GROUNDED before Boro's UEFA Cup final, the lads in Redcar RAFA Club decided instead to watch the game on the "ancient" club television.

Trouble was, the old kite was so off the radar - jet-set no longer - that a member had to bring in his own.

Match over, sorrows drowned, someone suggested launching a fund to buy a decent telly - and now the airmen are once again reaching for the Sky (and quite a lot of other channels, too. ) Committee member Dick Fawcett - "among the youngest at 70" - immediately found a jar, labelled it "TV fund" and put in the first £1 of the £1200 they hope to raise towards a 42in plasma screen. On the first night they raised £31.

"The old one's like something from the ark and the remote control's worse, " says Dick.

"We're just a small club and most of us are quite old, but we can't go on like this.

"We were all very disappointed at the Boro result.

Probably it was a good thing we couldn't see too much of it.

"The chap who complained most has promised to put in £100 if we've raised £400 by the World Cup final."

Wings clipped, the old flyers really hope the fund will take off. Donations can be made to club chairman Dennis Eeles, 81, at 34 Newcomen Terrace, Redcar TS10 1DB.

STILL recovering from Hampden, Brooks Mileson rings to announce that he's taken a half-page ad in the Edinburgh Evening News to thank Hearts fans for their sportsmanship.

Davie Munday, exiled from Darlington to Dunfermline, also reports that the Scottish football programme Off the Ball had a competition for the best Gretna acronym. Smoke screens notwithstanding, "Gained respect entirely through nicotine addict" won handsomely.

Gretna staff took six and a half hours on Monday to download all the appreciative emails, interrupted only by the arrival of a Hearts fan who'd driven from Edinburgh just to have his photograph taken with the Durham-based philanthropist.

Now that the little town is truly on the map, they've also heard from the mayors of Gretna, Louisiana and Gretna, Nebraska, proposing something tripartite.

The biggest consolation of all, however, is that Brooks - who has an animal sanctuary out the back - has been invited to join the main board of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"If they'd offered me a knighthood, " he says, "I couldn't have been more delighted."

TUESDAY'S report on the trip to Hampden - FA Cup Final Escape Committee and ThistleStop Tour - again noted the seemingly insatiable appetite of Mr Peter Sixsmith, from Shildon. Sadly, the story has an unhappy ending. The following day, both Sixer and his friend Peter Horan, who ate from the same nosebag, were violently ill with food poisoning and missed several days work. They blame the Scotch eggs. Sadder yet, the Scotch eggs were English.

SEVEN Sri Lankan players scored half centuries in the second innings against England earlier this week. Is it a record, asks Ian Sowerby, in Evenwood?

The Beardless Wonder being AWOL, John Briggs in Darlington confirms that it equals the Test cricket record set by England against Australia at Manchester in 1934 and by Pakistan against India last year.

For England, Maurice Leyland and Patsy Hendren both hit centuries. Cyril Walters, Herbert Sutcliffe, Les Ames, Gubby Allen and Hedley verity - later lost in action with the Green Howards - all hit fifties in a total 627-9 declared.

Bob Wyatt, who averaged 31.80 in 40 tests, scored none of his runs on that occasion.

THE column ten days ago sought the identity of the nine England players who'd been sent off on full international duty. "Great question, " says Duncan McFaull but supposes that Tony Towers - exSunderland - was a tenth.

Towers, 20 goals in 108 Sunderland appearances between 1973-77, won two of his three England caps in the 1976 American Bicentennial Tournament which also included Brazil, Italy and "Team America."

Duncan believes that Towers saw red in the game against Italy, in which Manchester United goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer won his only cap. The records (again with thanks to Mr Briggs) suggest otherwise.

Team America were captained against England by Bobby Moore, the cosmopolitan squad including the likes of Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, George Best, Mike England and Rodney Marsh.

The coach was Stockton lad Ken Furphy - 349 games for Darlington - who refused demands by Best and Marsh that they play in all three games. Dummies flying, they went back home.

FFIFTY years to the day since the club was founded during a bibulous Sunday lunchtime at the Ship Inn, Marske United FC marks its jubilee with a dinner on June 9.

The original team changed in a farmer's potato shed, travelled on the back of righthalf Les Bell's milk lorry, played on Leaper's Field. Now they're in the Arngrove Northern League, play at Mount Pleasant, have ambitious development plans.

The do's at Marton Hotel and Country Club, the speaker former Newcastle United full back John Beresford, tickets from Janet Pippen on 01642 474985.

Les Bell went on to found the successfully and locally ubiquitous Bells' Stores group, sold subsequently to Sainsbury's. They're hoping to sell back to him his number four shirt; probably fell off the back of a lorry.

THE remarkable Arthur Puckrin, below, is warming up - the phrase may be appropriate - for what masochists call a decatriathlon in, of all places, St Tropez.

"Usually there's only one a year. This year they've decided to give us two, " says the 68-yearold barrister from Middlesbrough.

The event, in which he aims to beat his own 13 day world record, embraces a 24 mile swim, 1,120 mile cycle ride and - "to finish off" - the 262 mile equivalent of ten marathons.

"I've been doing a few four hour swims, 120 miles on the bike and a couple of longish runs, " he says.

It all begins on June 11, with everyone else glued to the World Cup. If he gets through that one, there's another in Mexico in October.

STOCKTON Cricket Club's minds will be elsewhere that week, too, hosting a Durham County match from June 13-16.

The club keeps gate money and is anxious to sell hospitality packages. Details from Ray Waite on 01642 606468.