Carmel cream off the honours

This year it was to have been Chris Cook, the double Commonwealth Games swimming gold medallist from South Tyneside, had he not been summoned to a lastminute training camp.

Chris is 28, handsome, athletic, not an ounce of spare flesh. When the column stood in at the sports awards at Carmel RC College in Darlington on Tuesday evening, it thus seemed necessary to explain that he had been replaced by someone with the hand-to-eye co-ordination of an earthworm.

Some you win? "At least the English department's pleased you're here," said Derek Coates, a PE teacher.

They'd streamlined things, they said, this year's gladhanding only lasting an exhausting hour and a half, trophies forever appearing as if magically from some EPNS porridge pot.

That each successful student had then to be photographed with the principal, perhaps principal's, guest simply offered an opportunity for RC parents throughout south Durham to rehearse the old joke about it keeping the bairns away from the fire.

As befits any good Catholic occasion, there was a raffle, too.

Mo Regan, the vice-principal, had found somewhere the aphorism about gold medals being fine but that if you were worth nothing without one, you were worth nothing with one.

Clearly the college practised what it preached: there were awards for the loyal, and the supportive, too.

Fr John Caden, 84 and indomitable, was also present in the hall named after him.

Still a co-pastor in Sedgefield - "It means I'm a young curate,"

he said - he is remembered as Tony Blair's tennis partner but had also played doubles against Simon Hannaford, the college's curriculum leader for physical education.

"They beat us out of sight,"

said Simon, cheerfully admitting that he used simply to be head of PE. Once there were just two in the department, now there are seven. They have some wonderful students, and have had some incomparable success.

Rachel Bird, the first Carmel pupil to make the England netball squad, was first on stage so that she could attend yet another training session; Rebecca Toppin, multi-talented, had foregone a place in the county football team to take part in the final of a national cookery competition. She won and now works at the awardwinning County in Aycliffe Village.

Kate Blaylock had just the previous weekend been a member of Co Durham's victorious 4x100m relay team, a triumph in which she was joined by Faye Bowles of Longfield School in Darlington, Nicola Pearson of Shotton Hall in Peterlee and Lorna Welch of Biddick Sports College.

They also won the Goodwill Cup for the best intermediate team, the first time in 77 years that it has gone to Co Durham.

Kate also joins Tom Cox in the national pentathlon championship in September.

There were football honours for a young lady called Jessica Furphy. Could possibly she be a grandaughter of the great Ken Furphy, 300-odd games for Darlington and mentioned in the column only the other day?

Certainly she could, said Jess.

It's invidious, of course - the English department may have to explain that one, an' all - to pick individual achievement from so great an array, but a few more examples, nonetheless.

The athletics team won 15 of 20 trophies at the town championships, overall winners for the 15th successive year - or 15th year running, as the programme more appropriately put it.

The cross-country teams, especially the girls, consistently led the fields; three girl footballers - including Hannah Wake, a "fantastic" captain - had had trials with Middlesbrough; the year ten rugby team won the county cup; the girl swimmers lost the town championship by just one point, despite not having a pool of their own - Chloe Coates and Nicole Burlinson qualifying for the English championships in September.

Charlotte McGarry excels in biathlon, Tom Carr in tetrathlon - riding, running, shooting, swimming - they found good skiing conditions elsewhere but could only manage three cricket matches throughout the sodden English summer, to the particular chagrin of Liam Coates, already in Darlington's first team.

The presentations ended at 8 45pm, 90 minutes and a bit of extra time.

Just when they thought it was all over, however, there'd to be a little homily from the earthworm.

Afterwards there were Cornettos for the kids and something stronger but no less refreshing for the guest. Out at the deep end, young Cook missed a great, great night.

Wearhead plan to hit heights with centenary celebrations

ground always high - at 1,107ft reckoned England's loftiest - Wearhead United celebrate their centenary with a weekend of events from July 27-29. Even the Red Arrows are expected to fly past in salute.

More recently, probably, United are best remembered for the 2-2 draw with Stanhope Town - May bank holiday, 2001 - foot and mouth disease coralling both teams' grounds and the game played at the Stadium of Light.

They were bottom and second bottom in the Crook and District League, the 850 crowd unsurprisingly a league record.

"You could tell it was a big match," the column observed the next day, "one of the Stanhope lads had forsaken his lunchtime pie and was eating a banana instead."

The side from the top of the dale had also twice played Sunderland - the youth team, at any rate - in 1960-61, after John Heatherington had moved to Roker Park.

