Forty years to the day since they reached the FA Amateur Cup final at Wembley, Whitby Town's class of '65 was back beside the seaside on Sunday. It was a brilliant occasion.

Few had expected them to get so far, fewer still to beat Hendon, the metropolitan masters.

Whitby, wrote Ray Robertson in that morning's Northern Echo, were a rugged team from the backwaters, in the final only because a game of football needed two sides - "or so the London-based, and biased, critics believe."

They were Teesside lads mainly, Jimmy Mulvaney, Peter McHale and Maurice Crosthwaite working together at ICI Billingham. "Every Monday afternoon when the draw was made, Jimmy would come rushing in to tell us who we'd got," recalled Maurice Crossthwaite, the baby of the side.

"Most of the time we'd ask him where the hell was that."

Before the Roker Park semi-final against Enfield, they'd beaten Moor Green, Eastbourne, Oxford City and Harwich and Parkeston, 4,100 sardined into the west cliff Turnbull Ground for the quarter-final replay.

Peter McHale and Jimmy Mulvaney, who went on to play for Hartlepool, Barrow and Stockport, are both dead. The other nine, and reserves like Reg Wilson, who'd flown in from his work in Singapore - "I thought I may as well have the weekend off" - plodged up to the oxters in unalloyed nostalgia.

Eddie Barker, centre half and captain, recalled a telegram from Don Revie after Whitby reached the amateur final, Leeds United faced Liverpool in the FA Cup final and Wakefield Trinity were to meet St Helen's in the Rugby League showpiece.

"Let's make it a Yorkshire treble," said Revie.

"That's what made it so special in those days," said Maurice Crosthwaite, injured early on. "The only people who played at Wembley were the amateur cup finalists, the FA Cup finalists, the England team and the band."

The band played Three Jolly Airmen, Stars and Stripes For Ever and a selection from My Fair Lady; a north terrace ticket cost seven and a tanner, 45,000 were along Wembley way.

Two special trains, umpteen buses and nine-tenths of the fishing fleet had cast off for London, joined by Capt Dennis Cooper - Whitby's affectionately remembered tourism officer - with 4,000 colour brochures.

"Whitby for the Cup - and for your holidays," they said.

There, too, was David Richardson, who worked for the Air Ministry in Aden, had flown 4,000 miles to see his heroes and who'd head back to the Middle East the following day.

Outside right Barrie Geldart, a former northern counties schools boxing champion, recalled how much they'd been convinced they were the poor relations - "Hendon were sponsored by one of Billy Butlin's sons, we might have been sponsored by the local fish shop" - and how quickly it all seemed to pass.

Pushing 73, he still scouts for Blackburn Rovers and sees no reason to give it up.

Coach Bill Jeffs, said to have "inspired the Northern League unknowns with a diet of fitness and determination", remembered pre-season training in the sand dunes at Seaton Carew and "pounding" them around the car park in Billingham town centre when rain stopped play thereafter.

Now 78, he'd also played for Crook Town in the twice-replayed Amateur Cup final with Bishop Auckland in 1954, recalled the open-topped homecoming down Newton Cap Bank in Bishop when "pots of water" had been thrown at the Crook players.

That's another story, of course, and the water was a bit reconstituted, an' all.

The lunch was at the Saxonville, the players each presented with a tankard, blue and white ribboned. Among the speakers was 57-year-old Eddie Gray, who'd been in the Leeds squad in 1965, made 455 Football League appearances for the Yorkshire side, became Whitby's player/manager and was 39 when his career ended, crucial cruciate ligament, in a match at Chester-le-Street.

"It's a fantastic afternoon," said Eddie. "If they'd been ex-professionals they'd have been talking about how many properties they owned, or the colour of their latest Ferrari."

The other speaker kept banging on about Shildon, as if that had to do with anything whatsoever.

In the event, the Seasiders lost 3-1, Jimmy Mulvaney's late effort rebounding upfield off the bar to give Hendon their scarcely earned third. The rest of Don Revie's treble chance went down, too.

Around 12,000 welcomed them home, down Khyber Pass and into Station Square before high tea - tea! - at the Spa.

"Even the seagulls turned out to line the rooftops," said the Daily Express, though the Hendon Times preferred to lead its front page on a Golders Green car dealer who claimed to have arrested Albert Eichmann.

His neighbours were "stunned" added the Hendon weekly, not unreasonably.

Eddie Barker reckoned the warmth of the welcome home even more memorable than the final itself; Ray Robertson was offering consolation prizes.

"Whitby may have lost a cup but they won 45,000 admirers," he wrote on April 26, 1965. On Sunday they gained a lot more.

Eddie Gray - name and tonsure these days - was in the Leeds United team beaten by Sunderland in the 1973 FA Cup final and, despite it, is a close friend of Sunderland chairman Bob Murray.

Two weeks ago, Gray took part in the London Marathon. "Run in an England shirt and I'll give £1,000 to your charity," offered Murray, the response most kindly described as Glaswegian.

Instead, one of Leeds' all-time heroes took part in a Sunderland shirt - "ran the first 20 miles, walked the last six" - and for a finally agreed £1,500.

"Bob Murray," he said, "is one of the most generous men alive."

April 24, 1965 was also the day that Sir William Worsley opened Northallerton Cricket Club's new pavilion, the speeches followed by a match against Yorkshire - Sharpe and Boycott opening the batting, one smiling for the cameras, t'other not.

Just 8,635 were in Ayresome Park to see Middlesbrough lose 2-1 to Charlton - skipper Mel Nurse the lone scorer - Newcastle clinched the second division title with a 0-0 draw against Manchester City and at the Goldstone Ground, a 31,000 fourth division crowd saw 16-year-old Shildon lad John Hope make his debut in Darlington's goal.

Big John appeared subsequently for Newcastle United, Sheffield United - wasn't he on the wrong end of one of those George Best master goals? - and Hartlepool United.

Hope and glory, whatever happened to him?

On Saturday to Horden Colliery, nice people, where they hope for a bigger crowd for an "all stars" game this Sunday (1pm).

The stand in the transformed Colliery Welfare ground is officially being named after four local heroes; Micky Horswill, one of Sunderland's team of '73, brings a side which will include Bernie Slaven, Gary Bennett, Jim Platt, Terry Cochrane and Mick Tait.

The stand will be named after former Horden lad Stan Anderson, still the only man to captain each of the North-East's big three, after Bobby Naisbett, a former coalfields boxing champion who died recently, and after Horden CW stalwart Bob Wood, 73, and his 68-year-old wife Sylvia.

Stan, unfortunately, can't make it. Bob and Sylvia are never away.

Introduced as "the first high profile modern day footballer to be banged up in jail", former Liverpool defender Jan Molby spoke at Newcastle Benfield Saints' dinner last Thursday. The great Dane is bigger yet.

Molby got three months in 1988 for early morning motoring offences which, he said, involved passing red lights at 140mph.

"I'd have passed them on green but I couldn't get there fast enough," he said.

Coming up 42, he now covers English football for Danish television and speaks with that familiar oxymoron, a cultured Scouse accent.

Whether he was the first high profile footballer to be imprisoned depends, of course, on definition. Captive audience, how about big Bob Newton of Hartlepool United?

And finally...

the player who has been substituted most times in the Premiership (Backtrack, April 22) is dear old Dennis Bergkamp.

After that nostalgic little day out to Whitby, readers are today invited to name three other sides presently in the Albany Northern League who've appeared in a Wembley final - and whose name begins with the letter W.

More final thoughts on Friday.

Published: 26/04/2005