Unrivalled Aycliffe collection

Shildon NER included Walter Tillotson, who many years later reached 100 and will ere long be joined at that milestone by Bertha, his doughty daughter; Mark Hooper, who played for Cockfield in the 1923 FA Amateur Cup semi-final and danced subsequently down the wing for the Quakers and for Sheffield Wednesday batted in Darlington Rolling Mills' top order.

Aycliffe, whose score books from a century and more ago have just again come to light, played the first of those painstakingly pencilled matches against Ferryhill in May 1899, with two Kents and a virtual family Robinson in the side.

By 1910 there were three Kents, after the war four ? Kentishmen if not strictly men of Kent.

They are forebears, inevitably of Norman Kent, still in Aycliffe and probably Britain's best 5s and 3s player.

Norman, again stabled with the Grey Horse in Darlington in the national finals at Bridlington on November 26, insists that dominoes has always been energetic enough for him.

"There were an awful lot of Kents in Aycliffe at that time but I'm just about the only one now, " says Norman. "I've never played cricket in my life and it's a long time since there was a cricket team here, either." This was Aycliffe Village, of course, Newton Aycliffe not even an acorn in the planners' fertile imagination, the Great North Road still little more than a cart track.

Seven of Aycliffe's "Unrivalled" pocket score books - spanning 1899-1925 and prefaced, lest they forget, by the laws of cricket ? have just been acquired by cricket book dealer Michael Gauntlett from Gilling West, near Richmond. They're the oldest score books he's ever seen from a northern club.

"I was almost tempted to hand them over to Lord's, where they'd have been well received, but I thought it better to find them a good home, so to speak, up here, " he says.

Aycliffe played at Woodside Park, mostly against teams within a seven or eight mile radius - "they'd have had to pay to hire a horse" ? like Great Stainton, Harrowgate Hill, Coundon and Darlington St Paul's.

Darlington factory teams like Rolling Mills, Rocket and Rise Carr joined in a little later.

Against Bishopton in 1908, a visiting player was entered simply as Nutter - run out, 0 - in a ladies' match the number 11 was identified, in passing, simply as Stranger.

Team scores were almost always below three figures - poor pitches, Michael supposes - though Shildon did once manage 100. Aycliffe went for ten, V Cass 8-2, in reply.

Circa 1905, Shildon NER also included a J Watson, though whether this was our old Durham and Northumberland friend Jack Watson - now, as they say, getting on a bit ? we are quite unable to say.

Michael Gauntlett, house and garage hijacked by around 7,500 cricket books and related material, has abandoned book stalls to concentrate on Internet sales. His favourites, mellow yellow, remain old Wisdens.

His wife Jenny, her teas once vetted by an Oxfordshire cricket club before it would accept him as a member, accepts the situation with "amused tolerance", he says.

"With the fall in stocks and shares, a lot of people are investing in old Wisdens. I've just sold one to a chap in Beijing, which defies your wildest dreams really, and there's a guy in New Zealand urging me to find him the 1875 edition." If he does, he reckons, it'll cost between £5-£10,000.

So on a cold November morning we sit around recalling sunny days, discussing cricket in Sweden - "Did you know there are 28 cricket clubs in Stockholm?" he ventures - and the sports coverage on the Today programme.

"They don't mean 'That's all the sport', they mean 'That's the football and the racing tips.

It's terrible, really." He also looks forward to next summer, and the visit of the Australians. "For the first time in years it looks like we might have a half decent team and the Aussies are collectively growing old. It could be very interesting." The company's Ian Dyer Cricket Books, bought from his uncle in 1990, the Internet domain name www. cricketbooks. co. uk The score on the Aycliffe archive, only loosely sub-titled a history of Kent cricket, is that it'll cost £100 the lot.

SO how did Emlyn Hughes become Crazy Horse? Though accounts vary, the smart money following Hughes's death this week is on Albert Bennett, a Newcastle United inside forward from 1965-59.

Bennett, from Chester Moor near Chester-le-Street, stuck the tail on after Hughes had tried to rugby tackle him during a match against Liverpool in 1967. Bizarrely, it remained.

Bennett - are there still any footballers called Albert? - was released by Newcastle after trials as a teenager, won a single England Under 23 cap with Rotherham United and returned to St James's for a substantial fee.

Known to the Gallowgate faithful as Ankles ? "It was something about an operation which swapped bits of bone from one ankle to the other, it explained the funny way he ran, " says United publications editor Paul Tully - he played alongside Wyn Davies, scored 23 goals in 89 first team appearances and helped the Magpies into Europe.

His other claims to fame include that he was the first United player to be named as a sub, though he wasn't asked to put in an appearance, and being mentioned in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

"Oz called him a great centre forward, " says Paul. "He wasn't, he was an average inside right.".

After two final seasons at Norwich, he had spells in the prison service, the catering industry and the pub trade, had a laugh-a-minute joke shop on Lowestoft pier and was last heard of helping run a taxi firm in Norwich.

Sadly, we have been unable to flag him down.

MARTIN Birtle in Billingham recalls that at the fag end of his career ? short spells with Hull and Swansea in 1982-83 - the 62 times capped Hughes also offered his services to Hartlepool, for around £2,500 a week.

"The chairman told him that the whole team didn't earn that much put together, " says Martin. The Hughes' who never reached the Pool.

TUESDAY'S column dwelt upon Newcastle number nines, prompting an anguished call from 75-year-old Ned Spence, in Spennymoor. "You never mentioned Albert Stubbins, the greatest of the lot, " he says.

Another Albert, an' all.

Stubbins, born in Wallsend but raised in the United States, scored 237 goals in 218 black and white appearances ? almost all of them during the war, when he specialised in hat tricks against Middlesbrough.

"A magic man, " says Ned. "A big, magnetic, ginger headed type of chap who played against all the best centre halves in England and mesmerised them all." Stubbins joined Liverpool in 1947, returned to Tyneside to become a Sunday paper sports reporter and may have counted among his greatest claims to fame that he was among the cast of 63 on the sleeve of The Beatles' legendary Sgt Pepper LP.

That's him to the right of George Harrison, looking over Marlene Dietrich's shoulder and standing alongside Lewis Carroll. As with Ned Spence, Albert Stubbins was a McCartney family favourite, too.

NOT only did he appear in Tuesday's Backtrack column, the beneficent Brooks Mileson also made number 32 in the Financial Times list of Britons who earned most money in the last financial year.

The Sunderland born entrepreneur, backer of both Gretna FC and the Albany Northern League, is said to have made £26.8m. "I don't know where they get the figures from, " he protests. "I just hope it's not read by my wife."

ON the back of a postcard offering an Easter blessing, Ron Smith in Sedgefield seeks information on a watch chain medallion belonging to his father who died, aged 94, in 1982.

The medallion's inscribed "1950. D'ADDES LEAG. BRACEWELL CUP" - and Ron's dad didn't play football. We'll pass on information.

SOME of those who did play football, the Tudhoe Youth Club side which won the Auckland and District Junior League 40 years ago, are having a reunion tomorrow night at Tudhoe Victory Club. Alan Courtney, one of the organisers, says that anyone with memories of the side will be welcomed.

...and finally

The nine former European footballers of the year who've played for an English club (Backtrack, November 9) are Sir Stanley Matthews, Denis Law, Sir Bobby Charlton, George Best, Allan Simonsen (for Charlton Athletic), Kevin Keegan, Ruud Gullit, George Weah and Michael Owen.

Keith Bond in Brompton-on-Swale today invites readers to name all eight of Peter Shilton's league clubs.

Safe hands, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 12/11/2004