With the sort of cricket tea which wouldn't just have fed the five thousand but sustained the entire NYSD League summer programme from that which was left over, Bishop Auckland CC continued its 150th anniversary celebrations on Saturday with a players' reunion. Inevitably the talk turned to Bill's mother.

Like Faroes, Fair Isle and Fastnet, Bill's mother's is a meteorological mainstay. Over Bill's mother's, there are always dark clouds.

Though claimed (among others) by Richie Benaud, the phrase about its looking black over Bill's mother's is most creditably ascribed to Harry Clarke, Bishop Auckland's professional in the late 1950s and earlier a goal scorer for Darlington, Leeds United and Hartlepools.

Bill Proud, the patrician and frequently fearsome skipper, occupied the family home behind the third man boundary.

Harry's 82 now, lives in Darlington, was back at Kingsway as smart as a silver-topped carrot. Maternal instinct? "It's probably my greatest claim to fame," he said, modestly.

They'd converged from all over, as if chasing the same skier, none further travelled than former Darlington and Aldershot football manager Len Walker. Mainsforth colliery lad originally, he now lives in Hampshire and scouts the south for Everton.

Len, 59, remembered the time at Hetton Lyons when one of his shots had hit a dog - "a whippet, but still not fast enough to get out of the way of one of my cover drives" - on its way the boundary.

A four, or was it five? Len thought the umpire had awarded five. "You should have heard the dog," he added.

Reunion dues, someone also remembered George Romaines's dog. "He'd tell it to go for a walk round the ground, it would do a lap of the boundary and come back, good as gold, ten minutes later."

Between 1936-99, they reckon, the first team had just five regular wicketkeepers - Matt Hutchinson, Gordon Nicholson, Dave MacLaren, Allan Edgar and Paul Furby - all present, all still keeping canny.

Matt Hutchinson, 85-year-old former police chief inspector, recalled that every Saturday before the war he'd get two steaks to stick inside his gloves from Manners the butchers, a red-blooded sort of sponsorship.

What did he do with them afterwards, someone asked. "I certainly didn't eat them," said Matt, who also remembered July 12, 1937 when Matt Nicholl became the only Bishops player to hit a century and claim a hat-trick in the same match.

"We'd had a whip round in the dressing room when a telegram arrived to say his wife had had a son and we had to have another collection. It costs me two sixpences that day."

Gordon Nicholson remembered above everything his first team debut, as a club bag-carrying 15-year-old at Middlesbrough - a duck but three catches off Fred Garmondsway, who took 8-6 on a sticky wicket.

It was 1941. "There was an air raid that night, bombs falling behind the bus on the way home."

Allan Edgar, unforgettable former landlord of the North Briton in Aycliffe Village and now running a pub in Scunthorpe, recalled the occasion when the Bishops touring side had booked into a hotel in Leamington Spa.

"It was ladies bowls fortnight. For some reason they had us down as a ladies bowls team in a hotel full of them."

Allan looked wistful. "Aye," he said, "what a chew on we had that night."

County men like Bill Blenkiron, Stuart Young and Neil Riddell were there, 50-year men like Keith Hopper, Harry Smurthwaite and George Waters.

They saluted departed friends, too, men like Harry Dobinson, Mayor of Hunwick, who never played for the club but always seemed to be part of it, and little Tony Hawthorne, opening bowler in the 1966 championship winning side.

Once, it was recalled, the incomparable Hawthorne had taken a shotgun to clear a flock of pigeons from the square - "hundreds of them, and missed the lot from 20 yards."

They talked of high days and hairy days, of who got the beer in and who might never be persuaded to do so, of long summers and Bill's mother's. In turn they will long talk about Saturday night, and about that sumptuous spread.

It was provided, apparently, by someone called Kelly Ann. Unless the lady is spoken for, one of that happily reunited band should propose holy matrimony immediately.

A mile an hour for 1,000 miles, a 3 hours 34 minutes London Marathon immediately after the last mile and still Sharon Gayter didn't win the Flora Challenge.

"I'm a little disappointed. Unfortunately 3-34 just wasn't good enough," says the 39-year-old from Guisborough.

The challenge was won by Shona Bruce, who after a similar six weeks of sleep deprivation ran the marathon in 3-08.

"It was a fantastic time," concedes Sharon. "I think the problem was that the 1,000 miles wasn't as tough as any of us expected it to be. It hadn't taken enough out of her."

After a restless night - "I wouldn't say I was anxious to get up and walk a mile, but I was tossing and turning" - she rose, refreshed and without so much as a blister, at 7. 30am yesterday.

On Friday she runs in New Marske Harriers' ten-mile event. "I need," says Sharon, "to get in a little bit more practice."

A plea from Chicago, the Windy City. Ian Foster, whose relatives are on Stanley Hill Top - the windy village - wants to get his hands on an old-fashioned case ball. "I coach several teams over here and would love to show them what a real football is like," he says. The column is already on the casey: can anybody help?

The season's last issue of the ever-wonderful Albany Northern League magazine explains at last why all the reference books insist that Murton's nickname is The Gnashers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has nothing to do with Dennis the Menace's dog.

When the club was formed, it's said, almost all the players and committee were on the dole and thus obliged to sign on for National Insurance.

Then as now in east Durham, unemployment or sickness benefit was known as the Nash....

text to go here...and finally

Keith Peacock's claim to fame in 1965 (Backtrack, April 10) is that he was the first ever substitute in the Football League. As Fred Claydon in Shildon points out, his son Gavin played for Newcastle United and as Paul Dobson points out, his manager at the time was Bob Stokoe - now in a home at Prudhoe.

On Saturday we watched 45-year-old Peter Guthrie, formerly in goal for Tottenham Hotspur and Swansea, turn in a superb performance for Bedlington Terriers, which leads us to that other old hand, David Seaman.

Readers may care to name the three clubs for which he has played in the Football League.

Able, again, on Friday.

Up-and-coming ref dies at 38

John Challoner, one of the North-East's most respected football referees, has died suddenly. He was 38, and in line for promotion next season to Albany Northern League first division level.

Mr Challoner, married with two children, had been an assistant referee in Saturday's ANL match between Shildon and Whitley Bay. "He was bubbly, really looking forward to his promotion interview," said Russell Tiffin, the match referee.

"When you had John on the line you could put your house on him, he was just so dependable and so knowledgable about the game. He was a lovely man, who absolutely treasured his family."

Shildon secretary Mike Armitage said that he had spoken to Mr Challoner both before and after the match. "He was full of beans, laughing and joking. The news is absolutely devastating."

Mr Challoner lived in Consett. A date for the funeral has not yet been arranged.

Published: 15/04/2003