GEORGE McKellar, 54 years in England but still as Scottish as the dram bar at Ibrox Park, has died after a long illness. He was 86.

In Scotland, he kept goal for Third Lanark and for Stenhousemuir, became a referee and was appointed to the Scottish Junior FA Cup final until one team protested that, like the other, the ref was from Glasgow – and no matter that he was living in Newton Aycliffe at the time.

In England, he did national service at RAF Middleton St George, played for the RAFA in the Darlington and District League, worked for Newton Aycliffe Development Corporation, became known as Whistling Jock to future FA referees’ secretary Ken Ridden and Scotch Broth to pretty much everyone else.

At home in Darlington he still served Tunnock’s tea cakes, that most Scottish of delicacies, with a wee swallee of Irn Bru with which to wash them down. He was a gentle and a truly delightful man.

George had been born into a Rangers family, still wore Rangers dressing gown and pyjamas – even Rangers socks – when in hospital, lamented his team’s demise but continued to watch them when occasion allowed.

“The Scottish third division is exactly where they deserve to be because of all the mismanagement and cheating,” he told the column back in 2012. “They have to make a fresh start and try to get their integrity and reputation back.”

Approaching demob he’d travelled back north with a few commendatory cuttings from the Northern Despatch Pink, knocked literally on Rangers’ door and asked for a trial. They sent down reserve team manager Bob McPhee. “To be honest we’ve never heard of you,” said McPhee.

“They have in the Darlington and District League,” said George.

He got his trial, played in a friendly against Ayr United, was spotted by Third Lanark – then in the top division – and within two months of leaving the RAF made his debut in a 1-0 win over Dundee on December 17, 1949, still wearing the battered old boots he’d had in the RAF.

“I hadn’t the money to buy new ones and Third Lanark certainly weren’t going to buy me any,” he said.

After a season he joined Stenhousemuir, £8 a week, before returning south and concentrating on refereeing. “I was still making some impressive saves, but I was rather an incontinent goalkeeper. I leaked goals,” he once recalled.

He became a Wearside League referee, a Northern League linesman and assessor, remained until his death a long-serving and ever-enthusiastic president of Bishop Auckland Referees’ Society.

“He was the sort of man who never had a bad word for anyone and I can’t imagine that any had a bad word for him,” says Bishop Refs’ Society secretary Terry Farley. “He was a top man, a Premier League man.”

George had met Averil, his wife, at a dance in 1948. “The first thing the so-and-so did was show me his Rangers membership card,” she recalled.

A celebration of his life will be held at St Cuthbert’s Church, Darlington, at noon on Thursday, June 9, following a private cremation.

EVER approachable, George was also called upon from time to time to offer the voice of experience on some of the refereeing oddities unearthed by the column.

In 1995 there’d been the still-celebrated case of the match – Spennymoor Sunday League Cup semi-final, Voltigeur v Darlington Highland Laddie – in which a linesman failed to turn up and the two remaining match officials decided to control one half of the pitch each. One booked four players, the other none.

“Absolutely, completely wrong. One of those things which makes you shudder just to think about it,” said George. Durham FA agreed, and suspended the pair of them for a month.

Then there was the incident – Hurworth v Branksome in the Darlington and District League – when a Hurworth player had twice called referee Mel Jameson a Volkswagen.

George thought it a clear case of dissent. Motormouth notwithstanding, Mel had taken no action. “If he’d called me a Skoda,” he said, “I’d have sent him off at once.”

GEORGE was also a contributor to the Durham Referees’ Association magazine, The Dunelmian, though on one occasion he’d felt obliged to issue a correction. Reporting in 1997 the wedding party of fellow Darlington referee Martin Robinson, he wrote that Mike Amos had turned up late – from Glasgow Celtic, for some reason – “but in time for the buffet and to stand around.” The apology was unequivocal. “I meant to stand a round,” he said. Truly it was ever thus.

KEITH Moorhead, a member of the Tow Law Town squad which in 1998 reached the FA Vase final at Wembley, was back up on Windy Ridge last week. This time he kept his clothes on.

The occasion was a surprise signed shirt presentation to Lawyers’ superfan Mary Hail to mark her 80th birthday (and no matter that Keith thought it was her 90th).

So lethal from free kicks that he was nicknamed the human cannonball, Keith missed out on that unforgettable final because of a knee injury, but was in the party which toured the stadium the day before.

That’s when he decided to show Wembley what he was made of. “He asked if he could do a streak because he’d done a couple earlier in the season in the dressing room,” said assistant manager Tony Heslop at the time.

“At first he was going to keep his pants on, but we told him he had to do it properly.”

“I had to put some happiness back into my otherwise drab life,” said Keith, who turned up unannounced with his framed Wembley shirt.

“It was lovely,” says Mary. “I played hell with him at the time because you don’t run around Wembley with nothing on, but it was really good to see him again. He hasn’t changed, just as daft as ever.”

Keith, from Newcastle, also remembers what might most appropriately be termed a rollocking. “I didn’t half get wrong off Mary at the time, but she’s a fantastic football fan, never missed a game in those days. I couldn’t make her birthday party so I got the shirt framed for her instead. She’s a lovely woman.”

Sadly for Tow Law it was a losing streak. They lost 1-0 to Tiverton Town.