THE banner flying photograph was taken two Saturdays ago at Wadham Lodge v Clapton, Essex Senior League. Spectators may understandably have queried the identity of Barry Chambers, proclaimed trade unionist and activist.

Barry was a leading member of the Durham Miners’ Association, had been Blackhall NUM lodge secretary until the pit closed in 1986 and, like his son Ronnie, was an active campaigner for workers’ rights.

Until his death in January, Barry was also a keen Hartlepool United fan and a close friend of the late Tony Benn, pipe smoking hero of the Labour left. So why was he so prominently remembered at a lower league football match in Walthamstow?

Barry and Ronnie were also familiar faces at marches and demonstrations nationwide, as well as in pubs in the Hartlepool area. We’d last raised a glass together in 2014 – Strongarm, £2 05 – at the Globe in old Hartlepool.

That a sign identified it as Bulls**t Corner was, of course, coincidental. All the other seats were taken.

“We were at a demonstration in London and met a member of the Clapton Ultras who was also a Hartlepool fan,” says Ronnie, a former referee. “When he later heard about my dad dying he said they’d do something in his memory, but until I saw the photograph I thought the trail had gone cold.”

So why do many of the Ultras appear to be wearing scarves over their faces. Had it turned wild in Walthamstow?

“It’s just an extreme left wing thing,” says Barry. “The right pinched it off us, but that’s what they do. It doesn’t matter what they were wearing, it was a fantastic tribute to my dad.”

A MEMORIAL service for former Crook Town winger Jimmy McMillan, the only man ever to be on the winning side in four FA Amateur Cup finals, will be held at St Catherine’s church, Crook, on Saturday May 19 at 11am. Jim spent all of his life in Kimblesworth, near Gateshead, where his funeral was held last November – “the finest player ever to wear a Crook Town shirt,” said the Rev Hew Sperring at the time,. None argued.

JOHN BUTTERFIELD’S funeral all-but overflowed Guisborough parish church. To wrestling fans he was Johnny Green, MC extraordinary, to music men a Dr Feelgood fanatic and to football folk a former secretary and press officer of Guisborough Town. To his family he was everything.

He’d met the Rev Jacqueline Purvis, his eulogist, at a Feelgood convention at Billy Butlin’s. Feelgood Jack, they called her, irreverently.

As press officer, he’d once unearthed the Hansard record of one of Town’s more infamous experiences, the FA Cup first round tie 30 years ago against Bury at Ayresome Park.

Town trailed 1-0 after 37 minutes when referee Tom Fitzharris booked skipper Ray Hankin – well remembered elsewhere – for removing his armband. For protesting too much, big Ray received a second yellow.

The fallout reached the House of Commons. Richard Holt, Tory MP for Langbaurgh, said that Town had been “cheated by biased refereeing.”

The House erupted, Holt anticipated redress. “Before you, Mr Speaker, do what the silly referee did on Saturday by giving a red card to the captain of Guisborough Town so that ten amateurs were left to play against 11 professionals, I shall resume my seat.”

John was 59. The cortege left the church not to Dr Feelgood but to Spirit in the Sky, a 1969 hit for Norman Greenbaum who, happily, is still on terra firma.

THOUGH appropriately remote from Swaledale, the Reeth and District Gazette notes that the longest chess match in history lasted 36 hours and 42 minutes before a fly landed on the board. In an attempt to swat it, one of the players scattered several pieces. Unable to agree where the pieces had been, the opponents called it a draw.

THREE weeks ago the column talked to former Stockton and Great Britain footballer Tommy Thompson, now in Blackpool, about Stockton Town’s march to the FA Vase final at Wembley.

Inexplicably, the piece was accompanied by a photograph of a wholly different Tommy Thompson, riding a penny farthing bicycle at Beamish Museum.

Tommy the cyclist was a well known and much admired member of Houghton-le-Spring Cycling Club. Gerry Coote, in Sedgefield, recalls that he was one of those who successfully fought to keep racing on the road “despite the efforts of many constabularies.”

Tommy, who died in the saddle, was also known for the exuberance of his disco dancing, especially – says Gerry – the Tommy Stomp, performed in crepe-soled shoes and luminous socks.

Apologies to all concerned for the mix-up.

….and finally, Manchester United’s first England international (Backtrack, April 5) was Darlington lad and former Bishop Auckland player Charlie Roberts, who won three caps in 1905 and might have had many more had not the FA frowned upon his efforts to form the first players’ union. Roberts, also remembered for wearing shorts the approximate length of a pelmet, died in 1939, aged just 56.

Readers are today invited to name the manager of whom Brian Clough said that he had a smile as wide as Stockton High Street – “the nicest face in football.”

Still trying to look on the bright side, the column returns next week.