Marking its 20th anniversary, the biennial Durham World Fellowship Club Cricket Festival - as now it has been rebranded - got internationally underway at the weekend.

For founder organiser Michael Potts, the occasion was tinged with sadness, however - until the column called, he didn't even know it was on.

"The City Council asked me in a couple of years ago, said there was a change of policy and they were taking the organisation in-house," he says.

"I'm nearly 70 and I didn't really mind, but I'm a bit disappointed that after all my work, they couldn't even tell me it was happening."

Michael, who lives in Houghton-le-Spring, got the idea for an international cricket festival after studying a map of Europe - "they usually played cricket where the British built railways."

It became hugely successful; his tales from the tearoom could fill a volume. "The one constant thing was they they all fell in love with Durham city," he says.

Before the first tournament, pre e-mail, he was contacted by the German captain of a side called Hassloch Cosmpolitans, promising that his team would arrive in Hull.

"I knew I should have started to worry when he subsequently called from Cambridge. The Germans are fantastic people but I don't know how they invaded Russia - he couldn't even find Belmont."

A further problem arose when the "team" proved to be one player, a rather less cosmopolitan bunch of locals dragooned into making up the numbers. "The German chap insisted on batting and bowling but he was bloody hopeless," recalls Michael.

"What he really enjoyed was standing in the shower with nothing on, talking about the match."

A Sri Lankan team arrived at 3am, demanded the organiser meet them, let the women carry all the luggage and had an immediate query. "Where's the brothel?" they asked.

The week-long festival, whose "outgrounds" include Willington, Bishop Auckland and Sacriston, embraces sides from the West Indies, New York, Switzerland and the ubiquitous Optimists from Luxembourg, who always travel in hope. The council has a staff XI, too.

Since the occasion is now wholly municipal there are also 25 rules - "All scoring shall be honest at all times" - and about 100 sub-clauses.

A city council spokesman says that not inviting Michael Potts must have been an oversight. "We would have valued his experience."

Just two days until the FA's most crucial and potentially most explosive meeting in memory, and the Backtrack column not only promises exclusive full details but will actually be around the table with the power breakers.

Thursday promises to be tense; there are reputations at stake and we'll be on the early train so as not to miss a moment of it. There are likely to be yet more revelations, yet more evidence of what really goes on in Soho Square.

No detail will be spared, all the news that's fit to print about non-league restructuring. There's nothing else on that day, is there?

News, meanwhile, that Evenwood Town manager Ken Houlahan - he of the three degrees - has had a paper on "Under performance syndrome in athletes" accepted for publication in Research in Sports Medicine Journal. Ken's been reading about the FA, too. "Under performance syndrome," he swiftly adds, "is not a sexual complaint."

A BIT belatedly, but anything's on cue around here, Dave Nicholson in York has responded to the piece four weeks ago on the magnificent Vera Selby, twice women's world snooker champion.

Daughter of the manager of Freeman, Hardy and Willis in Richmond, Vera later lived in Brunton Park, Gosforth, where she had a full-size snooker table in the garage - a building, recalls Dave, which was only three feet wider than the table itself.

To get round the problem of playing the cue ball when it was close to the cushion on one of the table's long sides, Vera made herself a special cue - just two feet long.

Vera insisted that while practising with a dwarf cue could be a slight disadvantage when playing in a tournament, it trained her to keep the ball away from the cushions.

Now a sporty 74, she was Dave's aunt by marriage. "The stunted cue could still help her score more points in an afternoon," he recalls, "than the average club player could manage in a month."

Former Sunderland winger Colin Grainger - the only man to play football for England and sing at the London Palladium - is having a bit more difficulty shifting his new CD than he had waltzing around full backs.

"They've promised to play it on the public address at Sheffield United but it's had hardly any other air time," says the 71-year-old, who now scouts for the Blades.

The 17-track CD includes classics like Twelfth of November, Unchained Melody and Wind Beneath My Wings. "You can hear the words, that's the secret," he says. "None of that blooming bang-bang-bang all the time."

Colin, 14 goals in 124 Sunderland appearances, promises to sign every copy. It's £5.89, including postage, from him at 7 Elmfield Drive, Skelmerthorpe, Huddersfield, W Yorks.

Golden jubilee celebrations for Shildon Railway FC, formerly the BR, climax on August 14 with a game (2pm) between the present side and an assortment of former players.

Anyone who's been involved with the BR over the last 50 years is welcome to attend, says Alan Morland, but intending players are asked to report at least half an hour before kick-off.

He's taking no chances. "A liberal injection of WD40 may be required before we let them loose."

ON the back of news that Richmond MP William Hague is the best-paid man in the Commons, Martin Birtle in Billingham draws attention to an earlier gentleman of that name - William "Iron" Hague, British heavyweight boxing champion from 1909-11.

Born in Mexborough, just a couple of miles from the former Tory leader, "Iron" Hague fought eight defences before losing to Bombardier Billy Wells.

The Encyclopaedia of Boxing also records defeats against P O Curranm, Jewey Smith and the illuminatingly named Sergeant Sunshine. "He was a really strong man with a terrific punch," it adds. "Unfortunately he never took his boxing seriously."

Having named a North-East XI and a Yorkshire XI, Arnold Alton in Heighington now proposes a Wildlife XI of former Football League players.

Fox (Stoke), Badger (Sheffield United, Fish (Charlton), Bird (Newcastle United), Partridge (Chesterfield), Bassett (Cardiff City), Duck (Southend), Crowe (Newcastle), Bull (Wolves), Drake (Arsenal), Pointer (Burnley).

Subs might include Wren (Rotherham), Greygoose (Crewe), Deere (Scunthorpe), Batt (Reading), Eagles (Leyton Orient), Woodcock (Darlington), Cockerill (Southampton) and Codd of Bolton Wanderers.

And finally...

It was all very well for Newcastle United programme editor Paul Tully to seek the five United players in the Premiership whose surname had begun with the letter "R" (Backtrack, July 27) but the Magpies man then flew off on holiday without leaving the answer.

Few have got past Lauren Robert and Paul Robinson. We hope to know the Rs from the other thing ere long.

Martin Birtle today invites readers to name the first top division goalkeeper - OK, old first division - to win championship medals with two different clubs.

Safe hands, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 03/08/2004