ON the day that rather a lot of HMRC men got in for nowt, Backtrack forked out £4.50 – codgers’ concessionary queue –to watch the Northumberland Senior Cup final at St James’ Park.

Such magnanimity is unaccustomed. In former times we’d have been in the directors’ box, plushy upholstered in the West Stand. This was that’ll-do-nicely plastic; no padded sell in the East.

It’s by no means a re-creation of the Parable of the Wedding Feast, no wish to be bidden go higher. Going higher in the cavernous West Stand means using the glass-sided lifts, a truly fearful experience for those of us without head or hope for heights.

It’s glass walls, not glass ceilings, which worry people like me.

Probably both sides were agog at the day’s news. “Is this because we stole £30m from Tottenham Hotspur for Moussa Sissoko?” tweeted one of the East enders.

Pre-match, the chap in the next seat was reading The Times, though the programme was buckshee, and much taken by a paragraph on Seaton Delaval Hall, north of Whitley Bay and venue in the 1970s of some very jolly medieval banquets.

There’s also a mausoleum, built in 1776 by Lord Delaval for his only son whose demise was recalled in a 1923 issue of Country Life. "This unfortunate youth perished in 1775, having been kicked in a vital organ by a laundry maid to whom he was paying addresses."

Blyth Spartans 3 North Shields 2.

THE previous perishing evening – a week back Tuesday – to Newton Aycliffe v Morpeth. There was near-horizontal hail, slashing sleet, wind chill factored. Newton Aycliffe won 3-1, the undisputed man of the match their goalkeeper – the wholly appropriately named James Winter.

NEWTON Aycliffe’s programme carried on the cover a picture of Bob Wood, who’d died after 49 years involvement with the club in every capacity possible. His son – another Bob, another club official – wrote a lovely piece inside.

In his final hours, Bob – who bore a marked resemblance to the Archbishop of Canterbury – had asked the doc about his sporting interests. The doc said he had none.

“I can’t imagine a life without sport,” said Bob.

Before Newton Aycliffe he’d played for East Howle and for Tallents FC, had a bit of a reputation for kicking folk but had never once been booked. Young Bob supposes it because his dad always said “Sorry, ref” and never swore.

The day after he wrote the programme piece, Bob bumped into Alan Courtney, former polliss and man about town. “Your dad kicked me,” said Alan.

The strange thing, adds Bob, is that they all remained good friends.

PROOF of all that they say about skirl days being the happiest of your life, the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (North of England branch) holds its annual competition at Thornaby FC’s gloriously sylvan ground from 1pm on Saturday June 17. Admission’s free, bar and café open from noon. The greatest lament of all is that the column can’t be present.

STAN Evans, 70 years a member of Hartlepool Referees’ Association and a much valued Backtrack column correspondent, has died. He was 92.

“A gentle giant, a great teller of stories and a man who didn’t have a nasty bone in his body,” says RA secretary Ian Cruikshanks.

His first match in the middle had been in 1946, paid half a crown plus his bus fare home. Several subsequent tales featured prolonged bus journeys, another that he’d been followed all the way back to Stockton station by an irate supporter – subsequently arrested – another recalled breaking his ankle at Ferryhill.

Strapped up by the trainer, he played on. “You did in those days,” said Stan.

His favourite, however, concerned the last match at Chilton CW – “bus from Hartlepool to Thinford, Thinford to Chilton” – in the late 1950s. Though the match fee had by that time risen to 12/6d, Chilton simply couldn’t afford it and invited Stan to take his pick of anything in the dressing room.

His eye fell upon the first aid box, a bottle of embrocation perhaps. Its entire contents were four small Elastoplasts. “I’d heard of people being paid in washers,” said Stan, “but it was the first time I’d been paid in plasters.”

THE piece in Saturday’s paper on the death of long-serving former Wimbledon umpire Malcolm Huntington MBE omitted one salient fact – Malcolm was a Witton Park lad and, though resident for just the first six months of an eventful life, remained very proud of it. Jack, his dad, played football for both Bishop Auckland and Shildon and for the powerful Witton Park Institute before railway work took him to York, where he became chief cranes inspector. We’d last met in 2012 when Malcolm was 78 and weeks from reporting on his 2,000th York City match. “How’s things in Witton Park?” he said.

TODAY'S column was being tucked up when news of Eric Henderson’s death arrived. Eric, who was 95, was the first linesman to become president of the Association of Football League Referees and Linesman and, at 37, the youngest. Originally from Blackhill, near Consett, he’d long lived in Marske-by-the-Sea with Peggy, his wife of almost 70 years, who survives him. A proper obituary next week.

….AND finally, the last cricketer to take all ten wickets in a County Championship game (Backtrack, April 27) was the Barbadian Ottis Gibson, for Durham against Hampshire on July 22 2007. Gibson’s 10-47 dismissed Hants for 115, but the game still ended in a draw. He now coaches England’s bowlers. Feversham League secretary Charles Allenby was first with the answer.

Graham Phelps today invites readers to name the two English cricketers to have scored a century in their 100th test match. The column’s in to bat again next week.