COLOURING in the question mark which hangs precipitously over Spout House Cricket Club – and thus over the three-member Feversham League – the column two weeks ago recalled William Ainsley, 60-years club secretary and landlord of the adjacent Sun Inn, on the road between Stokesley and Helmsley.

Clive Wilkinson now kindly sends a 1991 cutting from The Times about William, who also farmed.

Chiefly William was upset at the number of visits from those he termed “inspectors” – at least 25 a year, he supposed, ranging from Min of Ag to North Yorkshire trading standards, licensing magistrates, police, fire and health and whatnot.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if they bought anything while they were here,” William, a true Yorkshireman, had supposed – adding that things had got much worse since we got into Europe.

“The latest law is that we aren’t allowed to carry lambs by their front legs, even though that’s the way it’s been done for 1,000 years around here. It’s daft. It’s the only way to carry a lamb so that the ewe can see it and follow where you want it to go.”

Clive sympathies. “I think it may safely be assumed,” he adds, “that William Ainsley would have been in favour of Brexit.”

IT'S wholly coincidental that, researching his book on village cricket grounds, author Brian Levison should draw attention to a 2002 column on Saltaire, that wondrous model village in West Yorkshire. The great Learie Constantine, we noted, thought Saltaire’s the finest cricket ground in the north. “Clearly,” the column added, “he has never been to Spout House.”

LAST week’s column recalled the occasion when the footballers of Holme House prison in Stockton were (briefly) kicked out of the Teesborough League cup final because league rules said it had to be played on a neutral ground. Inevitably, we added, they became known as Lags X1.

It reminded Brian Dixon in Darlington of Legge’s Eleven, a 1960s comic strip in the Valiant.

Ted Legge was the 7ft player/manager of fourth division Rockley Rangers, a team which also included Nippy Norton (a winger, inevitably), Lord Darcy Lozenge, Stumpy Morris (“fat and bald”) and Chubby Mann, a goalkeeper who let in 172 goals in a season. That he was colour blind may not have helped.

Weren’t the full backs two well-made Australians, Brian muses, and wonders if any reader can name the full side.

About the same time there was also a prison-based comic strip called Lags’ X1 – but that one was in The Scorcher.

GEOFF Johns, known throughout Darlington as Geoff the Ref, posed the question at the foot of last week’s column. Retired teacher David Moyes correctly answered it and then fired a supplementary. “Which Carmel School pupil on a visit to watch England v Croatia Under 23s at Roker Park delayed the bus departure by 20 minutes because he was looking for autographs?” That was Geoff the Ref, an’ all.

WE'D also recalled last week the occasion in 2002 when a Braille version of the programme had been left in the St James’ Park match officials’ room for referee Jeff Winter, prompting him to use a white stick about the place – save on the field – for the rest of the afternoon.

Keith Dinning recalls a talk to the men’s group at Bishop Auckland Methodist church by the late Pat Partridge, another top referee and – like Jeff Winter – a Teesside lad.

Pat told of his first match at Bishop Auckland, when he’d failed fully to understand the phrase “Get thee eyes chalked, referee” and sought advice from a committee member.

Enlightened, he duly arranged an eye test in Bishop a few days later, to be told that the optician had himself been at the match and supported the diagnosis.

Prescribing spectacles wouldn’t be a problem, said the optician, but the guide dog might take a little longer.

STILL with the whistlers, former FIFA man George Courtney returned to competitive football last Saturday for the first time since his heart attack in January. “Friday the 13th,” he recalls with a grimace.

It was a Durham University game, St Aidan’s D v St John’s C, and Spennymoor’s finest came through untroubled.

“Most of the students had obviously overindulged in freshers’ week after an endless summer vacation,” George reports.

“I operated very nicely without breaking too much sweat and with the occasional reassuring pat of the angina spray in my pocket.”

The old butcher’s dog is 75.

….AND finally, the footballer who’s scored in just about every UK competition except the Crook and District League second division (Backtrack, October 12) is Gary Hooper, still just 29 and now with Sheffield Wednesday.

Still with the scorers, Paul Hewitson in Darlington invites readers to name the last English player, other than Harry Kane, to net a Premiership hat-trick.

Net result, the column returns next week.