A knight gallant if ever there was one, Sir Bobby Robson has come to the rescue of yet another football club in distress.

At Willington last Thursday evening he spoke for getting on two and a half hours, charged his usual fee - ten times his usual would have been precisely the same - never once talked about wanting to give something back to the game.

That's the larcenous line peddled by old pro's who speak for 20 minutes, invariably include the Peter Beardsley joke - the one about new faces - and offer little change from £1,000.

The previous day Sir Bobby had visited a sick relative in Ipswich, got back to Newcastle Airport at 11.30pm, been at the training ground nine hours later, attended the myriad matters that a Magpies manager must and still arrived, articulate and immaculate, exactly on his hour.

"And if you want me to come again," he told his overflowing audience, "ask in another 30 years."

Willington, strapped and struggling near the foot of the Albany Northern League second division, responded almost incredulously. "There's not another man in the game who'd remember his roots like this," said club chairman John Phelan.

The former England manager answered almost everything, ducked the issue of his preferred successor at Newcastle - "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" - mocked his own supposed forgetfulness, offered just one small suggestion of Spitting Image Robson.

Hungary 1953? "They murdered us to death."

Rarely still, he seemed slightly restless. What he really wanted was a ball at his feet, a keepy-up challenge against all-comers or a game of three pots in with the bairns beckoning out the back.

Invited to pose a "ten-minute question" just before the interval, someone asked which player in the world he'd most like to sign.

"Henry," he said with nine minutes and 59 seconds remaining and, fuelled by nothing more than a ginger beer and lime - his preferred tipple, apparently - signed everything placed in front of him until his arms ached like the Wimbledon goalie's.

Thereafter they asked if the former Langley Park pit electrician received fuel allowance ("yes"), who was the best player he'd managed ("Ronaldo"), how (as usual) he handled Laurent Robert.

He glanced towards the Sky Television camera. "I'm standing here like an idiot; Laurent Robert has driven me crazy."

Sir Bobby - "only too happy to help" - would be back home by midnight, on the training ground by breakfast time, reckoned himself a fireman. "I spend all my time putting out fires", he said, prompting his old friend and chief scout Charlie Woods to a whispered comparison with that Adair fellow in the oil fields of the eighties.

As Willington counted the money which will help ensure their survival, it seemed irresistible. Like the old joke about newspapers, the great Sir Bobby Robson is black and white and Red all over.

Just about the only question the fire chief wasn't asked - though it was written down in the MC's shirt pocket - was about the player he'd signed who represented the best value for money.

Had it been put, it would also have given Willington the chance to mention Brett Cummings, signed by them for £45 in 1992 and presently repaying the fee on a ratio of about five bob a goal.

Brett, lovely feller, has a deserved testimonial on Thursday (7pm) against an All Star XI comprising team manager Alan Shoulder's friends from Football League days.

Tickets are just £2 from John Phelan (01388 768551) or doubtless there'll be room on the night.

Among those anxious to hear Sir Bobby was 79-year-old Jack Snowdon, Willington's heroic goalkeeper in the 1950 Amateur Cup final and still as straight as a Wembley goal post.

He was a bit concerned, however - and by no means alone in the Kensington Hall Hotel last Thursday - at a report in one of that day's tabloids that the EU wants to decimalise cricket.

The report was detailed: ten ball overs, wicket to be 22 metres, not yards, each team to have only ten men.

"I've been chuntering about it all day," said Jack, and might have been chuntering still had we not pointed out the date on top of his newspaper.

Via Martyn Coombes in Bedale, Friday's column noted a string of coincidences regarding Sunderland and Hibs performances in respective cup finals.

When Sunderland won the FA Cup in 1973, Hibs lost the Scottish League Cup final, when Sunderland lost the FA Cup final in 1992, Hibs won the Scottish League Cup. This season, Hibs have again lost the Scottish League Cup final.

It's been doing the rounds before and since, even reappeared in yesterday's Echo. As Sunderland fan Tom Purvis points out, however, there's one small snag.

In 1973, Hibs actually won the Scottish League Cup, beating Celtic 2-1. It probably explains everything.

We mentioned a few weeks back the born-again success of Shildon Railway FC - forever Shildon BR. Their Durham Trophy final, against Hartlepool FC from the Teesside League, is on Norton and Stockton Ancients' ground tomorrow night at 7pm. "We hope that the fervour which Shildon folk showed at Notts County earlier in the season will be reignited at Norton," says team official Alan Morland.

Up in Hawes, top end of Wensleydale, they're mourning Jimmy Gregson for all kinds of reasons - football, operatic society, Royal British Legion, pantomime - but mainly they'll miss him on the cricket field.

Jimmy, who was 78, was one of those people without whom a sports club probably couldn't exist. Even the little sit-on roller carried the cod registration JG1.

He'd played since Yorebridge Grammar School in Askrigg, managed to keep his eye when flying gliders with the Green Howards at the end of the war, helped Hawes through bad times and good.

"He's been brilliant has Jimmy Gregson, marvellous little character," says former teammate Raye Wilkinson, northern organiser for Stable Lads Welfare.

Jimmy's brother Hughie recalls him bowling Brian Close - "or hitting a six off him, one or the other" - during a benefit match on that lovely little ground by the riverside, adds that when he stopped playing he umpired and when he wasn't umpiring he was probably working on the ground.

"Oh aye," says Hughie, "Jimmy's had some happy days down there."

Raye Wilkinson's favourite story concerns playing in Hawes's golden jubilee match, chiefly organised by Jimmy but delayed 45 minutes by rain.

As the first ball was finally bowled, three RAF jets hurtled in formation up the dale. "I don't know who your contacts are, Jimmy," said Raye, "but they're not half blooming impressive."

Jimmy's funeral is on Thursday at 1pm in Askrigg parish church.

Unable to find enough people to be part of the reunion - it's 50 years on Saturday since the epic Amateur Cup final between Crook and Bishop Auckland - Crook now plan presentations to former players Bobby Davison and Jimmy McMillan at a night with Peter Beardsley on May 7. Bobby, fine local league cricketer too, is now in Alfreton, Derbyshire. Much more of him on Friday.

...and finally

The player who has made most FA Cup appearances in his career (Backtrack, April 2) was Liverpool's Ian Callaghan, with 92.

Brian Shaw (again) today seeks the identity of the last Football League club, circa 1994, to play on an artificial pitch. The real thing returns on Friday.

Published: 06/04/2004