Thrown to the Wolves (From The Northern Echo)

Thrown to the Wolves

8:57am Saturday 30th May 2009 in

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ON this day precisely 125 years ago, around 20 men attended a meeting unanimously to form Wolviston Cricket Club.

Practice nights would be Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; annual subscription would be 2/6d for men and 1/6d for boys.

Any member using abusive language or “taking an oath”

would be fined whatever the committee thought proper, not exceeding ten shillings.

To mark the anniversary, Albert Roxborough’s club history – as rich and as rustic, as affectionate and as anecdotal as ever a village cricket club history should be – will be launched next Wednesday.

He’s been writing it, on and off, for ten years, decided towards the end of last year that the innings was in danger of getting bogged down. “I’d alternatively loved it and hated it,” he admits.

“Finally I decided I had two options, to put it into print or to put it in the bin. I chose the first one.”

It’s called Boundaries Unlimited, a provisional title of Crows, Cowpats, Windmills and Pylons having been deemed a little long-winded.

Not to mention a little obscure.

Albert’s 70 now, with the club since 1961. Perhaps it should have been called Thrown to the Wolves.

WOLVISTON’S a mile north of Billingham, on Teesside, described in the book as a “desirable rural commuter village.”

We’ve had several previous dealings with the cricket club, not least in 2001 when they reached the semi-final of the National Village Cup after a tense quarter-final victory at Streethouse, in West Yorkshire.

George Sayers, then as now the skipper, was said to resemble a Spanish conquistador; Mark O’Neal was known as Billy because a dog of that name had once taken a fancy to him while fielding on the boundary – Mark, not the dog – at Kimblesworth.

Then there was Mark Christon, a former Durham School boy known as Posh on the grounds that not many people spoke like that a mile north of Billingham.

Albert recalls those pieces in his book – “Mike Amos, the inimitable, well known and award winning Northern Echo columnist.”

He admits, however, to a bit of editing on the advice of his brother Alan. Albert had originally included “loquacious”

among the epithets. Loquacious, said Alan, meant gobshite.

ALBERT was born at Blackhall on the Durham coast, worked at Head Wrightson on Teesside – “It was a long way from Blackhall to Head Wrightson’s in those days” – played for the works cricket team until persuaded by Harry Armstrong to join him at Wolviston.

Harry was a local legend, 14 times topped the batting averages but is perhaps better yet remembered as Billingham Synthonia’s goalkeeper in 1950- 51, when they went an entire Northern League season without conceding a home goal.

In the final match, against Bishop Auckland, he’d saved a penalty from the celebrated Bob Hardisty. Was it a good save, I’d once asked him? “They were all good saves,” said Harry.

Albert knew at once that held feel at home with the Wolves. “”I think it was the village atmosphere, the closeness of it all. At Head Wrightson’s you had everything provided for you; Wolviston always had to be self-sufficient.”

He became a committee member, secretary for 16 years, finally got shot, turned his back and found himself treasurer.

After that he was groundsman and played second team cricket – “dribbled on” – into his 60s, though without ever hitting the hoped-for hundred.

“I suppose the closest was one time I was in the 70s, going really well, and a chap came in at the other end and started whacking it all over the place.

“I think I felt sorry for the opposition, started playing slack cricket and was out. At the end I was just grateful for a game, but I never demanded one.

“You don’t spend your time bringing on youngsters, then fill the team with old gadgees.”

THE club has had six different grounds, moved eight times, changed in a turnip shed. The White House Farm ground had a pylon, sparking all manner of memories about local rules, and a pond into which back pedalling fieldsmen would occasionally retreat too far.

Folklore has it that if the ball hit the pylon or the overhead wires it had to be caught one handed. Albert, sadly, supposes it to be merely mythical.

When they sought guidance from the league they were advised to buy a copy of the Laws of Cricket, 2/6d from the MCC.

Now they’re at Armstrong Park, named in Harry’s memory, shared with the village footballers and ever improving.

Admitted 12 years ago into the North Yorkshire and South Durham League, they gained promotion to the Premier division and competed without a professional. It coincided with a run of Village Cup success, twice within a match of Lord’s.

“The lads did wonderfully well. I was only the groundsman but it was a pleasure to be involved,” says Albert.

“If we’d had a pro we’d have comfortably survived in the top division, but that was never the ethos of the club.

Everyone else got nowt, always had done, so why should we start paying one man?”

Back in the nineteenth century, the first find raising concert had raised a remarkable £8 0 4d. Now they rely heavily on sportsmen’s dinners, where speakers have included Sir Garfield Sobers. The book;s for club funds, too.

IT’S JUST ten days since Albert had a knee replacement operation, his second. Since he can’t yet get in the car to go to Armstrong Park, we meet at his home near Stockton’s ground, a club founded in 1816.

His wife Lily, tea lady in the 1980s – “We had some wonderfully high quality teas in those days” – provides a tray that would not only feed both teams but the umpires, scorers, tins boys and quite likely the Kimblesworth dog as well.

Their son never took to cricket.

“He and the chairman’s son would go off climbing trees in Wynyard woods. We’d only see them when it was hungry time.”

