Megan is stuck on the Toffees

Then there's Liverpool, half a mile away but a few light years in front - 14 post-war championships, six FA Cup wins, four times European champions, three times the EUFA, six Football League Cups (by whatever handle) and a canny season just finished.

If occasionally even the blue and white side of Stanley Park has its doubts, great grandmother Megan Jeffries's loyalty has never once wavered in all these 83 years.

"Mind," she says, "I've played better football on Bangor Mountain than some of these lads have been playing on Goodison Park."

Her father played for Bangor Wednesday, first took her to watch Everton - it being a Saturday - when she was nine. Ted Sagar, she thinks, was in goal; Dixie Dean was halfway through the season in which he scored 60 first division goals.

Thenceforth she was hooked, as stuck on the Toffees (there will be no more puns, promise) as chewing game to the sole of her shoe. "I worshipped them, begged my mother to buy me blue dresses, read the sports page every day, but only the Everton bits" she recalls.

Since 1943 she has lived in Marske-by-the-Sea, where her husband was posted during the war. Her bedroom is an Everton shrine, more eight than 83, her dying wish that Goodison may receive her ashes.

A bit old for such devotion? "Well," says Megan, "someone has to support them, haven't they."

As a teenager she'd catch the 8.30am charabanc from Bangor, lunch at T J Lewis's, couple of after-match drinks at the Wilmslow, dance at the Grafton, late home.

"Even the bus driver used to be drunk. We'd sing to him to keep him awake." Ah, she says, those were the days.

It was at the Grafton, though, that she met the immortal Dixie, begged his autograph on the inside of a Woodbine packet - "five for twopence" - smoked the fags, lost the packet, still has his picture on the bedroom wall.

"The greatest player in the world," it says.

Duncan Ferguson's another hero - "my wee boy," says Megan, though Dunc may never have been anyone's wee boy - there's a photograph with Dave Watson, endless scarves, banners, dolls, shirts and other evidence of a misspent 80 years.

Neville Southall, though Welsh also - and not, she concedes, a bad goalkeeper - is conspicuously absent. "The wheelchair area at Middlesbrough used to be behind the goal. I shouted to Neville during the warm-up - 'How you doing, boyo' - and he didn't even acknowledge me. We had a row after that."

The "row" consisted of Megan's hurt letter. Southall didn't reply.

Harry Catterick, Darlington lad, remains her favourite manager. She'd doubts about Joe Royle, thought Howard Kendall shouldn't have come back.

Walter Smith? She opens wide her arms, says nothing, the most voluble of no comments.

"I'm sorry to say that I think the manager isn't firm enough with them. The players are only in it for what they can get out of it, they're not really in love with the club like we are."

She fears, greatly fears, that whatever years may be left to her are unlikely to see a reverse in Merseyside fortunes - unless, of course, her great grandson ("school team already") proves the answer to Everton prayers.

Now, of course, there are three more trophies on the Anfield shelf. The old never-say-die insists that she doesn't hold grudges.

"I don't really like Liverpool, but I'm not spiteful." Besides, adds Megan - and the last bit absolutely deadpan - "Everton can't win everything, can they?"

From Marske to Redcar and the Freedom of the Borough ceremony for Gentleman George Hardwick, a sunlit stroll punctuated by an ice cream - chips'n'gravy seeming somewhat unseasonal - at the Stray Caf.

The fare at the Redcar Bowl was altogether grander - lunch by the education department, music by the Redcar and Cleveland Concert Band who played the Flinstones theme and (rather more appropriately) I Love You and Don't You Forget It.

The burghers of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council no doubt love George to bits - as well they might - but it has taken them an awfully long time to remember it.

It may not be said that with one bound he was free.

"For the whole of my 26 years on the council, people have come up to me in the street and asked why we didn't do something to honour George," said Stephen Kay, a member for Lingdale - the east Cleveland village where the future captain of Middlesbrough, England and Great Britain was born.

He'd put the request in many times, he added. Finally, belatedly, someone listened - and the council did the job properly.

The "rights, privileges and honours" of the Borough were duly conferred upon George and upon 87-year-old Vera Robinson - though the honours may greatly outweigh the rights and the privileges.

Traditionally a Freeman may graze his sheep on the Stray and march with fixed bayonet. George may not so much as catch kippers, cast clemmies on the boating lake or loiter, with or without intent, in Lingdale.

"It's the honour that's important," said the man from the council, and George left no one in doubt that he was very honoured indeed.

He'd been outside left in the Lingdale school team, once scored four in a match, grew in stature when he put inches on in defence.

Before the war he'd ride on Peter Twidle's crossbar to play for South Bank; by 1946 he was captain of England - the team photograph on the back of the Freedom brochure embracing the legenedary likes of Raich Carter, Frank Swift, Tom Finney and his Middlesbrough colleague Wilf Mannion - himself a Redcar freeman before his death.

George, said Coun Keith Pudney, proposing the Freedom, might best be compared to Bobby Moore.

"His tackling was solid and he could pass the ball with both feet and with consummate accuracy. George must cringe when he sees how television's money has distorted the game."

Coun Pudney also spoke of his charity work, of his willingness to help youngsters throughout the community, of his unequalled talent and his dignified manner.

As manager in the 1960s, he'd also helped Sunderland escape relegation. "No one's perfect," added Coun Pudney.

For George, now living in Yarm with his magnificent wife Jennifer, the ceremony conferred not only those rights and whatnots but the requirement ("So help you God") to preserve the peace and tranquility of the said Borough - he is unlikely to be posted to the Esplanade at chucking out time on Saturday night - to defend its customs and privileges, contribute to its good government and safety and (get this) provide the Mayor with details of any "unlawful meetings or assemblies" which come to his attention.

There's no such as a Freedom lunch, as someone once almost observed.

He's 81 now, and getting on a bit, but Gentleman George continues to put himself about for all that, a Freeman who'd do owt for anyone, so long as it's owt for nowt.

Still those grey hens are flying around Newcastle: recalling the Magpies' 1905 DA Cup final defeat to Aston Villa, we'd quoted a contemporary report that a few United fans had still managed to throw their grey hens in the air as they left the railway station. Even the redoubtable Tom Purvis is puzzled.

Joseph Wright's Dialect Dictionary, by which Tom sets much store, offers three possible definitions - a large earthenware jar or bottle for holding wine or liquor, the female of the black grouse or "a kind of pear not known to our correspondents."

None seems likely to have been cast skywards at Newcastle Central Station. Could a Geordie's grey hen simply have been his flat cap?

Our notes about two Hartlepool goal scorers in the divisional top ten sent Eric Smallwood back to his formative years in Hull - the days of Chris Chilton, Ken Wagstaffe, Ken Houghton, Ian Butler and Wallsend lad Ray Henderson.

In 1965-66, City won the third division with 109 goals in 46 games - Chilton and Wagstaffe both had around 30, Eric reckons, while their team mates all reached double figures.

Was it, Eric wonders, the most prolific forward line of all time?

The thing that links the cricketing counties of Somerset, Sussex, Durham and Northants (Backtrack, May 22) is that none of the them has won the County championship.

Another fearsome foursome, Allen Nixon - the Stokesley Stockbroker - today seeks the identity of the only four Football League clubs presently in a Conservative held constituency.

An answer some time before June 7 - or, most likely, on Tuesday

Published: 25/05/2001