THE result was sadly familiar, but Durham City's cricketers still celebrated with champagne after last Thursday's defeat at Eppleton - Gary Hulme had taken his 2,000th first team wicket for the club.

"An extraordinary achievement, probably unequalled," says Durham Senior League president Ray Pallister. "A brilliant bowler, I'm amazed he didn't get recognition in Durham's minor counties days," says League secretary Ray Matthews.

The question remains - and Mr Jack Chapman in Hebburn may already be addressing it - is Gary Hulme the most successful one-club bowler in North-East cricket history?

He'd joined City in 1973, begun in the thirds, made his first team debut in 1975 but remembers little about that or about most of the other performances.

"I can hardly remember yesterday," insists Gary, a physics teacher in Peterlee. The poor chap is now 50.

He's turned down other offers - "I've always had an affinity with Horden" - played in some "wonderful" Durham sides, beat Brian Lander's club record 1,979 wickets last year. For the past three years, his son Christopher has been City's wicketkeeper.

Gary's number of wickets, however, may not greatly exceed his total runs - "I've been a traditional number 11 for a long time now, though I think I could bat higher."

All numbers elevens say that. "I suppose they do," says Gary.

He bagged another three more in 25 overs against Whitburn on Saturday, intends to see out the season - "my knees are starting to scream a bit, I know all about it next morning" - and to ponder the winter.

By then we may know the answer: any advance on 2003?

Bedale celebrates a 750th anniversary today, the Duke of York grandly in attendance.

A church service and RAF march past on Sunday marked the granting of the North Yorkshire town's market charter on May 27 1251, today's merriment - medieval music, misericorda, even rent-a-peasant - adding to the festivities.

The old town's sporting links are less celebrated, though the Grayson boys - Paul and Simon - continue to do it for Essex and Sheffield Wednesday.

Two Bedale men, Roger Iddison and George Anderson, were also in Yorkshire's first County cricket team - against Surrey at The Oval from June 4-6 1863.

Iddison - "a short, stout, red faced man" it's recorded - was captain; Anderson continued to work in the Savings Bank in Bedale High Street, a £300 benefit match in 1895 providing a handsome additional nest egg.

Particularly, however, Ralph Robinson draws our attention to Bedale lad Henry Peirse, MP for Northallerton for 44 years until his death in 1824 and, latterly, Father of the House.

Peirse was a racing man, owned Ebor and Reveller - St Leger winners in 1817 and 1818 - and would have completed a classic hat-trick, says the 750th festival brochure, had not the Doncaster judges ordered a re-run of the 1819 race after Wrangler came first. False start, apparently.

Had he won in 1819, says the brochure, the race would have become the Peirse Stakes, and no longer the famed St Leger.

We nobbled Sir Henry Beresford-Peirse - the verb may be inappropriate - after Sunday's service. Though he knows the story, he is more of a golfer, 20 handicap, and can put little horse flesh on the bones of history.

"I cannot think that the family was very pleased," adds Sir Henry, and nor were they likely to have been

The St Leger, racing's oldest classic, was first run in 1776, four years before the Derby, and commemorates Lt Gen Sir Anthony St Leger (originally pronounced Sellinger) who lived in Doncaster..

Not even the surf and turf, however - that is to say the racing pages of the Internet - can offer further information on this equine mystery.

Backtrack readers may again know better. Another Peirse of the action, with luck, next time.

JUST as we were recording Bedale's finest, Arthur Robinson rang. He was Northallerton's.

Known generally as Rocker, he played for Yorkshire in the 1970s, took 196 wickets at 25.13 but in 69 innings totalled just 365 runs - 30 of which nearly got him into the record books.

It was against Glamorgan, in Cardiff, 1977. After the Welshmen's first innings ended on 149, Boycott and Lumb put on 84 for the first wicket before Yorkshire themselves collapsed to 149-9 and an improbable hero joined Arnold Sidebottom, also of Manchester United.

Sidebottom was on 124 when, insists his colleague, he ran himself out when they were just two short of Yorkshire's record last wicket stand - the 149 between Lord Hawke and David Hunter in 1898. For both men it remained a personal best.

It wasn't that about which Arthur called, though, nor even his hat-trick against Notts nor the match against Lancashire at Scarborough when Clive Lloyd hit his first ball so far it ended up (he says) on a toffee apple stall in Bridlington. He got him with the seventh.

Arthur's still in Northallerton. He rings about his lifelong passion for steam engines and for the North East Locomotive Preservation Group.

Much is afoot on the footplate, including the restoration of a Darlington built Q6 - the freight workhorse which Shildon train spotters would roundly abuse but which now is greeted with proper affection.

"A nice little single chimney chatter, lovely beat. It will be lovely to see it again," says Arthur. In another place, there will be much more about this shortly.

JUST five and a half hours before the English football season is officially drawn to a close, the Ellis Cup final - now sub-titled in memory of Wilf Mannion - takes place at the Harcourt Road ground, South Bank, on Thursday.

Founded in 1889, the competition has long been contested by the region's finest - former Ellis Cup players include Matt Busby (for Portrack Shamrocks in 1946), Don Revie, Brian Clough and Alan Peacock.

The most fabled incident, however, may have been when future England trainer Harold Shepherdson inadvertently kicked the ball into a vulnerable part of young Mannion's anatomy and was attacked by Wilf's umbrella waving, pitch invading auntie.

The cup, so valuable it's kept in the South Bank police station safe, will be presented by Redcar and Cleveland Labour candidate Vera Baird, who rides a bike but whose football pedigree is uncertain. The column, alas, has had to send its apologies.

FOR Tom Torrence, more than most, the season has been memorable for all the wrong reasons. He's chairman, and much else, at Murton - the Albany Northern League club where that damn great chasm opened last summer.

On Friday, however, Tom finally heard through Murton Welfare - the ground owners - that the Football Foundation has approved an £80,000 grant to make good what was one of the county's finest football fields.

That night at the League's annual dinner, he won the Arthur Clark Memorial trophy - the supreme award - for his efforts in the previous 12 months. "Without his sheer bloody minded indomitability there is little doubt that the club would have folded," said the citation.

"After an awful year, an incredible day," said Tom - a man who found himself in a hole, but refused to stop digging.

BESIEGED from all sides for pre-season friendlies, Darlington chairman George Reynolds was principal guest at the Northern League dinner. The first will go to Alnwick Town. "I've fond memories of the area," said George. "I was in prison up there."

THE only Football League clubs in Conservative held constituencies (Backtrack, May 25) are - were - Barnet, Wycombe, Bournemouth and Macclesfield.

Brian Shaw from Shildon today seeks the identity of the four Britons who played in the 1985 Italian Cup final.

Until Friday, arrivederci.

Published: Tuesday, May 29, 2001