Big Billy Cruddas, it must be admitted, was a familiar face at disciplinary hearings. They'd not heard anything, however, like the tale of the touchline tree.

As a youngster, they reckon, Billy the Kid was slight and shy. He grew into a familiarly physical player in the Northern League and into a successful manager, who in 1994 led Durham City to the championship.

The following year, ground sharing at Chester-le-Street, City were at "home" to Bedlington when an incident occurred near the corner flag and Bill went running over with his oar.

"The next thing I knew the linesman had spoken to the referee and the referee was telling me to leave the ground," he recalled over a beer.

"I refused and he said that if I didn't get out he'd abandon the match. I'd been in trouble before but nothing like that, so I thought I'd better do as I was told."

Whilst figuratively he might have gone too far, physically he moved about 30 yards.

"I went out the back, into a farmer's field and up a tree which not only offered good views of the pitch but was within earshot of Terry Harrison, my assistant."

Aloft, Billy continued his instructions. "Harra was looking up and down the line wondering where the voice was coming from until the linesman, the one who'd had me sent off, told him I was up a tree.

"I was only two branches up and it wasn't a bad view until I fell out and landed in the beck below. I was absolutely soaked."

Billy, who lives in Chester-le-Street, retired in 1996, took to golf and until recently had seen just two matches in five years.

Now, he suspects, a return to management may be imminent.

The other man's grass is not always greener, as probably they say of farmers' fields everywhere.

The story of how Billy Cruddas fell from grace is retold in We Just Love Football, a marvellous medley of memories launched on Tuesday evening.

The book comprises 23 anecdotal, evocative and extremely amusing profiles of men long associated with North-East non-league football, written by Barry Hindson and Paul Dixon, who nurture the grass roots for BBC Radio Newcastle.

Until 1974, of course, most of the clubs weren't just "non-league" but officially amateur, which doesn't entirely explain why - several years earlier - Tony Monkhouse earned £3.15s as a farm labourer and £5 a week from Evenwood Town, nor why Colin Richardson's £9 at Ferryhill Athletic was almost twice what he got at the factory.

Several stories concern players being improbably unclothed - bollock naked, as the phrase now has it - though it doesn't excuse the reference to "baring grudges"; many more celebrate the lads' liking for a drink.

Peter Feenan gave his players a glass of sherry before matches; Jackie Marks preferred whisky - Speedoil they called it during Blyth Spartans' spectacular success story of the seventies.

Many, especially the Saturday night and Sunday morning boys, were not only recovering from earlier over-indulgence but probably hadn't been to bed.

Dean Gibb reckoned he played better when drunk; Freddie Shotton would come straight to Dunston Sports Club from the Club A'Gogo - no less - his boots wrapped in newspaper and his head in a whirl.

"He'd been up all night but he always took two tablets in a glass of water, shook his head, ran around for 90 minutes and went down the club for another drink," recalls ubiquitous manager Colin Richardson.

Vin Pearson, another who managed on the Northern League's swift turning circuit, had a similar approach: "My mother, God bless her, used to make me a bacon sandwich every Sunday morning.

"I'd have it with a cup of tea, smoke three tabs, have a good spew and then go out and play a blinder."

Perhaps the greatest story of high hope and annual experience is of Arthur Clark, later to become the Northern League's much-loved chairman but secretary of Whitley Bay in the 60s.

Whitley Bay were due to play an Amateur Cup tie in the Leeds area on New Year's Day. Arthur, bless him, booked them into a temperance hotel.

Among the party was big Billy Wright, terror of goalkeepers everywhere, and since neither he nor Brian Oakley had any money - "we were waiting for our match fee" - they borrowed from the chairman and headed off into New Year's Eve.

Suffice that they had a few beers, met two young ladies, went 15 miles in search of a party, hitched back and had a few more.

The directors wanted them dropping, the manager insisted they play. They played, inevitably, another blinder.

It may be little surprise, therefore, that the book launch was at the Federation Brewery in Dunston, a huge reunion of non-league notables.

Jackie Marks, who steered the Spartans to the FA Cup fifth round, has had new hips and knees but is golfing - and cycling - again; Dean Gibb had just been sent off for the first time in two years - "it was either the referee's fault or mine, and it wasn't mine"; Paul Walker, class act, recalled his debut, against Wales, for the English semi-professional side.

"The Welsh crowd were calling me a fat English bastard but it didn't matter, because I couldn't speak Welsh."

Just two faces from the "professional" game could be sighted at the function - Jack Hixon, the scout who spotted Alan Shearer, and Darlington FC chairman George Reynolds.

Jack - "I didn't discover Alan, he was never lost" - had missed his man's stunner the previous Saturday because he was watching New Hartley Juniors; George, missing his team's 3-0 defeat at Shrewsbury, was with the magnificent Mr Monkhouse.

Tony had joined Evenwood when he was 19 - Stanley Matthews boots, Stanhope Co-op, 19/11d - stayed for 22 years and missed just four training sessions. The book reckons he was known as the White Rhino of Weardale but he was harder, and probably thicker skinned, than that.

Tony was so football daft that he even played on his wedding day - though the new Mrs Monkhouse may not have been the happiest of brides.

He'd arranged for the team bus to sound its horn outside the reception, claimed to be going to the toilet and fled.

"There was hell on. Her family weren't sports minded and never forgave me, but I said I needed the fiver and she forgave me when I handed her the money."

The following Monday's Echo reckoned that in freezing conditions only Monkhouse - sleeves rolled up as usual - had coped. "What they didn't know," said Tony, "was that I'd had three rum and blackcurrants at the wedding. It kept the cold out completely."

the six teams since 1990 who've joined the Football League for the first time (Backtrack, November 6) are Barnet, Cheltenham, Kidderminster Harriers, Macclesfield, Rushden and Diamonds and Wycombe Wanderers.

Not entirely unconnected with much of the above, readers may today care to name the last North-East team to win at Wembley.

More final thoughts on Tuesday