There’s talk of Harry Armstrong, of Wolviston heroes like Stan Adamson and George Thornton, and of Lindy Delapenha, a Jamaican who scored 90 goals in 260 Football League appearances for the Boro and was good enough to be Middlesbrough’s cricket professional, too.

He also played cricket for Wolviston, apparently because it represented an inside track to Cleveland Park greyhound stadium. “He would make more money on information received on the dogs than he would playing professional cricket,” the book notes.

Delapenha, 82 this week, went back to the West Indies where he enjoyed a successful commentating career with the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation.

Albert Roxborough’s just glad to have been around for getting on half the club’s 125 years. Knee bent, he’ll soon be back on the boundary.

“The game’s improved tremendously – better umpires, better coaches better grounds, better outfields. A lot of it’s down to the people, too, and we’ve always been lucky that way. Wolviston’s just a smashing cricket club.”

■ Boundaries Unlimited will be launched at Wolviston WI Hall on Wednesday June 3 between 9 30am-noon. All are welcome.

The book costs £9 (plus £2.20 postage) from Albert at 50 Hillcrest Avenue, Stockton TS18 5AF. Email albertrox2@btinternet.com

At least one North-East team has qualified for Europe this season

WHILE two-thirds of the region laments, there’s better news from the little big time. Finger flicking good, the North-East Table Football Alliance has qualified for Europe.

That’s when things get a bit more typical. “There are 32 teams in the European championships. I’d be amazed if we weren’t 32nd,” says Mike Parnaby, the organiser.

We wrote about them a year ago, after a tournament at Darlington FC – not least Dave Butler, who kept his Subbuteo team in a gilt-edged case made to resemble a book and with “Paradise Lost” on the spine.

It was to fool burglars, said Dave.

“They’d want to steal my Subbuteo team, but I doubt if they’d want to steal John Milton.”

The five-man squad reached November’s championships in Belgium after finishing second in the English club tournament in Milton Keynes. It included Ezio Orru – “our overseas player” – an Italian now living in Hartlepool.

Otherwise, they’re local lads grown in stature. “Maybe,” says Mike.

“there’s a lesson there for us all.”

MORE good news: according to former top referee Jeff Winter’s league table. Newcastle finished 15th and Middlesbrough 16th – it was Stoke City and Blackburn who joined West Brom on the trapdoor.

Jeff’s website – with thanks to a reader in Thirsk, his email shamefully mislaid – amends the table after his own review of contentious refereeing decisions Save for Chelsea and Liverpool swapping places, the top seven are the same. Jeff, however, insists that it’s merely a bit of fun. “I just humour people,” he insists. “The bottom three deserved to go down.”

THE TOP-FLIGHT Middlesbrough fanzine Fly Me to the Moon departs the Premiership with an end-of-season readers’ poll – player of the season Tuncay, best haircut of the season Tuncay, worst haircut of the season Tuncay – and with a bitter-sweet cover. No one came second in the player of the season poll. “None deserved it,” they insist. “Speaks volumes.”

THE TESTIMONIAL year for the column’s dear old friend Brian Hunt, long Durham County Cricket Club’s scorer and historian, gathers pace.

Former captains Will Smith and Dale Benkenstein will be at a talk-in and pie and peas supper at Chester-le- Street cricket club on June 11. Tickets are £8, £80 for tables of ten, from the club on 0191-388-3684.

A four-course dinner at Bishop Auckland Golf Club on July 7 will be addressed by Dale Benkenstein, Steve Harmison, Phil Mustard and Mark di Venuto.

Tickets for that one are £25, £250 a table, from Graham Sheldon on 07976 607430.

In the same connection, a note from Kath Sewell in Crook advises that her son’s obtained a genuinely-signed Arsenal shirt for auction at the Bishop do – though with other bids accepted.

“There can’t only be you who’s an Arsenal supporter,” she supposes.

IN THE pub, where else, we bump into Carroll Simpson, that great stalwart of village cricket at Lands.

Lands is in west Durham, Cockfield way. John Elliot swears that, when receiving his MBE, he told the Queen he was from Lands. “Yes,” said Her Majesty, “but are you High Lands or Low Lands?”

Carroll, at any rate, is feeling pretty pleased. Thanks to grants, they’ve just bought a cutter from Carlisle United FC.

“The pitch is looking wonderful, absolutely fabulous. You should get a photographer on top of one of those cranes,” he insists.

He may also have a nomination in our search for the region’s oldest active cricketer. Bob Tookey, long familiar as Evenwood Town’s centre half, still plays for the seconds after 50 years. He’s reckoned to be 67.

and finally...

TUESDAY’S column sought the location of the two Premiership or Football League grounds in the top 15 of England’s highest stadia. Tow Law, it may be remembered, was second.

A recount confirms that there are three – West Brom’s seventh (168 metres), Port Vale tenth (160m) and Oldham Athletic 13th (155m).

Brian Shaw, in Shildon today seeks the identity of the Manchester-born footballer who became the first Eire international to be born outside the Republic.

Today’s the annual outing of the FA Cup Final Escape Committee (and Scotch Pie Fest) – Bathgate Thistle v Forfar West End, last we heard.

More from north of the border on Tuesday.