MORE blistered than blistering, the Last Legs Challenge completed a 12-miler from Willington to Durham via the Stone Bridge Inn, a couple of the university colleges and a nice path through Houghall Woods.

The Stone Bridge had been having a Marie Curie Rapid Response Pamper Morning, which would have been very welcome had not those responsible been trying equally rapidly to go home again.

The colleges were welcoming flummoxed freshers of all nations, even the bus shelters decked with balloons. What is it with balloons?

Among the walkers was Ebac Northern League secretary Kevin Hewitt, who reckoned that the last time he’d walked as far was from Durham to St James’ Park, one long-gone bank holiday Monday when the buses didn’t start until dinner time.

So when was that then? “About the last time we won anything,” said Kevin.

Others recalled Sunderland super-fan Harry Hutchinson, from Sherburn or Shincliffe or somewhere, who when in a similar situation – a rail strike or something – rode a horse to the match at York. “Him and that chap with one eye,” they said.

Durham City’s chairman remains former Magpies favourite Olivier Bernard, who himself has a bit of walking the walk to do just now. Last Legs has completed 170 miles. The total rises, ever more slowly, all the time.

SHERBURN it was. The archives reveal that Harry Hutchinson died in 1992, aged 71, his house and garden principally coloured red and white.

“We’ve good fans and we’ve great fans, and Harry came into the latter category,” said Roker Park chairman Bob Murray.

Harry had been voted “Fan in a million”, appeared in a Tyne Trees Television documentary about passionate supporters and had You’ll Never Walk Alone played at his funeral.

“I used to think that they wouldn’t blow the whistle to start the game until Harry got there,” said his widow, Vera, at the time.

He’d hoped for a son, but when presented with a baby daughter named her Shirley, because it was the nearest he could get to Charlie Hurley. No mention of a horse ride to York, though.

EVER generous, Durham county councillor and Newcastle United nut Rob Yorke had invited both column and spouse to the prawn sandwich pavilions for the Chelsea match on Saturday.

Though last legs lowped elsewhere, we bumped into Rob – “great game for the first 70 minutes” – at a Stockton and Darlington Railway do in Witton Park the following morning.

Also involved in the campaign to save steel-making on Teesside, he’d contemplated hanging one of those SOS banners outside his executive box, but ultimately decided against it.

“Newcastle hadn’t been playing all that well until then,” said Rob. “I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

THE Durham Amateur Football Trust’s newsletter records a greatly successful summer, not least with the wonderful Birth of the Blues exhibition which closed at Auckland Castle on Monday. They’d also held an exhibition at Beamish Museum, invited to dress the part in 1950s costume. “It wasn’t a problem,” says trust secretary Dick Longstaff, “most of us just looked in the back of the wardrobe.”

FORMER Horden binman Bob Taylor, among the column’s favourite ex-professional footballers, crops up in a three-page feature in the latest issue of Backpass magazine.

Best remembered at West Bromwich Albion – Superbob back then – he’s now 48, still in the Midlands, still one of the lads. “They’re like the people where I come from, proper people not wine bar types,” he says.

When last we’d met, February 2003, he’d been planning his testimonial match, but hadn’t played first team football for three months after being frozen out by manager Gary Megson, who wouldn’t even speak to him.

“I wouldn’t care if the gaffer called me all the names under the sun,” he said. “I’d respect him for that because at least I’d know what I was supposed to have done.”

He still works for West Brom, community and ambassadorial stuff. “When I speak to young kids at trophy presentations they all say they want to be footballers because they want big houses, fast cars and loads of women. For me it was all about making a difference to people.”

The benefit match had gone ahead, Taylor put in goal. Greeted by chants of "dodgy keeper”, he dropped his shorts in front of 16,000 Hawthorns faithful. As the column observed at the time, only Superbob could have got away with that.

…and finally, the three national teams not affiliated to Fifa (Backtrack, September 26) are Guadeloupe, Martinique and Northern Cyprus – which isn’t Uefa-affiliated, either.

Last week’s column was also guilty of a memory lapse. The Darlington manager who signed from Denmark and went back there wasn’t Brian Little, but Colin Todd.

The younger bairn today comes up with a splendid poser: Falkirk and River Plate are the only football clubs outside England, Italy and Spain to do what?

This one’s non-transferrable. The answer next week.