Gough's 'Gott' the lot

Today he marries the lovely Charlotte Gott, in the Spring he's expected to become the youngest ever first class umpire.

Michael, 26, has already provisionally been named on the "Reserve" list - subject to passing a final examination in March - on which he's joined by former Premiership referee Martin Bodenham.

Bodenham, in charge of the 1997 League Cup final and fourth official at the European Cup final three years earlier, is 29 years his fellow newcomer's senior.

A former England Under 19s captain and England A tourist, Gough unexpectedly quit first class cricket in 2003. For the first time publicly, he now explains why.

While many men his age might long to play at the top level, Michael admits how strongly he disliked it.

"I had a good tour with the Under 19s, South Africa was a lovely place and with hindsight I didn't really choose to play cricket after that, I fell into it.

"I thought I would grow to like it and I never really did, to be honest.

I've been out of it a couple of years, so I can be truthful now.

"It's just something I did. I never enjoyed it. I'd been with Durham six years and I was getting depressed. I was happier off the field than I was on it, and that didn't seem to be right.

"Durham were great to me, I had no arguments, but I just thought that I couldn't do it any more. I wasn't in it for the money, I just couldn't give it 100 per cent."

So why make a stand for the umpires' list? "I always enjoyed watching cricket more than playing it, it just seemed to be a natural progression, " he says.

"I probably can't say umpiring will be more enjoyable until I've really done it, but if feels pretty good up to now."

Michael, who also plays football for Durham City, scored 2,758 first class runs at 25.07 and claimed 30 wickets with his occasional offbreaks. He umpired in the North Yorkshire and South Durham League last summer.

Elevation to the "reserve" list would mean being given at least one first class game this summer, plus a number of university matches and county one-day fixtures. His ambition is to make the Test match panel.

Like his own, Charlotte's family is well known in North-East sporting circles. Her father Charlie was for many years a Northern League footballer and manager, her brother Jon-Charles played Lord's Taverners cricket alongside this afternoon's groom.

"I hadn't seen him for a few years, hardly recognised him, thought the smashing looking lass with him must be his girlfriend. I was quite impressed when I realised it was his sister.

"Luckily, she's football and cricket mad, too. She doesn't come home and watch Coronation Street or EastEnders, she wonders what side the football's on."

The one downside, he admits, is that the Gott family are all Manchester United fans, and former season ticket holders. "Like a lot of people I'm quite anti-Man United. I certainly never thought I'd marry one of their supporters. I think it must be love."

KEITH Hopper, a Durham County cricketer from a different era, had memories stirred by Tuesday's obituary on Yorkshire and England fast bowler Alec Coxon.

Coxon could be blunt, argumentative and at times thoroughly difficult. Keith remembers him altogether more affectionately.

It was the summer of 1954. Bill Proud, captain both of Bishop Auckland and of Durham County, invited young Hopper to join a team playing at Roundhay Park, Leeds.

Coxon, shortly and spectacularly to fall out with his captain, was also in the side.

"You had to call the skipper Mr Proud until you were given permission to do otherwise, " recalls Keith. "Alec insisted that I use his first name.

"I don't think I'd done much during the match, but afterwards he insisted on getting the beers in, sat me down and talked cricket for an hour.

"It was amazing. I was a young golly from Shildon, just finished National Service, and he was an England man treating me as his equal.

"He was a wonderful feller and I just sat in awe. The great difference is that these days, up and coming young cricketers would expect Alec Coxon to sit in awe of them."

Keith, who also played football for Durham County, lives in Darlington. Now 73, he expects to be playing cricket for Haughton, come April.

HUNDREDS attended the funeral on Tuesday of John Dunn, one of many champions produced by Shildon British Railways - as was - Boxing Club.

John won schools and Coal Board titles and was Northern Counties champion at 19. That he failed to claim an ABA title was because he kept meeting the redoubtable George Bowes, from Hartlepool.

"A classy boxer, a really great kid, " recalls John Heighington, the club's long serving coach. "A beautiful, scientific boxer, " says Tommy Taylor, former champion and now club chairman. John Dunn was 67. "You'd never meet a nicer feller, " says Tommy.

COINCIDENCE, no more, there's also a call from Jos Walton, another former Shildon BR man who won the ABA light-welterweight title in 1967.

"They asked me where I was from and I said Coundon, " he recalls.

"They must have been deaf and wrote down Crawley. It's still in the record books, Crawley."

It's football he rings about, however, and in particular Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness's assertion that even if he had £30m, he wouldn't know how to spend it.

