THE amazing Ian Harper, indomitable almost to the end, has lost a long and ever-courageous battle with cancer. He was 68 and a truly lovely guy.

For the last 30 years he’d been a newsagent in Trimdon Colliery – still rising at 4.30am, still shifting 300 Echoes a day when last we bumped into him, at a sportsmen’s do in Blackhall RAF Club, back end of 2013.

Earlier he’d been a pit surveyor at Deaf Hill and Wheatley Hill and then became an ICI personnel officer. His life’s commitment, however, was to young people.

Ian worked with them in prisons, helped find them employment through the Prince’s Trust, served as a school governor, chaired Trimdon United Juniors – later South-East Durham Boys – following the death of Owen Willoughby, his great friend and mentor.

Ian also organised sportsmen’s dinners without equal, regular guests including football greats like George Hardwick and fellow Trimdon lad Colin Cooper.

World Cup winner Alan Ball, principal speaker in 2007, turned up the day after his own wife’s funeral. “I didn’t want to let Ian down,” he said.

The shop was near Tony Blair’s constituency home, Ian given to recalling the day of baby Leo’s baptism when Cherie walked him proudly round the village. Trimdon Colliery did what Co Durham folk always do when they see a new bairn: they gave him money.

“He probably didn’t need it,” said Ian.

He also recalled the 1998 World Cup finals, England v Romania, when the Prime Minister had turned up to watch the match at Trimdon Labour Club and found the posh end commandeered by women playing bingo. “Tony sat on the billiard table and watched it on the broken down television out the back,” said Ian.

Former Hartlepool United man Malcolm Dawes remembers “an amazing character”; Ian’s mate Tommy Miller – now scouting for QPR – speaks of someone devoted to football and to youngsters.

“Until three weeks ago he’d still be up at half past four to do the papers,” says Valerie, Ian’s widow. “He always said he was fine, never complained. He was a remarkable man.”

*Ian’s funeral is at Alban’s church, Trimdon Grange, at 2pm today.

ON the morning that news of Ian Harper’s death arrives, we hear, too – for it has been that sort of summer – of the passing of Bob Anderson, aged 95.

Bob was Bishop Auckland’s outside left in the 1946 FA Amateur Cup final – a 3-2 defeat to Barnet, in front of nearly 54,000 at Stamford Bridge – and had turned up, full of beans and as bright as a button, when the Amateur Cup returned to Crook in January last year.

“I’ve worked hard all my life, never smoked and never drank,” he said – and, the column incorrigibly observed, had reached 94 in spite of it.

He’d spent all his life at Sunderland Bridge, near Croxdale, bred pedigree dairy cattle, worked on the family farm until well into his 80s.

He’d also played football for Middlesbrough Reserves and was on Cardiff City’s books, played cricket for Tudhoe, was a Durham ice hockey man and an accomplished ice dancer, too. As a youngster he was a promising violinist; in later life he took organ lessons.

His daughter Gillian recalls that they’d milk the dairy herd together. “He was a very quiet man, never talked much about his football, but he did enjoy that morning back up with the cup.”

*Bob Anderson’s funeral is at St Charles’s RC church in Tudhoe Village, near Spennymoor, at 11am today.

NEWS that Leroy Fer had failed a medical at the Stadium of Light rather scuppered a splendid post on one of the Sunderland message boards. The club had already bought Sebastian Coates and sold Connor Whickham. In 2015-16, the post postulated, Sunderland would be all Fer, Coates and no Whickers.

LAST week’s piece on Cliffe Cricket Club noted that, having given up the captaincy to concentrate on his batting, Richard Mallender had increased his average from just over 11 to almost 12. He did himself a disservice. From 13.12 in 2014, it’s ascended to the “almost nose bleeding heights” of 14.15. “I’ve let Alastair Cook know,” he adds.

WE’D also supposed last week that Gudivas CC might have played their last game of the season. Not a bit of it. Last Sunday they won the Doug George Cup at Bishop Auckland, beating Durham University staff in the final. Chance also to mention that Bishop Auckland CC have a family fun day from 1pm on August 23 – bouncy castle, Tees Valley Jazzmen, the lot.

….and finally, the last Premier League player before John Terry last season to appear in every minute of every game for his club was former Billingham Town boy Gary Pallister, with Man United in 1992-93.

Neil Mackay, in Lanchester, today invites readers to name two former Newcastle United players who are now successful racehorse trainers.

First past the post again next week.