Book to mark history of the club at the top of the world

Top men, Wearhead United.

It was the club which marked its centenary not just with a knife and fork supper but with a fly past by the Red Arrows, which arranged for the new pavilion to be opened not by the chairman of the parish council but by the Chief of the Defence Staff and which, most memorably of all, played a Crook and District League second division match at the Stadium of Light.

“For Stadium of Light read Theatre of Dreams,” the column observed back in May 2001 when foot and mouth disease cast a dark shadow over the countryside and the match with Stanhope had, as they say to be switched.

Now the club 1,107ft above the sea has its own 172-page history, written by former goalkeeper, manager and club secretary Ray Snaith and launched at a snowy, champagne-fuelled celebration in the Golden Lion at St John’s Chapel.

Ray, 62, had intended the book to be ready three years ago, in time for the centenary.

“It was only meant to be 28 or 32 pages,” he pleads. “Then I realised how much there was to say.”

“Once he got over the writer’s block he was fine,”

says club treasurer Cliff Dalton.

There, too, is former manager Ralph Ord, then manager of Eastgate leisure centre and now among the leading organisers of global sports events.

It had been 36 degrees when he left Dubai that morning.

“Wearhead,” says Ralph, “is the one you have to come home for.”

THE gloriously indomitable village club kicked off in 1907, spent £11 18s 9d in its first season on horse-drawn travel, had gone a little further along life’s road when nine players crammed into a Ford Capri for a game at Bishop Auckland.

“A transport glitch,”

observes Ray’s history, though the Guinness Book may be interested in that one, too.

They’d also had a Christmas draw, sold 2,783 tickets, £9 12 9d profit. These days Ray’s the Christmas draw organiser, too.

Back in Edwardian days, Wearhead was an industrious little place with a railway station at the head of the branch up the dale.

Even fifty or sixty years ago, Ray records, there were five shops, a pub, a Methodist chapel, a cinema, a fish and chip shop, a garage, a bank, a doctor and a polliss to keep them all in order.

There were plenty of footballers, too, the team posted in the window of the Village Institute and required reading for miles around.

Now there’s nowt, or next to nowt, save for the football club. United still stand.

That it remains a family club is underlined by the recurring names, the Pearts, the Robinsons, the Emersons and, they reckon, at least a dozen Coulthards.

Recent successes have been sadly few, however, though twenty years ago – managed by a fresh-faced Ralph Ord – they did pick up a trophy for winning the quarter-final of the Weardale Cup and thus becoming the last geographically “Weardale”

survivors.

“You mightn’t want to put this in the paper,” Ralph had said – a rich triumph of optimism over experience – “but some of the lads from down the dale were celebrating that much they ended up at half past two next morning banging on doors to cadge a bed.”

They lost the semi.

Once they beat Rookhope 18-0. Once, it’s whispered, they lost 21-0 to Byers Green St Peter’s though the records have, sadly, been misplaced.

Ray’s clearly missed his vocation. He should have been in the Cabinet Office.

Since the 1970s, they’ve never been out of the Crook League second division save for a season when there was only one and the present campaign, following league reorganisation.

It’s also the only field in the league that’s not council owned, Ray’s history recalling games at Sunniside, above Crook, where the pitch was also crossed by a public footpath. “This created the unique situation of not only having to beat your opponent, but also a mother of two carrying her shopping.”

This season they drew their first two, have remained pointless thereafter, are adrift at the bottom. “I wouldn’t care,” says Ralph, with the stoicism that runs through Wearhead like the nascent river, “it’s the best side we’ve had for years.”

HE WAS born there, remains there, is unlikely to be going any place fast, not even on the 101 bus down from Killhope Wheel.

He made his senior debut at 15, had just three games before breaking his leg at Wolsingham Grammar School, returned a year later and helped United to the Durham Minor Cup quarterfinal in 1968 and 1971.

He played a few Northern League games for Evenwood and Willington, was in the Sat John’s Chapel side that went 50 matches unbeaten – conceding just 13 goals in 30 league fixtures – returned to finish his career at Wearhead and played for another 12 years.

Still he works out twice a week in the gym down at Crook, still keeps wicket for North Bitchburn in the North East Durham League, last season won the cup for the most second division victims and in 2009 was players’ player of the year.

“Those two trophies are still on the mantelpiece, all the rest are shoved up in the attic,” says Heather Snaith.

Her old feller has no plans to cast off the mantle, or the mantelpiece, just yet.

IT WAS in the Golden Lion, back in 1987, that just two turned up for the annual meeting, again casting a cloud over the club’s future.

The book launch is indifferently attended, too, food to feed every ambulant soul in the dale and still (as the Good Book almost has it) enough to fill five baskets with the leftovers.

Though there are books to sign, the bar top also offers evidence of more eclectic reading, from the Weardale Gazette (“Stanhope ford closure proposal debated”) to the Daily Star (“Cher’s Xrated romp exposed.”) In those parts they’re more interested in Stanhope ford.

