HE was far more accustomed to throwing punches than throwing arrows, but when Muhammad Ali visited the North-East it was darts, not fists, which flew.

“He even seemed to be quite good at that,” remembers Olwyn Gunn, afforded the oche-equivalent of a ringside seat.

Lamenting Ali’s passing, the last column – three weeks ago now – recalled the champ’s visit to Newcastle and South Shields in 1977, but clearly didn’t know the full score. Olwyn chalks.

Ali’s pictured with Sid Dowson, her father, MC and scorer on Double Top, Tyne Tees Television’s hugely popular darts show – fronted by George Taylor – in the 1970s. The champ had agreed to a charity challenge to support boys’ clubs in the region.

Olwyn, 28 at the time, was introduced to him. “He said ‘How do you do, little lady’. I used to get quite angry when people called me little, but I didn’t get angry with Ali. He was every bit as charismatic as people said, one of those people who seem only to have time for the person to whom they’re speaking.”

Sid Dowson, who had himself become a familiar face – at least in the North-East – kept the Kings Head pub in Stanley, north-west Durham, and was a board member of the British Darts Organisation.

One of a family of 12 – “they all seemed to be in pubs, clubs or shops,” says Olwyn – he was from Bishop Auckland, learned his darts when his uncle had Cockfield club and led a band called Sidney Dawson and the Starlighters, which may be how he met George Romaine, celebrated singer on TTT’s One O’Clock Show. It was George who recommended him for Double Top.

“The pub was a real hive of darts, we had all the big names staying there,” recalls Olwyn, a retired teacher and full-time teaching union official who is now a Durham county councillor for the Willington and Hunwick area. Her darts days are gone.

“My dad bought me a lovely set of tungsten darts, I still have them, and I wasn’t bad. Rather ironically, my problem was hitting double top because I was so small. I could hit 19s, but if I needed double 20, I’d probably lose.”

Sid and Anne Dowson had two other daughters – Carol, now dead, and Valerie, who’s in Australia.

It was her dad, Olwyn insists, who formulated the triumphant phrase one-hundred-and-eighty. “Everyone thinks it was Sid Waddell. It wasn’t, it was Sid Dowson. My dad was a performer, put a microphone in his hand and he’d sing, but he was really quite shy. That’s why he always liked us to go along, even to see Muhammad Ali.

“It was one of those days that is just so full, everyone was so excited. My dad was over the moon at helping to put on a show with The Greatest, but who’d have thought that it would be darts.”

Sid Dowson died in 1980, aged just 56.

MNDtermined

MIKE Findley, among the North-East’s most truly remarkable men, was diagnosed 11 years ago with motor neurone disease – the incurable illness which killed Don Revie, David Niven and former Middlesbrough manager Willie Maddren.

If that weren’t burden enough, he’s a lifelong Fulham fan.

We meet again last sun-blessed Saturday. “I’m very well,” he says, inevitably asked how he’s getting on. “A lot better than Fulham, anyway.”

Born in London, long in Marske-by-the-Sea and still a member of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Mike launched his own MND research charity three months after being diagnosed in the summer of 2005.

“At first they said I might have two years, then two to five and then five to ten,” he says. “It’s quite nice proving them wrong.”

His flame has been so unquenchable, his spirit so indomitable and his charity so astonishingly successful, that in 2010 he was made MBE and two years later a Freeman of the Borough.

Before Saturday, a family fun day at the handsome 17th century mansion which for 50 years has been the Cheshire Home in Marske, the total stood at £166,000.

“It’s quite good, really,” said Mike, gliding about in his mobility chair.

At risk of spoiling the fun day, the column turned up formally to present one of the £1,000 cheques resulting from last football season’s Last Legs Challenge walks around all 44 Ebac Northern League grounds. The challenge raised almost £28,000 – half to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, half in £1,000 segments to community-based charities nominated by the clubs.

We’d formally interviewed Mike in 2009, when he was Redcar and Cleveland’s mayor. “You’re always going to have hurdles and challenges,” he said. “It’s how you get over them that matters.”

He’s now 71, still indomitably clearing the hurdles. In a very small way, it’s been a great pleasure to help.

EDDIE Sharp’s funeral last Friday overflowed the biggest parish church in County Durham. Wretched coincidence, Eddie was also a victim of motor neurone disease.

“It’s been really awful. He lost the use of both of his hands, it hit him very badly,” says Janice, his widow. “At least he’s no longer in pain.”

Eddie was 63, great guy, had played Over 40s League football until pushing 60 – “he still thought he was the best man on the pitch,” says Janice – and was a familiar Northern League player before managing Evenwood, West Auckland and Spennymoor United.

The eulogist recalled that he’d even played for Bishop Auckland on the day he was married. “Janice sat in the dugout in her wedding dress. Reception at Clem’s fish shop and home in time for Match of the Day.”

He was a lifelong Newfield man – the one near Bishop – also found time for shooting, fishing and flying pigeons. “Cree the size of a small bungalow,” it was recalled.

Probably we’d last seen him in 2007, a charity presentation in memory of his son – another Edward – who had died five years earlier following a road accident near Newfield.

They’d been all but inseparable, football mad. Edward had been Crook and District League player of the year, played in the Northern League for Consett and for Tow Law. His dad, then 54, was turning out for Glaxo in the Over 40s. “I’m the youth policy,” he said.

Fundraising in Edward’s memory had topped £12,500 for Newcastle General Hospital, where he died. The air ambulance further benefitted. Eddie’s funeral was at St Andrew’s, Bishop Auckland. They welcomed donations, ever appreciated, for research into MND.