Phill still flying – but at lower level

– Phill Nixon all but took over the paper four years ago today.

He was a darts player, the man they dubbed the Ferryhill Flyer, and the night previously he’d taken part in a genuinely thrilling BDO world final against the lupine Martin Adams – Wolfie to his friends.

It was first to seven sets.

Nixon trailed 6-0, had a beer and a few fags, deliberately jabbed himself in the leg with his darts and fought back to 6-6. Though he lost the decider, he won millions of admirers.

There was a chauffeurdriven car and a civic reception, honorary membership of Durham County Cricket Club, talk of a film and of books, an agent, personal appearances, his own branded darts. Later in 2007 he won The Northern Echo’s overall Local Heroes award and admitted that he cried.

Others might have had a head in the clouds, all the father-of-eight really wanted to do was get back on the oche.

Mostly he’s now returned to the small print. A presentation to mark 200 appearances for the county, a 5-1 defeat to Butch Knighton.

Maybe it’s the same Phill Nixon who did a birdwatching tour around Newbiggin-in-Teesdale but, then again, maybe not.

Nothing came of the film.

No one wrote the book. The personal appearances are usually for the county side – “He’s still a great player,”

says former Durham team mate Doug McCarthy – or on Monday nights for the Eldon Arms in Ferryhill Station.

It could never be said that the Flyer has crashed to earth, merely that his wings have been clipped a bit.

His latest world ranking is down to 74; the final lines of his Wikipedia entry may sum it up: “He failed to qualify for the 2010 and 2011 world championships.”

A THROWBACK, perhaps, but the problem has been getting hold of him. Several have offered numbers, all different, all unavailable.

“Phill keeps losing his phone,” says Doug McCarthy.

It’s also reported that the family had a fire and had to move house. Phill was away at a tournament; Suzanne, his wife – they met through darts – decided not immediately to tell him.

Spennymoor lad originally, he was made redundant in 2005, became a house husband, found more time to improve his darts skills and in 2007 achieved a 20-year ambition by qualifying for the BDO finals at Frimley Green.

They quoted him at 150-1; he entered to the tune of We Will Rock You. Too true.

The Flyer began picking off seeds like a hungry thrush after a Weightwatchers class. The town, then the North-East and then the nation, suddenly discovered darts.

More than five million watched the televised final, the competition’s highest audience.

“Though Nixon was in the sort of place that only Lazarus came back from, he never gave up,” said the Echo’s leader writer, perhaps having been to too much Sid Waddell.

All who know him talk of a smashing feller, unchanged by that evening at the hands of big bad Wolfie. “Maybe that was his peak, who knows?” says Doug McCarthy. “It still takes a very good darts player to beat Phill Nixon.”

Stevenage ruined Martin’s 4,300-1 bet in the FA Cup

THE Ferryhill Flyer may have started at 150-1, but what odds on the North-East’s big three football teams – all drawn against lower division opposition – each losing 2-1 in last Saturday’s FA Cup matches?

Martin Birtle fancied a bit of the old 1-2 and duly went to the bookie’s. Burton were quoted at 10-1 to get best of three against the Boro, Notts County at 14-1 to repeat the score at Sunderland and, evening kick-off, Stevenage at 25-1 to do the same to Newcastle.

The odds came to 4,300-1 – three 50p win bets and a 50p treble stood to net £2,160.

The first two went according to forecast.

Stevenage led 2-0 until the Magpies pulled one back in the 90th minute, by which time Martin – in Billingham – had switched off the television for fear that he, and it, might overheat.

“I didn’t check the score until 7 30pm,” he reports – by which time Peter Winn had scored Stevenage’s third with just 30 seconds of added time remaining.

Martin, a Sunderland fan who is 60 tomorrow, retains a Winn-some-lose-some philosophy. “It’s just a bit of fun, not really about money,”

he insists. “Anyone who scores against Newcastle is still a hero to me.”

ON Tuesday to Esh Winning v Jarrow Roofing – still snow and ice by the roads up there, car thermometers down to minus four. As I stagger in, the public address is playing Find Me a Place in the Sun.

Someone’s sense of humour is still above zero, anyway.

THE Reverend Leo Osborn, president-elect of the Methodist Conference and the North-East’s best known Aston Villa supporter, sends a fanzine cutting about the unlikely warship of the same name.

Built in 1937 at Smith’s Docks in Middlesbrough, the 546-ton, 173ft trawler cost £29,352 – about the same as these days might be paid for a conservatory.

Perhaps it was ominous that on its maiden voyage, the ship should collide with a pier at Grimsby, damage to the pier put at £3 16 6d.

