Man in chair urges mass participation

11:05am Friday 25th January 2008

THE Department for Culture, Media and Sport - not to mention political correctness - announced in November that Peter Rowley had been appointed chair of Sport England's North-East regional board.

Consett head south and prove they can swim with the Dolphins

10:00am Tuesday 22nd January 2008

POOLE is in Dorset, has a population of 141,000 and is said to be the second largest place in England - the largest Dudley, in Worcestershire - not to support a "professional" football team.

Call for blades to be banned from football

10:35am Friday 18th January 2008

VETERAN footballer Andrew Scullion has renewed calls for a ban on "bladed"

Bobby’s tales of the Bobbies FC

9:18am Tuesday 15th January 2008

BOBBY HULL breezes in, bearing scrapbooks.

Vicious little Cyril not nice

9:27am Friday 11th January 2008

SO WHOLLY in passing as to be damn-near invisible, Tuesday's column made reference to Arthur "Tricky" Hawes, a Sunderland footballer of the 1920s who, while playing, always carried a handkerchief in his left hand.

Bird in the hand is worth a small fortune

8:37am Tuesday 8th January 2008

KIP Watson - and there is no better name with which to start another year of Backtrack columns - spent the festive holiday with family in mid- Wales. His son was given a couple of local prints - "really attractive," says Kip - by renowned water colour artist John Bird.

A fascinating year in the life of Backtrack

11:00am Friday 21st December 2007

After yet another year along sport’s highways and byways – the latter, mostly – Mike Amos, named UK regional papers’ sports writer of the year, takes an idiosyncratic dander back through 2007

Carpenter’s record proves he’s no longer the apprentice to dad

7:55am Tuesday 18th December 2007

IF NO longer a water baby then still just a bit bairn, really, 19-year-old Scott Carpenter last week broke the all-time record for most goals - 109 - in a National Water Polo League season.

Broadis still; bubbling along at 85

9:55am Friday 14th December 2007

WHEN we were but bit bairns, nineteenhundred- andfood- rationing, you could still get Chix penny bubblegum from Bushby's shop, across the road from Timothy Hackworth Junior Mixed and Infants.

Middleton marauders told there's room to improve

10:42am Tuesday 11th December 2007

THE glorious Gunners may have lost their unbeaten record at the weekend, but Middleton Rangers just go invincibly on.

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