KEN Hawkes, a County Durham lad who played for Luton Town in the 1959 FA Cup final, has died. He was 81 and things were a bit different back then.

The Wembley meeting with Nottingham Forest is reckoned the first football match at which fans pinched a song from popular culture – Forest supporters sang Robin Hood, from the new ITV series – and also the first at which the BBC used an on-screen score caption.

Unfortunately they enraged the Forest faithful by labelling them, “Notts Forest”, obliging commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme to apologise on air. It should have been “Nott’m Forest”, he said.

Ken Hawkes was born in Easington and spotted playing for Shotton Colliery by Dick Trembath, Luton’s North-East scout.

A few years later, Trembath also took Ken’s brother Barry to Kenilworth Road, where he made just eight appearances before spells with Darlington, Hartlepools United and, finally, Horden CW.

Though Ken signed in 1951, it was six years before his first division debut– a spell inevitably interrupted by National Service. The Luton website suggests what recent columns also have supposed – “he seemed to spend most of his time playing football for various forces sides, as well as securing a regular release to play for the Town’s reserves.”

He broke through against West Brom in December 1957, remained at left back for the rest of that season and made a total of 102 appearances, remaining a familiar match day figure at Luton.

Frequently, it’s said, he’d recall the “lackadaisical” approach to the Cup final, including being woken in the small hours by fans wanting Wembley tickets.

If not quite a mad Hatter, he certainly wasn’t a very happy one. That he lived in a club house not 100 yards from the ground probably didn’t help.

Forest won 2-1 with early goals from Tommy Wilson and Roy Dwight, who broke his leg after 33 minutes – prompting the familiar accusation that the Wembley turf was too lush.

Town orchestrated a minute’s applause in Ken’s memory. Such the affection in which he was held, it’s said considerably to have overrun.

Sad also to learn of the death of former Sunderland striker Nick Sharkey, not least because it stirred memories of the night of Wednesday March 20 1963, when he hit five in a 7-1 thrashing of Norwich City.

It was the sort of event that you remember where you were when you heard of it: fifth form and double games next morning.

Only Charles Buchan and Bobby Gurney, Roker greats, had hit five in a match before. Very likely none has done it since.

Sharkey – “a pint-sized goal snatcher,” wrote the young Frank Johnson in the following day’s Echo – hit 62 in 117 Sunderland appearances, finally pitching up at Hartlepool.

Best of all for Sunderland’s players, the Norwich win meant that they were certain to be in the top two after 30 games and thus gain a £900 per man bonus. They still only finished third, though, a smidgeon behind Chelsea on goal average.