Amble Angus still a vintage Claret (From The Northern Echo)

Amble Angus still a vintage Claret

9:42am Saturday 6th June 2009 in

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WARKWORTH’S a lovely little place on the Northumberland coast, roughly between Tyne and Tweed. The Coquet flows frisky; the great castle stands, still.

Up at the end of the village, next to a barley field and a but a short stroll from the sea, John Angus is something of a local attraction, too.

A couple, staying a few miles north at Alnmouth, had looked in on him on Tuesday evening. Burnley fans, of course, for John – 521 Turf Moor appearances between 1957-71 – is what they call vintage Claret.

“They just heard I was here, they were chuffed to bits,” he says. “Jimmy McIlroy had once said hello to them, and they were still ever so excited just about that.

“I don’t suppose it would happen with today’s players, they seem to live behind fences, but I’m still very happy to talk to people, or to sign all the stuff I get in the post. It’s part of the game, isn’t it?”

The column looked in the following day, jointly to celebrate Burnley’s promotion back to top-flight football for the first time since 1976 and to warm up for the 50th anniversary of the First Division championship season, 1959-60, perhaps the most improbable of modern times.

“When you remember that just a few years ago they needed to win the last game of the season to avoid dropping out of the league altogether, they’ve done incredibly to get back to the top,” says John.

The old Lancashire mill town, population 73,000, will become the smallest ever to host Premiership football – but for the young John Angus, Burnley was the big city, nonetheless. He was just out of school, a 15-year-old from the fishing village of Amble, scouted by the nearlegendary Charlie Ferguson to join the burgeoning Geordie army at Turf Moor.

“They were everywhere.

Our players seemed to be all Geordies and Irishmen,” he recalls. “Certainly there were more Geordies at Burnley in the late 1950s than there are at Newcastle today.”

The 1960 side also included Jimmy Adamson from Ashington, Pelton lad Jimmy Robson and Tommy Cummings, born in Sunderland but signed from Stanley United and a veteran of even more appearances than the amiable Amble Angus.

For all that, the youngster was helplessly homesick, heading north again shortly after his first team debut. “I was 15 when I left, just signed indentures to become a joiner was still doing joinering after a fashion because if you had a trade you didn’t do National Service.

“What with training, playing, night classes and doing some joinery work, I’d just had enough. I always was a bad traveller.”

He was followed back to the North-East by Burnley manager Allan Brown, subsequently at Sunderland, a man not accustomed to being stood up.

“He was a tough man he’d have sorted out Newcastle, no problem,” John volunteers.

Brown was succeeded by Harry Potts, one of life’s gentlemen.

Burnley’s other powerhouse was club chairman and local butcher Bob Lord, the first of the brawn sandwich brigade.

“The chairman was very good with the players,” says John, 70. “We always got what we were due and a massive turkey at Christmas. We only really saw the directors on Saturdays, but it was a relationship that worked.”

When Burnley won the first division he was on the maximum £15 a week plus a £2 win bonus – “it was probably quite good in those days” – though there was talk of a four-figure bonus.

The players were also offered the chance of a Greek islands cruise. The 21-year-old right back turned it down. It was summer time, Amble the one he had to go back for.

“Amble’s lovely in the summer,”

he says.

After seven Under 23 appearances – capped, but never big headed – he made a full international appearance against Austria in 1961, praised by Walter Winterbottom but never chosen again.

As ever, he regrets nothing.

“George Cohen and Jimmy Armfield were ahead of me and they were good players. I was proud to have played even once; a lot of very able players could never say that.”

In 1961-62, Potts’s side almost did it again, runners-up in both league and cup. John even scored two of his four career goals in the same match, pushed up front after being injured at Arsenal.

“They were from six yards,”

he recalls. “It was only Jimmy McIlroy who could hit them from 30.”

Achilles tendon injury compelled his retirement in 1972.

Though there was talk of a player/manager’s job, he never returned to football.

“I’m a competitor, not a watcher,” he says.

He recalls watching Burnley just once – “there was a dinner or something afterwards”

– and this season made a first visit to St James’ Park since playing days, regarding it as a child might on first seeing Santa’s grotto.

It was Hull City in the FA Cup. “It was just so massive, an incredible place. All I wanted to do was get out there and play. The crowd was only 35,000 or so, but the noise they made was incredible.”

Back in magnetic Northumbria, he worked as a locksmith, began a milk business and gift shop – which his wife still runs – in Amble.

He’s now wholly retired, had a hip replacement operation almost ten years ago, enjoys golf, fly fishing and photography and carries as much weight as when he a Turf Moor totem.

Burnley asked him to the Wembley play-off final, an invitation declined partly because his daughter was staying for the weekend and partly because the coach would be travelling to and from Lancashire on the same day.

“See what I mean about being a bad traveller?”

Instead he watched it on television, agreed to his sonin- law’s suggestion that they open a bottle of something to salute a remarkable success, greatly hopes that they can survive the Premiership.