On Wearside they lost 10-2, young striker Nicky Sharkey hitting seven - he went on to score 62 in 117 senior appearances - and at Wearhead lost 7-0, the clean sheet doubtless due to the presence of the equally youthful Jimmy Montgomery between the sticks.

The game made £1 16s profit.

John Heatherington never quite made it at Sunderland, though he was in Crook Town's Amateur Cup winning side of 1962. The only former Wearhead player thought to have played in the Football League remains Alston lad Jeff Wright, in the Wigan team which made its debut in 1978 - after 34 unsuccessful applications to the Football League and one, optimistically, to the Scottish.

The rest of the century has been quite eventful, too, and we are grateful to Raymond Snaith - United's goalkeeper from 1965- 75 and 1983-97 - for further information.

In the intervening years he'd played for St John's Chapel, the arch-rivals. United was the one he had to come home for.

The first record book entry chronicles a fund-raising concert in 1907 at which the takings were £2 0s 6d, the singers cost half a crown between them and the piano ten and a tanner. It still made 14 shillings profit.

They played in the Weardale and District League until World War II, thereafter joining the Haltwhistle and District when the Weardale League folded and playing the likes of Coanwood, Nenthead and Halton-le-Gate.

It proved more fruitful, United winning the league in both seasons they contested it.

On Christmas Day 1947 there was a £2 14s gate for the St John's Chapel game, 26-year-old Alec Thompson hitting 59 goals that season.

In 1956-57 they played in the Auckland and District League but were obliged to leave after other clubs complained that by travelling so far west they were likely to fall off the end of the earth.

In the Crook and District League since 1957-58, a year after its formation, they've won both league and league cup three times but endured a long spell with little success. Seeking re-election to the second division may have been a nadir at 1,107ft.

They could still pull the big names, mind, Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, Chief of the Defence Staff, officially opening in 1995 the pavilion dedicated to 40-year Wearhead stalwart Norman Wright.

Club secretary since the age of 16, Norman had been a Green Howard with a promising football career until seriously injured in the Italian landings.

Sir Peter won't be at the centenary weekend, Eric Gates - speaker at a Friday night dinner in a marquee - will.

There's something in the records about a quarter-final against Newton Aycliffe many years ago, in which the young Eric was meant to have played but pulled out. "I've always wanted to meet him," says Raymond.

It's Wearhead carnival on July 28 - the club hosting an exhibition in the marquee, Red Arrows awaiting a break in the clouds - another party on Saturday night and teas in the pavilion on Sunday afternoon.

Faced with a dwindling population and rising costs - referees now around £30 a match - Raymond admits it could still be uphill for Wearhead.

"We know there'll be problems, that's why we plan to have a tremendous weekend."

BACKTRACK BRIEFS...

261 for two last Saturday, Bishop Auckland's second team were always going to struggle a bit. Things got worse, however, when Stephen Ayre - bareheaded at the non-striker's end - was hit on the head by a fierce shot from his fellow batsman, the ball rebounding to mid-on.

Correctly, the umpire gave the catch.

Since it's five runs if the ball strikes a helmet, however, what if Stephen had been wearing one?

His head sorted out - "I didn't really feel much at the time" - he went on to top score with 29.

CHARTING the career of Alex Agnew, Belgium's top stand-up comedian and son of a 1950s Darlington footballer, we noted ten days ago that the lad's latest television show was called Morimos Solamente and wondered what it might mean. After driving umpteen search engines, Quakers' fan Davie Munday finds something about the Honduras national anthem. "I suspect," he says, "that this might be wrong."

THE annual competition in memory of former Newcastle United reserve player Gary Walton - murdered seven years ago in a pub garden near his home in Coundon - takes place on Sunday.

The six teams in action on Leeholme Rec include our old friends from Coundon Conservative Club - FA Sunday Cup holders - plus two sides from Coundon and Leeholme Juniors, the Durham Ox, the Workmen's Club and an "Old Boys" side likely to include ex-Magpie Alan Shoulder, 54.

The action begins at 10.30am. The Cons' Club's presentation at the end of an unforgettable season is being held tonight.

AND FINALLY...

THE first man to be sent off in League, FA Cup and League Cup games (Backtrack, July 17) was Ambrose Fogarty, formerly of Hartlepool United and Sunderland.

Raymond Snaith, he of Wearhead United, today invites readers to name two clubs from either the Football League or Scottish League with the first five letters of the alphabet in their name.

North-East sport from A to B, the column returns on Tuesday.