ANY who spotted David Davies on the streets of Stanhope around the turn of the century might have assumed that the Football Association’s executive director was merely enjoying a relaxing weekend in Weardale.

His purpose was altogether more earnest, more eager and more urgent. Davies was desperate to persuade Frank Pattison, small town solicitor and former utility player with Howden-le-Wear Juniors, to assume the FA chairmanship, one of the most powerful positions in sport.

“He spent all weekend here. I think he was getting a bit further with Norma, my wife, than he was with me,” recalls Frank, then the vice-chairman.

Davies and his masters were obliged to look elsewhere. That the head hunting amid the bonny moor hens has hitherto remained secret is testament to the low profile assiduously craved and carefully crafted by Frank Pattison, one of football’s most high powered men.

“I’ve never regretted not taking it,” he says. “It would have been a full-time job and I already had one, and then there was the glare of all the publicity. Primarily it just didn’t appeal.”

For a while he remained vice-chairman. For the past 31 years he has held the top appointment – president – at Durham Football Association.

He retires next Monday, becoming immediate past president. “There’s nothing about it I won’t miss,” he says.

He was born in Tow Law, supported the Lawyers and Sunderland – “the big advantage of supporting Tow Law was that travelling to away games always seemed to be warmer,” he once recalled – kept a youngster called Arnold Coates out of the school football team.

Arnold was in the British squad for the 1960 Olympics. Frank never did get beyond Howden-le-Wear Juniors.

Work and family apart, his chief interest had been in the Round Table, in which he held national and international office. He also chaired the Derwentside Industrial Development Agency, formed after Consett Steelworks closed.

It thus came as a surprise when Durham FA president Arthur Askew, a cricketing companion and friend, invited Frank to succeed him.

It was also, he recalls, highly contentious – long-serving DFA member and team manager Charlie Thomas having been favourite for the top job. It was 1984.

“Arthur said that they were getting a lot more disciplinary cases, some of them quite complicated, and they needed a professional person like a solicitor to help deal with them. He said it would only mean about one meeting a month. It turned out to be five a week.

“I’m sure there were times when Arthur wondered what the bloody fool was up to, but he never interfered.”

Arthur Askew had been old school – “so old school that he made the old school look modern,” his successor once said. He himself was a moderniser.

On his watch the County FA moved to smart new headquarters next to the Riverside cricket ground at Chester-le-Street, embraced technology in all its myriad modes, earned a formidable reputation for administrative excellence and a healthy bank balance, too.

“We do have quite a lot of money, but we help a lot of people,” says Frank. “We also have a first class secretary (John Topping) and a very good council, who support me and do a lot of the work.”

He was elected as Durham’s representative on the FA Council in 1989 – succeeding Charlie Thomas, who’d become an FA vice-president – and again found his professional skills in demand. “I was the only lawyer on the FA Council, they kept giving me the most difficult cases,” he says.

One of them involved alleged irregularities in Spurs signing Paul Gascoigne. The case lasted five days, after which Spurs were heavily fined and banned from the FA Cup – penalties reduced on appeal.

He also became much involved with the mechanics of FA restructuring – “the FA board was the Council, 80-odd people, it couldn’t go on like that” – and was a key player in the clandestine negotiations which led to the formation of the Premiership.

“I shudder to think how many hours I spent on that, lots of darkened rooms,” he says, untypically. One of them, a top secret meeting with future Premiership chief Dave Richards, was in a pub at Ravenstonedale, near Kirkby Stephen.

The pressure to accept the top job was growing. “I was never really tempted,” insists Frank, whose home in Stanhope adjoined the legal firm’s offices.

“I'd be in London all day, get back about eight o’clock and then spend hours in the office. Norma would be hammering on the wall at 1am, telling me to come home.

“David Davies was very kind but I wasn’t interested. The grass roots gave me the most pleasure; that’s where football’s real enjoyment lies.”

His continuing concerns include that those high officed beneath the Wembley arches are hopelessly distanced from what the FA likes to call the workforce. It means the unpaid workforce.

“I wish that people like Greg Dyke would realise that football wouldn’t survive without all the guys working for nothing. They’re the people who keep us going and they’re a dying breed. There are people at the FA with no experience of grass roots football, just of education.”

He’s also worried about the harm done by big club academies – “they hoover youngsters up when they’re six and when they spit most of them out, at 12 or 13, they’re disillusioned and do other things” – and anxious for the future of the Saturday game.

Durham FA’s Wikipedia page lists a score or more vanished leagues – from Stockton to Seaham, Barnard Castle to the Gaunless Valley – but even that may not be half of them. Now there are just three or four. “It exercises us greatly,” says Frank.

This season a new Durham Alliance Combination League kicks off under DFA’s wing, but the Durham Alliance and Wearside Combination have disappeared.

“I come back to volunteers. It’s not really about finance, it’s about getting people to run things. In my view, people are becoming really fed up of all the paperwork.

“The FA has got to remember that they’re dealing with volunteers. Some of the guys in the county don’t even have computers. They prefer pen and paper and they’re expected to handle all that comes down on them from the FA. It’s worrying; football is meant to be enjoyable.”

He’s 78, now lives with Norma in Darlington and hopes to do more travelling. She admits to having little interest in football, but enjoyed the big occasions and has a signed photograph of David Beckham – signed, it might be added, with an x – beside the bed. “David Seaman was a lovely boy, too,” she says.

Both the business and the house in Stanhope were sold to fellow solicitor Ian Shuttleworth – who helped run a junior team in Wolsingham, had an interest in an indoor soccer centre in Shildon and next Monday will become Durham FA’s new president. His Achilles heel, says Frank, is that he supports Leeds United.

“The same sort of reasons apply as when I took it on. I told Ian exactly what Arthur Askew told me. Whatever you do I won’t interfere, but I’ll always be there if you need me. As I have, I’m sure he’ll enjoy every minute.”