FAMOUSLY as fit as a butcher’s dog, former FIFA referee George Courtney was 75 on Saturday – coincidentally the day of the annual meeting of the Ebac Northern League, of which he is a long-serving president. The league gave him a pound of sausages.

Born in Page Bank, near Spennymoor, George played Auckland and District League football for ENV Rovers in Newton Aycliffe – “lazy, but quite classy” – before becoming the blower in the black.

His first game was on Cockton Hill Rec in Bishop Auckland, proceedings periodically interrupted by little old ladies who’d totter across the pitch – a right of way – with their Saturday shopping.

Thereafter he officiated in the latter stages of two World Cup finals, had charge of three European finals and two in Asia, still whets his whistle most Saturdays – mainly in Durham University games.

“The first time I embarrass myself I’ll stop,” he insists. “There are people still refereeing in their 70s and beyond who really shouldn’t be.

“I love refereeing but there’s an element of egotism about it. It keeps me in good shape; I look in the mirror every morning – so long as I like what I see, I’ll continue.”

THE Northern League’s annual meeting also marked the end of my 20-year tenure as league chairman, the sole high office now presidency of Darlington Travellers Rest FC, whose vicissitudes are periodically recorded hereabouts. They’ve also made the Weardale Gazette, acknowledged elsewhere, beaten 4-2 at home by Stanhope – partly because of a stand-in goalkeeper in the first half. “To be honest he would have been hard pressed to catch a cold,” says the Gazette. The president has advised them to sue.

THOSE 20 years of unprecedented Northern League success are marked in a splendid Durham Amateur Football Trust exhibition, officially opened on Tuesday by County Coun Henry Nicholson – canny goalie in his day – at the National Railway Museum in Shildon.

Among others present was former England rugby international and recently elected Durham County Council chairman Eddie Bell who, it transpired, had himself played football for Shildon.

“It was about 1967. All I remember is being kicked up a height. I decided to concentrate on rugby,” he said.

The exhibition runs until the end of June. Like the marvellous museum itself, it’s free.

DONNY Carter, one of the West Auckland side which in 1961 reached the FA Amateur Cup final at Wembley, has died. He was 84.

Christened Jonathan, forever Donny, he first made his name for West by scoring four times in the 7-0 Northern League Cup final win over Crook Town – coached by Bob Hardisty and themselves Amateur Cup winners two weeks earlier – in 1959.

The 1961 side had beaten Leytonstone 3-1 in the semi-final at Roker Park before going down 2-1 to Walthamstow Avenue before a 45,000 Wembley crowd.

Don taught physics at Durham Johnston School and lived in the city. Former pupil Keith Bell recalls a quietly spoken master who never lost his temper but could chastise with a look. “He was a fine teacher. Anyone who could get me through O-level physics with a B grade would have to be.” Donny’s funeral is at Durham Crematorium at noon next Tuesday.

AFTER stumps were drawn during the Chester-le-Street Test match last week, Sky TV pundit David Lloyd would join fellow commentator Paul Allott – both formerly of Lancashire and England – on a tour of Durham’s finest pubs.

Allott, native guide, is an alumnus of Bede College and optimistically claims to remember when eight pints of lager might be had for £1. He is 59.

On one occasion, Lloyd tells the Daily Mail, the sedate city more greatly resembled the Wild West. “There were people shouting and bawling at each other and I saw one chap kicking his car for no apparent reason. Then there were two young ladies having a fight, and it was only 8.30pm.”

That was the Sunday evening. “I love it,” he adds.

THIRTY years ago this month since the infant column was despatched for a fortnight at the 12th Commonwealth Games, allegedly Maxwell-funded, in Edinburgh.

Soon after dawn on the final day, the more resolute members of the press pack headed to Leith – the Port of Edinburgh – where pubs were allowed to open at 6am, and not a moment too soon.

Officially it was so that workers could slake thirsts at the end of a hard shift and no matter that most customers seemed to be seeking fortification on their way to their daily labour, not from it.

Last Wednesday I was back in Leith for the first time since, an agreeable lunch with former Hartlepool United chairman and Football League management committee member Garry Gibson.

Garry, Wheatley Hill lad by birth, awaits a quintuple heart bypass later this month and is encouraged by the steady recovery of former Newcastle United man David Ginola. Mind, Ginola only had a quadruple bypass.

“Quads,” says Garry, “are for wimps.”

….and finally, the three English Test cricketers who each have a record 20 ducks (Backtrack, June 2) are Steve Harmison – no surprise there, then – Monty Panesar (ditto) and, the big one, Mike Atherton.

Bill Featham today comes up with the old one – though I can never remember the answer – of the four British racecourses which don’t include the letters r-a-c-e. Bonus point for another in Ireland.

After six solid months, the column now takes a break. Back on June 30.