Together asunder

The column’s old friend Steve Davies, Ferryhill Wheeler and indefatigable spokesman, was one of a four-man Anglo-Scottish squad which won their age group team pursuit title at the World Masters championship.

“The name just seemed appropriate, but we’d have looked a bit silly if the referendum had gone the other way,” he says.

Better yet, they beat the Australians in the final. “They’re our big rivals,” says Steve, winner of countless masters titles since returning to the saddle in 1997.

He was a Chilton lad, brought up to support Sunderland FC – cornered in Starbucks, we fall to reminiscing about away trips with Martindale’s coaches – moved to Darlington and has worked in insurance for 45 years. He’ll be 64 in December and thus qualifies on January 1 for the 65-69 age group – “we’re like racehorses in that respect. We all have the same birthday”.

For the moment he’s back in hard training after a relatively indifferent 2014. In August he was felled for three weeks by a bug – “just a month before the Masters, it didn’t do much for my chances” – and cracked a rib after coming off his bike on a farm track.

“There was this chap with a rottweiler off its lead. I slowed down because you don’t want to argue with a rottweiler, but then I was forced off the bike and ended up in hospital.”

Restored to full vigour, he has no thoughts of slowing down. “I’ll just be a bit more careful with rottweilers.”

The little reference in last week’s column to the timing of the younger bairn’s wedding – otherwise very memorable, thanks – reminded Dave “Fingers” Morrison of an altogether more sporting declaration. Morro, the world’s most battered wicket keeper, was married at St Edwin’s church, High Coniscliffe, at 11am on a summer’s day in 1966. At 2.30pm he took the field for Darlington RA, away at Guisborough. Still, the lad clearly remembers his wedding day – “13 not out, but the only catch was hers”.

The note on Steve Harmison’s first match as Ashington FC manager prompts a splendid story from Ray Gowan, a former Colliers manager.

Ray recalls a winter training session at an “icy cold” sports centre in Ashington when big Steve turned up to join in the seven-side just days before flying to Australia to help defend the Ashes.

He was in the blues, Lee Anderson – “one of the most committed footballers I ever had the pleasure of working with” – in the reds. Early in the game, the manager noticed that Harmi was being lined up for what he calls one of Anderson’s “winner-takes-all” tackles.

“I saw the Ashes going back to Australia after being so hard won and rapidly put myself between the combatants only to be put into minor orbit by Mr Anderson’s challenge. At least the Ashes were saved – or so I thought.

“Just two weeks later Stephen bowled the first ball of the series so wide that it nearly broke second slip in two. Perhaps I should have allowed the tackle.”

Clearly all is forgiven. Ray. Mow in South Africa, considers “brilliant” the appointment of both manager and coach. The coach is a certain Lee Anderson.

More haste less speed, the March issue of When Saturday Comes has been out for at least a week. It includes a piece suggesting that all may not be well with the Hartlepool United takeover and a full page on Ashington, written before Harmi’s appointment. “One of the board’s aims is to raise the club’s profile,” it says. They cracked it.

Then there’s an email from Geoff Gardener in Darlington following the humming a couple of columns back of the 1950s calypso about West Indian cricketers Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine.

Geoff recalls a song about their compatriot Rohan Kanhai, along the lines of: “Can I canoe you up the river, can I canoe you up the stream.”

The coincidental thing about all that is that Kanhai spent several years as Ashington cricket club’s pro and the local Wetherspoons pub is still named after him. How long, though, before it becomes the Stephen Harmison?

Last Thursday’s meeting to discuss the future of Shildon FC’s much-loved Dean Street ground voted overwhelmingly further to explore the possibility of relocation. The number of shareholders present was 24, the number of shares they represented was 42,142. The column has four of them. Who says journalists have no influence?

In charge of the Wear Valley Sunday League cup tie between Cockfield and West Auckland last weekend, former Football League assistant referee Martin Robinson cautioned a West player after just five seconds – “and that included the other feller coming back down to earth in a heap”. Probably not a record – does anyone know what is?

…and finally, last week’s column sought the identity of the two former Durham County and Durham Senior League cricketers who featured in November 1976 in the match between India and New Zealand, India’s 524-7 the highest innings in which no one has scored a century.

They were David O’Sullivan, who played league cricket for Horden and Eppleton, and Mohinder Armanath, known as Jimmy when he played for Chester-le-Street. George Cram, on the ball as ever, recalls that Bishop Auckland favourite Lance Cairns also played in the series, but not in that match.

Readers are today invited to name the last team to win the FA Cup while wearing stripes in the final. (Clue: it was neither Newcastle United nor Sunderland.) Answer next week.