League calls time so it's back to parks for Speedy

FLAGGING but utterly inexhaustible, the Football League's oldest ever assistant referee reaches the end of the line on Sunday.

A Newcastle United fanzine once described marvellous Martin Robinson as "a one-eyed salamander practising demented semaphore signals" . . . a rare example of being as myopic as a newt . . . and we shall hear more of that very shortly.

"It's fair to say that both my body and my ears have taken a pounding," says Martin, 49, who bows out at Leeds United v Rotherham United.

Two other Albany Northern League referees retire simultaneously, Paul Nicholson from Burnhope and Bob Lockhart from Gosforth will run opposite flanks at Sunderland's celebration shindig.

Martin, Darlington lad and former 161/2-stone rugby player, became a Northern League referee in 1985 and was appointed to the Football League line in 1991.

Colleagues still know him as Speedy, apparently because of an assessor's honest opinion that he was getting too far ahead of play, though these days his progress is a little more measured.

"I'm a stayer not a sprinter," he says.

His first Football League game, Blackpool v Carlisle, was also his 68-year-old mum's first of any sort, prompting Mrs Robinson to remark how much better the Seasiders were.

At season's end, Blackpool were in the play-offs and Carlisle saved from relegation only through Aldershot's earlier resignation.

"It shows how easy Alan Hansen's job is if my old mum can detect the differing abilities of football teams in her first game," says Martin.

His career extended by successive age limit relaxations and by Nigel Carnell's physio clinic in the town, he officiated at the 2002 LDV Vans final, the 2003 FA Vase final and in the memorable match at Carlisle in which goalkeeper Jimmy Glass's lastminute header saved the Cumbrians from relegation.

"The match officials could have had the freedom of Carlisle that night; I've never witnessed such joyous scenes anywhere."

An accountant in Billingham, he is also a mean 5s and 3s player, an occasional Cockerton cricketer and so enthusiastic a sports quiz league competitor that he's twice appeared in televised challenges."It sometimes appeared that I had a non-speaking part," he insists.

Though automatically retired from the Football League and from the Albany Northern League first division, he hopes to continue in the ANL second division and in local leagues.

"I've always said that I started in the parks and I'll be happy to finish there. I do it because I love football."

PROOF that they also serve who only stand and wave, few of Martin's matches were more memorable than Newcastle United v Bournemouth, FA Cup third round, January 14 1992.

Already the debt-ridden Magpies were making front page news, new chairman Sir John Hall warning of the threat of administration.

The Northern Echo had had a"United in crisis" logo made; we should have kept it.

Bournemouth should have been easy, but after 17 minutes the match was abandoned . . . fog on the Tyne and, impenetrably, elsewhere . . . Stourbridge referee Vic Callow unable to see his way to continuing.

Police reinforcements were called to disperse the angry crowd and to get the match officials the murky hell out of it.

Among the printable chants, reported the Echo, were "Cheats", "thieves" and"sack the board". The 20,348 crowd, we added, was "understandably irked."

"I kept on appearing with different coloured balls and flags," recalls Martin. "The cheers turned to boos when the crowd realised the players weren't with me."

The replayed game finished 22 after extra time, Newcastle losing . . . as always they do . . . on penalties.

United programme editor Paul Tully recalls just two victorious shoots-outs . . . Texaco Cup against Hearts in the 1970s and Mercantile Credit Challenge, or some such, at Wembley in 1988.

It was for his performance during the penalties that Martin earned the comparison to the visually challenged, semaphore signalling salamander. As ever, Speedy's slow to anger.

"I guess," he says,"that I've been called quite a lot worse than that."

MIST again, the fog which shrouded Newcastle on that January afternoon in 1992 wasn't the only occasion on which Magpies fans couldn't see a handout in front of them.

On January 11 1953, 63,480 at St James' Park watched the third round tie against Swansea start in reasonable visibility . . . and heard it abandoned seven minutes later.

"For about four minutes the game had all the signs of an exciting tussle, but in the last three only fleeting glimpses could be seen of the players," we reported.

Across the river, Gateshead were groping their way to a 1-0 win over first division Liverpool . . . "Redheugh Park looked more like a plate of porridge than a football pitch" . . . while Middlesbrough were losing 3-1 at Aston Villa ("the team creaked badly in every joint") and Sunderland were drawing at home to Scunthorpe.

In the sunny south, the Walthamstow Avenue team which became the first amateur club for 24 years to reach the FA Cup fourth round included former Darlington Grammar School boys A G Doggart and F N S Creek.

Back at St James's, the referee waited 25 minutes before finally calling off proceedings, the decision greeted by groans and boos, though the crowd departed "in an orderly fashion."

The following Wednesday afternoon, tradesmen's half holiday, another 61,064 turned out for the second attempt. In total, said the Echo, 124,544 people had paid £17,000 to watch 97 minutes of football.

"It has been," we concluded, "the biggest money-spinner in the history of the club."

SEVEN O'CLOCK kick-off, it was getting on quarter to ten before Wednesday's Albany Northern League Cup final between Dunston Fed and Bedlington finally ended.

The sides were level after extra time and 6-6 on penalties before Fed goalkeeper Stuart"the Monopod" Dawson flung himself right to save. Dunston's next kicker was Graeme Armstrong, leading scorer with 30odd goals but still only eighth man up.

"His penalty record this season is taken three, missed three," groaned Fed chairman Malcolm James . . . two seconds before the ball smacked the back of the net, and Fed completed a second successive double.

. . . and finally

REG HUGHES in Darlington . . ."a boxing fan since I was eight," he says . . . was first to KO Tuesday's question. The only four men to knock down Muhammad Ali were Sonny Banks and Henry Cooper . . . during the Cassius Clay incarnation . . . and Chuck Wepner (known for some reason as the Bayonne Bleeder) and Joe Frazier rather later.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today seeks the identity of the first man to score a goal in the Premiership . . . safe hands again on Tuesday.

Published: 09/05/2005