The wooden ways and winning days of the Two Blues

In April 1955, when the Bishops secured the first of three record-setting successive amateur cup victories, the Lockeys coach bearing the team entered the crowded Market Place (above) and "it seemed to be floating on a sea of upturned faces, waving hats, newspapers and Two Blues rosettes,” said The Northern Echo on its front page. “People hung precariously from the windows of the upper storeys of surrounding buildings and business premises were bedecked with blue bunting.”

Appropriately, a new club heritage shop has just opened in the Market Place at the scene of those celebrations, and one of its prized possessions is a carved image of the victorious 1955 team (below).

It is believed to have been made in wood by a coal carver from Eldon, and it is so good that those in the know can recognise the faces of the players.

The coal carver presented his piece to captain Bob Hardisty (above, in 1955) who had lifted the trophy at Wembley after the Two Blues had beaten Hendon 2-0 in front of a crowd of 100,000. Hardisty, such a legend in Bishop Auckland that he has a street named after him, gave the carving to the club in the 1980s and it was kept in the bar at the Kingsway ground.

However, in 2001 the club left Kingsway and became nomadic until their new ground at Tindale Crescent was ready in October 2010, and the carving disappeared. But, on the eve of the opening of the new shop, former manager Colin Myers found it in his attic and now it is one of the unique exhibits.

The shop tells the story of the club, how they were founded in 1886 by theological undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge universities who were studying at Auckland Castle – the two blue colours, and nickname, come from the dark and light blue strip adopted by the students in those early days.

A 1960s Two Blues rosette on display at the Bishops shop

In 1889, they were founder members of the Northern League and in 1896, they won their first national amateur cup.

Exactly 100 years ago this month, they were holding the cup for the fifth time when they were unceremoniously knocked out of the fifth qualifying round by little old Shildon. On his blog, Shildon man Mike Amos, formerly of these pages, reproduces with a chuckle an In Memoriam card which was produced to gleefully mourn the passing of the Two Blues.

Beneath a picture of a gravestone is a little rhyme with plenty of mentions of a bishop’s attire:

Here lies the hope of Bishop Auckland
Full “croziered” and “mitred”
Pray shed a tear as you pass by
For the “Bishop” who was blighted.

But, they were soon resurrected, and perhaps 1938-39 was their best season. With future Liverpool legend Bob Paisley at right back, they won a treble: the Northern League, the Durham County Challenge Cup and the FA Amateur Cup.

But the 1950s were the glory years when the kings of Kingsway were the lords of the amateur game. Bishop Auckland became the first, and only, team to win the amateur cup in three successive seasons, and the first of those victories was carved in wood.

Old shinpads in the exhibition

The heritage shop also celebrates the stories of other Durham sides from the heyday of amateur football. It is staffed by volunteers, is open most days from 10am to 4pm, and sells souvenirs, like Two Blues bars of chocolate.