She was requisitioned at the outbreak of war, became part of the 16th Anti-Submarine Striking Force and patrolled off Norway where, despite cunningly being disguised with numerous Christmas trees, she came under regular attack and on May 1, 1940 was set on fire after a direct hit.

Later that night it blew out and disappeared beneath the waves. The Methodist gentleman and others of his claret and hue may find the sinking feeling a bit ominous, too.

SPEAKING of the Boro and of the military, the Afghan squaddie who writes an engaging column in Fly Me to the Moon fanzine has been invited with his wife to be a directors’ box guest at a match.

“Obviously I was delighted because I saw the opportunity to get stuck into some free booze,” he writes.

Problem was, you’re expected to behave, to wear a suit – or “suite” as the squaddie prefers – and generally not to jump up and down screaming profanities at the referee.

Middlesbrough played Cardiff. “I seem to remember getting a glare from Keith Lamb (the appropriately named chief executive) when I made a joke about Welsh people and sheep,” he recalls.

A great day, says the squaddie – “but I’m looking forward to getting back into the North Stand.”

Tribute to king of 5s and 3s

DERRICK White, the man who captained by far the greatest 5s and 3s team the world has ever seen – they were, they really were – has died after a long illness. He was 76.

A good player, he always said, was someone who could win with a bad hand. “Any silly bugger can play a good un,” added Derrick.

“He was a great lad and a great player, a man who just loved his dominoes,” says former team-mate Alan Stainsby.

Derrick spent six teenage years in the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton with a TB-related illness, took up dominoes when finally he came home and had his feet under the table ever since.

He even played, and played to win, against the grandbairns.

“You have to teach them the hard way,” he said.

His all-conquering team was the Grey Horse at Bank Top, Darlington, winners of n u m e r o u s trophies at the national c h a m p i - onships in Bridlington and followed so assiduously by the B a c k t r a c k column – “the Grey Horse are the Desert Orchid of the d o m i n o world” we once, rather neatly observed – that we were invited to be nonplaying substitute.

“We need a different perspective on the game,”

said Derrick.

“ S o m e o n e who knows what it’s like to lose.”

Even Tyne Tees Television had once been persuaded to get themselves to Bridlington, though for some reason they sent windswept Wincey Willis, the weather girl.

“She took me down to the sands,” Derrick recalled. “Unfortunately she only wanted to talk about anticyclones.”

They’d travel down to Brid the evening previously, look after themselves – “we’d often be in bed by half past one” – provided headaches only for opponents.

“By far the best team in Britain,” said Keith Masters, the tournament organiser.

Other players included Derrick’s brother Tony, he who compared the joy of 5s and 3s to the joy of sex – “except that these days a hand of dominoes lasts longer” – and the late Norman Kent, an organist and amateur magician from Aycliffe Village who was reckoned the best ever.

Norman it was who insisted that when beer was in brains were out, a sober reflection endorsed by his mate Derrick. “Some of the lads who get to the final spend all their time on the lash. It’s not the way to prepare; we may have a few drinks but we do our celebrating afterwards.”

Though the tournament attracted pub teams from all over Britain – the Dewdrop and the Stilton Cheese, on one occasion even the Nuthouse – they frequently played other Darlington area sides in the final, beaten by Busters – about 100 yards away – in 2003.

“It says a lot about our reputation that we should be disappointed to come second,”

said Derrick.

He once d r o p p e d himself for the pairs – “My legs were playing up,” he said cryptically – and was succeeded as captain by his brother.

Now the game itself appears in decline – the s m o k i n g ban, the weather, the G r i m Reaper and a shortage of sponsors all blamed.

D e r r i c k had feared for the future.

“There are lads in teams nowadays who wouldn’t have been allowed in teams 30 years ago,”

he said. Alan Stainsby echoes the concern.

“Most weeks I’m struggling to raise a team, even at the Cleveland, and we’re supposed to be one of the best.

The young uns aren’t interested and the weather hasn’t helped at all.

“Some of the older lads haven’t been able to get out of the house. You'd have needed to be Torvill and Dean to have played dominoes a couple of weeks ago.”

Derrick’s funeral was held yesterday, in Darlington.

It’s likely, very likely, that they raised a glass in the Grey Horse thereafter. He deserved a good hand.

And finally...

TUESDAY’S column invited readers to name five sports that use a net but no ball.

Everyone got the fishing angle – the others deck tennis, badminton, ice hockey and a couple of the athletic field events.

Norman Robinson in Annfield Plain today invites the identity of the former Durham County League professional who made his cricket debut for Australia at Brisbane in 1986-87 – the last time that England won the Ashes down under.

Pros and cons, the column returns