Laughing matter

The former face and voice of Tyne Tees Television sport was commentating on the Newcastle v Spurs match – for commercial radio in Ireland – as events unfolded.

“I couldn’t gloat, but it was still very satisfying,” he says. “It was also absolutely infuriating that Newcastle should only play so well once they’d been relegated.”

Now coming up 65, Roger joined Tyne Tees in 1976 from the Dagenham Post – after the original appointee changed his mind because the money was so poor. “I was a sort of fastest loser, and I took a pay cut, too,” he recalls.

His dad was a West Ham fan, his own allegiance decided by a picture in the Topical Times Football Annual of Tommy Docherty emerging from the Highbury tunnel. “I was just smitten,” he says.

Wenger? “A brilliant man. Maybe not as great a manager as Sir Alex, but still up there. I’m Wenger 100 per cent.”

ROGER was a guest at the monthly Footbaaaall Show at the Stand Comedy Club on High Bridge in Newcastle. Fronted by ebullient comedian Gavin Webster, it proved a highly entertaining evening.

Other guests included former Boro and Newcastle midfielder Irving Nattrass, Fishburn lad originally, and Richie Pitt from Sunderland’s class of ’73. There was also a chap in the audience who looked like Harry Hill but, since he said nowt, probably wasn’t.

Billy Scott, now a successful author but once a sports desk denizen in these parts, is among the regulars. His biography Pavel is a Geordie is shortlisted for the People’s Book Award – he’s confident of success.

Next month’s guests include former Scotland manager Craig Brown – June 22, 8.30pm kick-off, well recommended.

FA Vase winners Morpeth Town are nicknamed The Highwaymen. None really knows why, though the nearby A1 may have something to do with it.

It prompted me to welcome guests to the Ebac Northern League’s annual dinner on Friday with the first verse of a poem by Alfred Noyes, instilled all those years ago at Tin Tacks junior mixed.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor

And the highwayman came riding –

Riding, riding –

And the highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

Sitting alongside, 82-year-old Lady Elsie Robson knew it at once, eagerly wrote author details on the menu card and from memory recited Cargoes, by John Masefield.

Quinquireme of Ninevah from distant Ophir

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine….

We learned that one at Tin Tacks, too.

Perhaps The Highwayman was more appropriate because, after 510 miles of foot-slogging the North-East, the Last Legs Challenge is complete. It raised almost £28,000, half to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation and half shared between 14 community-based charities nominated by our clubs.

Folk have been wonderfully generous. Many thanks for your support.

THOUGH the annual dinner coincided with the England v Australia match at the Stadium of Light, Barry Bright – leader of the FA Council – very generously attended the Northern League bash in order to say some very kind things about the retiring chairman.

Those who were at Sunderland report not just that England played in red but that, lest they be accused of favouritism, the FA had laid grey carpet on top of all the Sunderland-red ones in the posh end.

Grey area, the cost of the exercise has not been revealed.

IT’S also to mark the end of my 20-year tenure as Northern League chairman that a little exhibition will officially be opened in Shildon – appropriately Shildon – at 11am next Tuesday, June 7. It’s organised by the Durham Amateur Football Trust.

Yet more appropriately, the opener will be County Councillor Henry Nicholson. We grew up together, raggy-trousered urchins, though he was the better goalie.

The exhibition is really a celebration of 20 greatly successful years in the life of the world’s second oldest football league. It runs until the end of June, then makes way for the Flying Scotsman.

All would greatly be welcome at the opening – light refreshments by Tesco – or in the weeks thereafter. Museum admission is free.

WHY, wondered last week’s column, do Australians know us English as Pommies? Our kidder has an interesting – and plausible – theory. Akin to the “Prisoner of Mother England” argument, he reckons that transported convicts, after so many dark months below decks, turned that vivid red colour when exposed to just a few hours of antipodean sunshine. The seeds of a case there, anyway.

FOR two posts on the same day, Sunderland FC have won The Observer’s web award for 2015-16. The first was about the club celebrating the 20th anniversary of Show Racism the Red Card. The second promoted an evening with Roy “Chubby” Brown.

….and finally, last week’s column sought the identity of the two FA Cup winners in the past 36 years not to have been from London or the North-West. They were Coventry City – who could forget the Houchen header? – and Portsmouth.

Their bowling excellence notwithstanding, England cricketers James Anderson and Stuart Broad are just one short of a less coveted record – both have 19 Test match ducks. Three others – one from the North-East, another more surprising – have 20.

Readers are invited to name them. Noughts for your comfort next week.