Jos is a long-time friend of former miner Alan Shoulder, who the Magpies signed for just £20,000 from Blyth Spartans in 1978 and who scored 35 goals in 99 Football League appearances. The little feller will be 53 tomorrow. "What, " wonders the old champion, "would my mate be worth today?"

BREAD upon the waters, Tuesday's column wondered if anyone could name a team of what might be termed fishermen - past or present professional footballers with the same name as a fish. Former West Ham defender Martin Ling, now manager at Leyton Orient, started it.

Several took the bait, John Briggs in Darlington and Tom Purvis in Sunderland between them lining up a whole scaly squad, though they struggled for a goalkeeper.

Paddy Roche was thrown back for being homophonic, Bert Trautmann was considered debatable and Ray Whale mammalian - then John caught Scott Loach at Lincoln City.

After Martin Ling, the fish counter now offers Peter Haddock (Newcastle United), Jamie Pollock (Middlesbrough), William Coley (Exeter), Joseph Mullett (Exeter), Dennis Roach (Barnet), Geoff Pike (West Ham), John Bass (Birmingham), Steve Parr (Rochdale), Steve Guppy (Leicester), Sean Rudd (Southampton), Philip Ray (Hartlepool) and Mike Salmon (Stockport County).

"Sadly, " adds Tom, "there seems never to have been a John Dory who played for the Gills."

As sub, though they hadn't been invented in those days, he might have added the wonderfully named Harry Herring, a local lad who played twice for Hartlepools United in 1958. Another angle, whatever happened to him?

Butterfield honoured

GEORGE Butterfield, Darlington's forgotten Olympian, is at last to be recognised in the town which he adopted.

"It's wonderful news, especially as London is now on the verge of staging the Olympics again, " says Arthur Butterfield, the great man's great-nephew.

Born in Stockton, Butt - as universally he was known - was a member of Darlington Harriers when, in 1908, he represented Great Britain at the London Olympics.

Eighteen countries carried 17 flags around the White City Stadium. Finland, on its athletics uppers, carried a little placard instead.

Butt, AAA mile champion from 1904-06 and runner of the world's fastest mile in 1906, came third in his 1500m heat and second, without qualifying, in the 800m.

He became landlord of the Hole in the Wall in Darlington Market Place, joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1916 and was killed in action the following year.

In 1987, his family re-presented to Darlington council the illuminated scroll which proud townsfolk had given their hero after the Olympics. Some time thereafter, the council lost it.

Thanks largely to Darlington Harrier Ian Barnes, himself the country's reigning Over 70s mile champion, a commemorative plaque will now be placed outside the Hole in the Wall.

Arthur Butterfield will be joined by George's niece Joyce, still in Stockton. "It's been a long time coming, but we're delighted something's happening at last, " says Ian. We'll unveil further details shortly.

WILLIE Applegarth, the other North-east Olympian to feature in recent columns- relay gold at Stockholm in 1912, world record for 220 yards - will be remembered when a plaque is unveiled in Guisborough in the Spring.

We're grateful to John Wilson, who in 2000 co-wrote Teesside's Sporting Greats, for a copy of his book.

Those included range from legendary swimmer Jack Hatfield to South Bank lass Jackie Smith who in 1978 became the first person to achieve ten perfect jumps in the world parachuting accuracy championships. From those dizzy heights, she's now a school secretary in Wiltshire.

Willie's the first entry of all, number one. "It's purely alphabetical, " insists John, "but he was one of the greatest, anyway."

ONE of the earlier references to George Butterfield shared a column with news of an unlikely inclusion in the "Prayers and petitions" section of Northern Cross, the Roman Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle's monthly newspaper.

More predictable supplications ranged from the homeless and the helpless to a man on death row in Georgia.

Another read: "How long, O Lord, how long have we to stay on our knees to provide the spiritual inspiration needed to power the denizens of the Stadium of Light?"

It was February 18, 2003. As probably they say in the Prayers and Petitions department, some things take a little longer.

And finally...

ENGLAND'S oldest surviving test cricketer (Backtrack, January 31) is 91-year-old Norman Mitchell-Innes, known universally as Mandy, who for several seasons opened Sunderland's batting with Alec Coxon while company secretary at Vaux Brewery.

Mitchell-Innes, now in mid-Wales, also played occasionally for the brewery team. "His appearances caused much excitement, " exmanaging director Frank Nicholson once recalled. "I don't remember him scoring many runs but he looked immaculate in his England sweater."

John Scotter in Darlington was first to roll out that particular double barrel; Uncle Albert Kelleher in Hartlepool (who played with Mitchell-Innes) was just about on the ball, too.

Bill Moore in Coundon today seeks the identity of the two men to have managed both Hartlepool and Darlington.

We try to manage again on Tuesday.

Published: 03/02/2006