“It would be wonderful for a club and a town like that. Just look at all the money Sunderland are talking about spending – how can Burnley compete with that, never mind Manchester United.”

The first of the 50th anniversary reunions was cancelled because it clashed with the play-offs. Others will punctuate the new season, old friends sadly absent.

“I was one of the younger ones. Some have died, others have dementia – all that heading hard case balls. These days you can head a ball 30 yards or take a 50 yard free kick. Only Tommy did that; he really thundered them.

“It’s got to be different because there’s so much money now, but I don’t regret a thing.

I enjoyed every minute; it’s just wonderful that Burnley’s turn has come again.”

Backtrack briefs

STILL best remembered for The Far Corner, his incomparable odyssey on North- East football, Harry Pearson is switching sports and broadening horizons.

He’s now writing a book on club cricket in the north, by which he means the area roughly between the Wash and the mouth of the Mersey. “It’s a bit arbitrary but has the benefit of meaning that Roy Hattersley is a southerner,”

he says. In the North-East, he’s already been to Horden and Guisborough – “for £2.50 you get to eat tea with the players, they don’t do that at Lord’s” – plans further forays and has been directed towards Spout House.

It’s only the working title, but so far the book’s called The Far Corner with Scones.

RECORDING the FA Cup Final Escape Committee’s trip to Livingston last weekend, Tuesday’s column noted that extraordinary degree of schadenfreude presently being enjoyed by Sunderland supporters.

Trevor Sharples adds to it.

Trev organises the annual Sunderland fans’ end-of-season bash at Hawes, top end of Wensleydale, to which followers from all over the north are drawn. This year it’s on June 27, billed as the Newcastle Relegation Party, the Fountain Hotel set to show a big-screen version of Sunderland’s 2-1 win over the Magpies.

It’s also the day of the Hawes Gala, this year’s theme the circus.

“We may see Shearer, Keegan and Co after all,” says Trev.

BARTON, with 65-year-old Dave Morrison behind the stumps, are through to the last 64 of the National Village Cup after victory over Staithes.

“I took two smart catches standing up to change the game,”

says Dave, though Neil Kearney’s 82 off 39 balls, including nine sixes, may also have helped. The area final’s at Harome, Helmsley, on June 14.

THE column’s search for the region’s oldest regular cricketer – Mr Morrison being but a bairn – moves up a notch.

Doug Arnold in Coxhoe, near Durham, nominates 72-year-old Ron Davidson, who plays friendlies most weeks for Daviparts, on south Tyneside.

Usually he opens the batting.

Last week against a team of doctors he bowled first change, claimed the first three wickets and finished with 3-30.

“Could he be the next Demon Donkey Dropper?”

asks Doug.

Any advance?

WRETCHEDLY, last Saturday’s piece on Albert Roxborough’s admirable new history of Wolviston Cricket Club included a wrong email address.The first order was from Thailand.

The book’s £9, plus £2.20 postage – details from Albert on albrox2@btinternet.com LAST night was the Over 40s League’s annual presentation, of which more will doubtless be heard in Tuesday’s column.

The first division trophy – effectively the second – went to the Hardwick at Blackhall, near Hartlepool, after a remarkable climax. Near the bottom earlier in the season, the team was level top going into the final games – but needing to turn around a markedly better goal difference of 12 enjoyed by the Lord Ashley from South Shields.

In their last game, a week back Wednesday, Hardwick won 15- 0, Martin Johns scoring eight.

The Lord Ashley, playing on Saturday, thus needed to win by three clear goals. They could only manage 3-1.

The man credited with Hardwick’s transformation is team manager Les Faith. As in grain of mustard seed, no doubt.

ONCE again on Monday evening to Crook Games League’s annual presentation, the Green Tree at Howden-le- Wear particularly successful and all the lads characteristically generous.

As ever, most donate the money that would have funded individual trophies to worthy local causes.

The evening’s other major attraction, awaited with only slightly less excitement than Crook Town’s onceperennial appearance in the FA Amateur Cup final, is the annual dominoes match between the column and former England darts international Doug McCarthy. First to five, Doug was 4-0 up before heroically being clawed back to 4-4. The fifth chalk, alas, went to Mr McCarthy.

SPEAKING of good causes, Mike Rudd in Bishop Auckland asks us to mention that his fund raiser at the Belvedere Club for the Great North Air Ambulance raised a remarkable £1,307. Mike wants to thank everyone – “special mention to Kevin and June McKimm and the bairns for all their hard work and to Judith and Clare for just being there.

And finally

THE two sides who’ve appeared in the FA Cup final in all the three centuries in which it had been played (Backtrack, June 2) are Everton and Aston Villa.

Today back to Burnley – to become, as we noted, the smallest town to host Premiership football.

Readers are invited to name the previous smallest.

Little big time, the column returns on Tuesday.