STRINGS attached as always, a reader follows last week’s note on unlikely events at Tow Law with a link to the “Football wherever it may be” blog. There’s a report on Tow Law v Thornaby and also a picture of the Edward VIII post box in Catterick.

Whilst the football connection may be unclear, the post box could be a major boost to anyone who still has an I-Spy book.

The Tow Law match report is headed Hill Farmer’s Blues, a reference to a song by Mark Knopfler – that well known Local Hero – in which each verse begins “Going down to Tow Law.”

After that it gets a bit darker, as Tow Law tends to, with stuff about the singer buying a chain for the ripsaw, bullets for the 12 and “killer for the weed.”

Online interpretation is that the poor chap’s wife has been making hay behind his back and that he’s off up there not just to restock the armoury but to prove all that’s said about goose and gander.

It’s all a product of Knopfler’s lyrical imagination, of course, No one’s ever unfaithful in Tow Law.

THE last column also recorded the Northern League’s 125th birthday, marked with a civic ceremony at South Bank.

Sky Sports News caught up with events last Wednesday, conducting several interviews at the Durham Amateur Football Trust headquarters in Shildon.

In one, DAFT inspirational chairman Keith Belton recalled the South Bank Show. “The mayor kicked off and then she fell in a heap. It was good.” It’s to be hoped that that bit will be edited.

AS perhaps the name suggests, Cheers is a magazine devoted to North-East pubs. The September issue is thus a slightly surprising source for a novel cricket story.

Corbridge – sponsored by a brewery, that’s the link – were playing Bates Cottages, Whitley Bay way, in the Wilson Cup final at Jesmond.

Corbridge bowler Chris Fowler was howked hugely towards the boundary, where 19-year-old George Ridley sprinted round, caught the ball, but realising that his momentum would take him over the rope, hurled the ball back towards the centre of the field.

Seeing what was happening, Fowler ran 30 yards towards the boundary and grabbed the ball – perhaps the most unusual caught and bowled in cricket history. “Amazing,” says Corbridge captain Dave Smurhtwaite. Cheers.

AN annual appearance at Evenwood Cricket Club’s juniors presentation night, and 8.5 seconds before Bulldog Billy Teesdale demands some sponsorship money. It’s clearly a sign that the Bulldog’s losing his bite: usually it’s just half that time.

LAST week seemed to follow the Yorkshire coast route, on Tuesday to Bridlington for the FA Cup replay between Scarborough Athletic – still homeless – and Ashington, the following evening to the replay between Whitby Town and Shildon. “We all live at the top of Eldon Bank,” sang the exuberant Shildon fans in the manner of Yellow Submariners.

The Whitby programme, incidentally, thought – unlike Harry Pearson in last week’s column – that the Shildon hospitality had been magnificent and the beef pie incomparable.

As frequently is the case, Whitby proved misty. “A haar,” said Seasiders’ chairman Graham Manser – which should not be confused with Aha! but which had most of us groping around, nonetheless.

The Oxford’s quite specific, the word originally Dutch. “A wet mist or fog, applied to the east coast of England and Scotland from Lincolnshire northwards.”

“It was used by that Scottish feller on the weather forecast,” said Graham.

Mr Bob Johnson, the man with the long dreich, has much for which to answer BARELY a month into the season and our perennially underachieving friends at Darlington Hole in the Wall FC (President: Backtrack) have now twice conceded 14 in a match. They’re still not bottom of the Crook and District League second division, mind – newcomers Staindrop Castle Rangers are not only without a point but they’ve had six deducted. Does Lord Barnard know about this?

READING matter changed a little, retired Darlington newsagent Alan Cooper rings to report a new book “with a whole chapter devoted to you”.

This is “Up There” – sub-titled The North-East Football Boom and Bust – by Newcastle-based journalist Michael Walker. Though based partially on a chat with me in the Crown Posada, the chapter is actually about the Northern League.

“Amos is a fanatic,” writes Walker, doubtless kindly. The book’s published by de Coubertin books and will again become holiday reading; more shortly.

…and finally, last week’s column sought the term for an unlikely -4 shot in golf. “A big bird, maybe an ostrich,” suggests Mike Rudd in Bishop Auckland and is half right – it’s a condor.

With a nod to the page opposite, readers are today invited to name the only man to have captained both Somerset and Yorkshire.

Autumn next week.