d. Though Olympic lacked four "crack men", it ended 2-2.

John runs Methusaleh, a Middlesbrough based company which deals largely in football memorabilia. The programme had been given by an elderly chap to a neighbour who helped him move house. Despite "substantial" offers, however, John insists it's not for sale.

"As a piece of football ephemera it's priceless, of major local and national importance," he says. Now he and Middlesbrough Football Memorabilia Society are trying to find out more about the team of the day.

When the programme describes Middlesbrough colours as "grenat and cardinal", he's even discovered that it was two tone red. "You know, grenat as in pomegranate."

The side was J Dawkings, T H Wynn, G Miller, A R Pringle, O H Cochrane (capt), S Kemp, W Fox, J Thompson, A Borrie, W Pickstock, T Dales. John would love to know more about them, or to hear from their families.

"I'm also positive that there's similar material still out there. I hope this will prod people to get up into the attic or to open all those dusty old boxes."

At his last auction, a chap from Co Durham realised over £6,000 with a sale of 1940s and 1950s programmes which had long lain in the loft. The next one's on October 23. John Wilson's on 01642 317141.

For 66 years, Ralph Nichol's big day has been part of the folklore of Bishop Auckland Cricket Club. It was June 12 1937, a century, a hat trick and the birth of his daughter, appropriately named Joy.

"I can still see the telegram boy coming up the dressing room steps," recalls 85-year-old Matt Hutchinson, the Bishops' wicket keeper that day. "Ralph opened it and told us his wife had had a baby."

There'd already been a collection to acknowledge Nichol's achievements on the field. "I'd put sixpence in and then some daft sod said let's have another collection and it cost me another sixpence," says Matt, a former police chief inspector in Darlington (and thus a man accustomed to looking after his coppers.)

In truth Joy Nichol, now Joy Cable, had been born at the Princes Street maternity home - half a mile up hill - two days earlier. Tuesday's column acknowledged as much; the announcement was in the Northern Echo on that 1937 Saturday.

Had Ralph diddled them? "Maybe it was two days before they could get the news to him," says Matt. "All I know is that you could get a jolly good night out for a shilling."

Ralph and Maurice Nichol were Hetton-le-Hole lads, it will be recalled, Maurice on the verge of England selection - as Tuesday's column supposed - before his sudden death at 29.

In 1931-32 he had spent several weeks in Sunderland Royal Infirmary suffering from pneumonia. Steve Smith, a Worcestershire member, picks up the story from the county's official history.

"Nichol asked for financial support after his illness, which had cost him £110, but the county could only give a sum of £20 and a loan of £30, to be deducted at £1 per week from his wages."

He was paid £2 a year all round, plus £4 for home games and £7, including expenses, for away matches. His death came during a county match at Chelmsford in 1934, Essex having scored 469 on the first day.

"On the Sunday," adds the history, "the Worcester players relaxed by playing golf and in the evening they engaged in some light hearted wrestling matches before going to bed around midnight.

"Maurice Nichol seemed quite well as he smoked a pipe and read before finally retiring. He died in his sleep. The shock to Worcester was great, the loss irreparable."

A two minutes silence was held before play resumed next morning, the crowd bare headed, the players in black arm bands. Maurice Nichol had had an enlarged heart.

Colin Grainger, England footballer and London Palladium singer, has written his autobiography. "They tell me you can help find a publisher," he says, optimistically.

Colin, lovely lad, was 70 last month. Signed from Sheffield United for a near record £23,000, he spent three seasons at Sunderland in the late 1950s, thereby afforded a degree of immunity from Wearside's notorious club audiences.

Once, he recalled, he played Farringdon WMC with the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. "I was fine, of course, what with being Sunderland's outside left, but they paid off the Dog-Doo Band after the first spot and gave me double to go on again."

He appeared with The Beatles, Shirley Bassey and Old Mother Riley, with Stanley Matthews, Duncan Edwards and Nat Lofthouse. It was as a double bill with Little Waster Bobby Thompson that he became most familiar, however, setting records at Sunderland Empire (upon which the sun never set) and even succeeding at Middlesbrough Empire.

The book excites him. "It's quite a good story. My grandfather ran in the Powderhall in 1890, that's where I got my pace from, my uncle was a Yorkshire champion and I've been about a bit myself."

We've offered appropriate advice. It could be one hell of a book.

Len Abram, meanwhile, notes that on his travels to London last weekend he came across a cricket match on Kew Green - Kew v Byfleet - at which the only spectator accommodation was in St Anne's churchyard, where the painter Thomas Gainsborough is buried.

"Tables and chairs beside the gravestones, tea cups on the flat ones," adds Len, from Darlington.

Gainsborough lived from 1727-1788, when there was precious little cricket to paint.

His dying words were "We are all going to heaven and Van Dyke is of the company." It may or may not be relevant.

The column's first match of the pre-season, Tow Law Select play Weardale Select tonight - Ironworks Ground, 6.45pm - in the inaugural final of the Tow Law Town Charity Cup. Groundhoppers note: there's a programme, too.

The Lawyers, however briefly, will include Harry Hunt, Mike Ingoe and George Brown from the 1967 side which thrashed Mansfield Town. Most of the 1998 FA Vase team will also be back in the colours, augmented by some younger legs.

Weardale's finest include old hands from Wearhead United, St John's Chapel, Stanhope Town and Wolsingham Steelworks, local legends like Colin Coulthard, Ray Snaith and John Noddings. Nigel Miler, on the line for the FA Cup final, will be in the middle for this one.

Jim Montgomery, 60 in October, is expected between the sticks for the half time penalty shoot-out. The weather, they promise, will be sub-tropical.

The "other" connection between Hetton-le-Hole and Worcestershire CCC (Backtrack, July 8) is that county coach Tom Moody was Hetton Lyons' Australian pro in 1986. It even stumped Steve Smith.

Since the top of the column was all about the Boro, readers are today invited to name as many as possible of the 14 post-war players to win full England honours while at Middlesbrough.

The full line-up on Tuesday.

Published: ??/??/2003