Mike Amos pays tribute to Dick Longstaff, one of those rare people of whom it can truthfully be said that he was both gentleman and gentle man, who has died days after his 83rd birthday.
Lifelong Bishop Auckland fan, occasional reserve team player, Dick was also an enthusiastic golfer and snooker devotee, wrote with his wife the centenary history of Bishop Auckland Golf Club and in 2005 was founding secretary of the Durham Amateur Football Trust – a post to which he remained meticulously and impeccably devoted.
Dick will also be remembered for his almost permanent smile and generous good will.
“He never said a bad word about anybody” says Adrian, his son. “Dad’s mantra was always that if you couldn’t say something good about anyone, then say nothing at all.”
Dick was born and raised in Eldon, County Durham, trained as a teacher in Doncaster, a good enough footballer to represent English Universities in a four-nation tournament and to train with Sunderland, to whom he remained loyal.
He was also in the Shildon BR side, early 1960s, which finished the season unbeaten in every competition they entered.
He’d watched the Bishops in every FA Amateur Cup final since the 1950 “derby” with Willington – including the 1957 final when, recalls Adrian, his dad took the overnight train with 20 friends, revelled in a unique hat-trick of Wembley victories and headed back to Co Durham on the 11pm from Kings Cross. “They must have had a fair bit stamina” Adrian muses.
The Christmas-time derbies with Shildon were an annual highlight.
Loyalty notwithstanding, he never made the Bishops’ Northern League side, though former chairman Terry Jackson recalls a 1958 pre-season friendly in which ther legendary Seamus O’Connell was centre forward, madcap goalkeeper Harry Sharratt played inside right and Dick was centre half.
Too young to remember the game himself, Terry still salutes a “fantastic supporter and a lovely, lovely man.”
Dick was also player.manager of Eldra – it stood for the Eldon Lane and District Redevelopment Assoociation – a successful Auckland and District League side.
Read more: Mike Amos tells all in new book - the stories of his life
He became a teacher then for getting on 20 years ran the Esso garage in St Helen’s Auckland before returning to the chalkface, initally as a supply teacher and than at St John’s school in Bishop.
His snooker passion took him several times to the world finals at the Crucible in Sheffield – sometimes as a Christmas present – and also meant that there was a full-size table upstairs at the family home in Eldon.
Adrian recalls the problem of getting it there.
“He had a mate with a JCB and they made a sort of sling to hoist it up. Then they removed the upstairs window and the job was done.”
Though we’d long been acquainted, never a cross word despite club rivalries, I particularly came to know him through DAFT, to which he remained enthusiastically dedicated into his 80s. The brief was adroitly and expertly mastered.
* For more on Mike Amos's writing on North East football, visit his blog, Grass Routes, at https://mikeamosblog.wordpress.com/
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