There are memories of Norman Wright, club stalwart and war veteran – in whose honour the pavilion’s named – and tributes to Margaret Robson, who’s washed the strips for thirty years.

“Gone through four washing machines,” someone says.

“Why,” says his mate, “you know how clarty it gets up here.”

There, too, is Stanhope Town chairman Clem O’Donovan, the man whose idea it was – since both grounds were unfit – to ask Sunderland chairman Bob Murray if they might move down river a bit.

The crowd was 913, a Crook League record by about 900, the occasion utterly memorable. Stanhope were seventh, Wearhead eighth.

There only were eight clubs.

It was Stanhope, too, who’d presented a photograph of the Red Arrows dipping wings in salute to the centenary. They were at Sunderland Air Show, anyway, the phrase about shy bairns getting nee sweets trailing in their slipstream.

“What time will you be here,” they’d asked the squadron leader, expecting to be given half an hour each way.

“15 21,” said the squadron leader and as they looked northwards at 15 21, precisely, the formation emerged no less precisely over the Pennines.

These days Clem’s a sheep farmer above Frosterley, though he still works in Middlesbrough, too. “The best lamb in Weardale,” he said, but clearly thought it best to rephrase.

“The best lamb in the world,” he said.

Ray’s glorious labour of love chronicles it all – all except Byers Green St Peter’s, anyway.

■ A History of Wearhead United is available from the Wearhead Village Shop, St John’s Chapel post office, the Dales Centre in Stanhope, Watson’s in Wolsingham and from the author – £13 50, including post and packing – at 8 Westfall, Wearhead, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham DL13 1JD. He’s probably sell a few Christmas draw tickets, an’ all.

Opening a can of worms on Quakers cup run COMMENTARY on last Saturday’s game between Derby and Burnley included the fact that, before this season, Burnley had never played Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium – though they had played Darlington there.

What was all that about, asks John Briggs, and opens up a right old can of worms.

It was the FA Cup first round, November 17 1998, the game switched because of drainage problems at Feethams, It proved one of Quakers’ finer hours.

Burnley led 2-0 with just ten minutes remaining when Brian Atkinson smashed home a penalty, Mario Barnard scored his first goal for two years and, deep into injury time, Atkinson grabbed the winner.

The crowd was disappointing, just 5,058 despite Darlington’s offer of a £2 50 return fare on special buses.

They went wild, most of them, nonetheless.

Days earlier, the club had announced that they were trying to solve the pitch irrigation problem by buying 500lbs of worms, to be introduced at night to stop the birds proving that there really is such a thing as a free lunch.

Manchester United had bought 5,000lbs – presumably from Wrigley’s – but they were Premiership worms.

Clearly it worked. The next home game went ahead as planned, Quakers beating Scarborough 3-0.

THE second round was on December 4, 12 years ago today, Darlington at home to the oncemighty Manchester City, then languishing in the third tier.

It ended 1-1, City winning the replay 1-0. Quakers’ goal was scored by future manager Gary Bennett who, coincidentally, hits 49 today.

Bennett had made 444 senior appearances for Sunderland, had instantly endeared himself by scoring against Southampton and Peter Shilton after two minutes of his debut, still plays for Sunderland club Steels SC – when radio work allows – in the Over 40s League.

They’d planned a bit of a celebration after this morning’s game. Like everything else, alas, it’s on ice.

STILL with the Quakers, Tuesday’s column recorded the 50th anniversary of the four-times replayed FA Cup tie with Hull City, in which Bobby Baxter starred for Darlington.

John Corner in Marske points out that Redcar-born Baxter was the son of the Middlesbrough and Scotland defender of the same name – both, indeed, were christened Robert Denholm Baxter.

The elder Baxter returned to Scotland, managed a couple of football clubs and Edinburgh Monarchs speedway team as well.

He died in 1991. Young Bobby moved from Darlington to Torquay. He is believed still to live on the Riviera.

OUR friends at the Durham Amateur Football Trust plan an open day at Bishop Auckland’s new Heritage Park ground on Tuesday December 7 (10 30am-2 30pm) in the hope of evaluating how they’re doing.

Their aim has been to record and to cherish the glory days of amateur football. The Heritage Lottery Fund, the key backer, would welcome feedback, too.

All are welcome, light lunch provided, but they’d welcome forewarning – 01388 772524.

And finally...

THE gentleman who refereed an FA Cup final and an England international before winning his first cap (Backtrack, November 30) was the unforgettably named Segar Richard Bastard, who made his England debut in 1880. Richard Montgomerie was first up with that one.

Martin Birtle in Billingham today invites readers to recall the 1970s game – involving a North-East side – voted Match of the Decade by Match of the Day viewers.

Rather more of that when the column returns on Tuesday.