Welsh dressing

The club that he was coming, though, giving them the chance not just literally to roll out the red carpet but to make signs around the ground bi-lingual. The observant may also have noticed that the golden goal seller had a leek in his hat.

Club officials wore name badges in both English and Welsh, so that press officer John Butterfield became swyddog y wasg and photographer Yvonne Barker translated as ffotograffydd. Many thanks to both.

Formerly nicknamed the Red Wizard, now the Welsh Wizard, Danny struck up a formidable partnership with Mikey Roberts, now with Spennymoor Town. The dressing room sign “Mikey yn well na chi” meant “Mikey was better than you are.”

“We didn’t tell him that bit,” says John.

MARTIN Birtle points out that the ten-year-old Monte Pattino, due out in the 4pm at Catterick on Tuesday, was having its first race for 1,911 days – more than five years and before four of its rival were foaled. There’s a piece in Racing Post, too. “Where’s he been?” Martin wonders, “travelling or just taking time out?” In the event, the old thing is declared a non-runner. Wingate trainer Colin Teague promises a crack at the all-weather ere long.

A DECADE after playing a much-trumpeted role in the overwhelming campaign against a North-East regional assembly, that fondly remembered white elephant is returning from the graveyard.

With increased regional self-government back on the agenda, the puffed-up pachyderm – famously photographed outside Durham Cathedral – is to feature in a new BBC programme on the issue. It’s currently in store in farm buildings “somewhere near Durham City.”

The news is revealed over lunch by John Elliott who led the region’s own “No” campaign, chairs Aycliffe-based white goods manufacturer Ebac and handsomely sponsors the Northern League.

“The only problem is that we’ll have to blow it up again,” says John. Rampant inflation, no doubt.

IAN Reeve at the BBC kindly points out that the Maccabi Southern Football League includes both Boca Jewniors and Jewdinese (as well, he might have added, as Real Sosobad.) The Maccabees, says Ian, were some sort of ancient Jewish rebels. The league, perhaps predictably, is sponsored by the Jewish Chronicle.

ECHO Memories a couple of weeks back recalled that Frank Stocker had scored for Evenwood Town against Darlington Reserves on September 27 1984.

Thirty years later, to the day, the faithful Frank – now 61 – came on as a centre forward sub for Ferryhill Greyhound in the Over 40s League game against Hebburn Town. His fellow striker was Geoff Mason – ex-Bishop Auckland, Ferryhill and Spennymoor – who’s but a bairn of 59.

Up front as always, Frank wonders if an aggregate age of 120 makes them the oldest strike force in football history.

SPEAKING of golden oldies, we reported recently on something of an Indian summer for Bobby Ortton, one of those adept all-rounders who played both cricket and football professionally.

It got better. Playing for Brandon’s Sunday side, last game of the season against Willington, the 57-year-old seamer turned off-spinner claimed a hat-trick.

“There’ve been quite a few over the years but this is the first as an off=spinner,” says Bob. “I don’t jump around any more like I used to, but I was quite pleased. I’m just going to have to do even better next season.”

NEVER one to put its foot in it, the column feels nonetheless constrained to report that Northallerton Town’s footballers wear socks with L and R sewn carefully into each foot. It’s true. “If we didn’t have it,” says Town committee man Steve Clark, “half of this lot would be snookered.”

AMONG the more tangential mysteries of recent columns on Somerset County Cricket Club – may a mystery be tangential? – was the origin of the Eggleston Cup, long contested by village cricket teams around Darlington.

Did its name come from the Teesdale village, or from a benefactor called Eggleston? John Winn stumbled upon an abandoned cricket pavilion and, thereby, the answer.

Still intact but no longer given over to wicket ways, the pavilion is alongside the Tees Way near Eggleston Hall (where John recommends the lunches.) Eggleston, he discovered, played in the Darlington and District League until 1998.

THUS inspired, he also learned that the Eggleston Cup was donated by William Benjamin Eggleston – photographer, horticulturalist, footballer and Barton cricketer – in 1939 in a bid to promote grass roots cricket. It does so yet.

….and finally, last week’s column sought the identity of the former Darlington footballer who, playing cricket for Northants, took Brian Close’s wicket on a memorable day back in the 1960s. It was Malcolm Scott who not only appears to have a tale to tell but who told it in A Geordie All Rounder, a 2009 autobiography.

The book’s £27 on eBay, a tenner from South Shields library. Armed with a copy, there may be more on the Geordie all rounder when the column returns in a fortnight.