LIKE Esau, Alan Hamilton is a hairy man. It’s three years since he bothered the barber, around ten since last he was clean shaven. All that changes on Saturday.

Alan, a retired regional bank manager, is secretary, groundsman and very much else at Darlington RA FC, successful in a long battle against relegation from the Ebac Northern League.

Others might suppose it’s no time to let the grass grow beneath their feet: at the RA they’ve not much option. The 1960s cutter, a great beast of a thing deified not entirely affectionately as the Green Goddess, needs a new cylinder and other work costing £500.

Since that’s about £500 more than they have, Alan will undergo a very close shave indeed after the season’s last game, at home to Whickham.

“I can’t really say that I’m looking forward to it, but it seemed the only way,” he says.

Like his slightly manic mane, the sponsorship pot’s fast growing. Clearly they’d welcome more – that’s unless anyone has a cut-above mower, of course.

“If we get more than £500 we’ll spend the rest on grass seed,” says Alan. “It would be a shame to have the cutter working again and nothing for it to cut.”

  • Alan Hamilton can be contacted on 07872 324808 or at nobbydarlo@ntlworld.com. Saturday’s match at the Brinkburn Road ground kicks off at 3pm.

FOUR months after his wholly unexpected heart attack, 75-year-old former FIFA referee George Courtney plans a return to the middle. The old butcher’s dog is booked for a charity match at Newton Aycliffe’s Moore Lane ground on May 13. The consenting consultant was a Leeds United fan who’d seen George’s debut, Leeds v Leicester, in the old first division. “We talked about it for 20 minutes,” says George. “Then he told me I was fine.”

THE column a few weeks back sought the identity of England’s three oldest living cricket captains – Mike Smith, Ted Dexter and Ray Illingworth. Martin Birtle in Billingham sends the score card (4d) from the England v South Africa test at Trent Bridge in 1960 in which all three played but the skipper was M C Cowdrey.

England won by eight wickets, Ken Barrington top scoring with 80 in the first innings, M J K Smith bagging a duck in his only knock.

For neither the first nor last time, however, the star was F S Trueman – 5-27 in the South Africa’s first innings, 4-77 in the second – who never captained England at all.

Martin recalls, however, that in 1968 Fred used his column in The People to announce his retirement from cricket – the same weekend that Yorkshire offered him the captaincy.

“Too late, the presses were rolling. The one honour he wanted above all was denied him.”

TRULY an old friend, Mick Henderson had charge of the Wearhead United v Darlington Travellers Rest game on Saturday. “All over the pitch, just a little time to get there,” reports Travs’ secretary Alan Smith. The ref’s running may still be faster than his driving. “A huge queue formed behind him going back down the dale,” says Alan. Mick Henderson is 83.

THE recent unveiling of the statue of Ronaldo (is that who it was?) reminds Manchester City fan Dave Kilvert of stepovers and of Albert Emptage, a post-war City right half.

Emptage – “now there’s a name to conjure with” – oft attempted that particular trickery. “Frequently he was dumped on his backside by unimpressed full backs,” recalls Dave, from Darlington.

Old Albert, indeed, may have spent rather too much time on his rear. In 136 appearances, he scored just once.

Dave was also present at the final game of 2007-08 when, as recently we recalled, Middlesbrough beat City 8-1. The keeper, he says, had been warming the bench all season but was finally given a game.

That was the 6ft 7in Andreas Isaksson, for whom it was to be the last of his 19 first team appearances but who was capped 133 times by Sweden and ten times named his country’s goalkeeper of the year so must have been half-decent.

Poor Dave still can’t forget that match at the Boro. “8-1, what a cv. Provided his distribution skills were good, a perfect fit for Pep.”

PALINDROMING on, the last two columns have recalled footballers like the Boro’s Heine Otto, whose surnames can be spelt the same backwards as forwards.

It’s almost incidental that Chelsea fan Brian Dixon recalls that in the Blues’ second division promotion season, 1983-84, Boro and Otto were the only team they failed to beat.

What Brian really wants to report is that his personal best for the 5k Darlington parkrun – one of many such hugely popular events – is 25:52, also palindromic.

The reason that it hasn’t improved since October, Brian insists, is that he wants the next notch also to be a numerical palindrome: 24:42. “It would be a big leap at any age; at mine most certainly.”

...AND finally, the only manager in the top two English divisions to have been capped by England (Backtrack, April 13) is Nigel Clough – now at Burton Albion but who spent his early years on the Fens Estate in Hartlepool.

No doubt inspired by the call to the colours of Mr Jermaine Defoe, Don Clarke today invites readers to name the other 13 post-war internationals to have played for England while on Sunderland’s books.

Ten might be doing well. Know them by their stripes next week.