Ashington produced Jackie Milburn and the Charlton brothers. Now the town has a new sporting hero. Tim Wellock reports.

FROM Ashington to Ashes. The story of Stephen Harmison's rise from the old Northumberland mining town to Test matches at Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney is a remarkable tale.

It has its roots in the genes and comes to fruition as a result of Durham's growth as a first-class county.

Harmison comes from a sporting family with a background in Northern League football as well as local club cricket, and his youngest brother, Ben, has been handed a place in the Durham Academy this season.

But such is his attachment to Ashington that he might never have ventured even as far south as Chester-le-Street had Durham not offered him the opportunity to develop his pace bowling to England standard.

Some are not convinced of his right to be there because he still bowls too many balls the batsmen can leave alone.

But Duncan Fletcher has spotted a potential he believes is worth working on, and the England coach's record shows that he isn't often wrong.

The first Test against Zimababwe was Harmison's sixth and he says: "I feel really comfortable in the England set-up now.

"I know I had a reputation for homesickness, but that was only really an issue when I came back from the England Under-19s tour to Pakistan.

"After that I was struggling for fitness and when I was called up for the last month of the A tour to New Zealand I wasn't keen to go because I had just got married and my first daughter had just been born."

A second daughter arrived while he was in Australia last winter, and he was allowed home for a week before rejoining the England squad for the World Cup in South Africa.

He didn't get a game, but it was all part of integrating him fully into the squad in both forms of the game and he was rewarded with an England contract a month ago.

"I am delighted that all my hard work has paid off," he says. "I would love to open the bowling for England in the first Test match to be played at Chester-le-Street.

"Paul Collingwood played in a one-day international here and he said it was tremendous to run out in front of your own fans."

At 24, it will be seven years in September since Harmison made an inauspicious debut for Durham in an end-of-season trouncing by Leicestershire at Riverside.

He took none for 77 in nine overs as the visitors piled up 516 for six declared and had it not been for the perseverance of Durham's Director of Cricket, Geoff Cook, he might never have been heard of again.

Harmison had a back problem the following year and played as a batsman in Ashington seconds, but he was awarded a full contract for 1998 and played in the opening match at Edgbaston.

His nervous opening spell contained a mixture of full tosses and long hops and some national newspaper correspondents could hardly believe they were watching such rubbish.

But he came back to take two wickets in the first innings, and really made people sit up and take notice when he splattered the stumps of Nick Knight and David Hemp in the second innings.

He finished the season with 51 first-class wickets and increased that to 64 the following year before going on the England A tour to Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Then injuries began to interfere with his progress, particularly shin splints, causing him to miss the next A tour.

But such was the determination at the top level to harness his raw pace that he was included in the England squad for the first three Tests of 2000.

He didn't get a game and it was as though the extra coaching had confused him, as his accuracy deteriorated, then the shin problem arose again and he finished the season with only 26 wickets.

It went up to 35 in 2001, and although that was still some way short of his early years he was selected for the first intake at the ECB Academy in Adelaide.

He missed a large chunk of last season with a side strain and finished with 28 first-class wickets for Durham.

But he also took five on his Test debut against India at Trent Bridge, when he was called up for the second Test because Andrew Caddick was injured.

His three for 57 in the first innings remains his Test best, and some observers felt it was wrong that he should be left out of the next two games when Caddick was fit again.

He had impressed sufficiently, however, to be selected for the Ashes tour and he played in the last four Tests, including the win in the last one at Sydney, where he dismissed Durham teammate Martin Love in both innings.

His three for 70 in the first innings was his best of the series, although nine wickets overall at 50.55 offered no guarantee of permanence in the side.

The emergence of Jimmy Anderson threatened to push him a notch down the rankings, but his England contract means he is always going to be in the squad and everyone connected with it believes he is moving in the right direction.

He himself says: "I'm learning to keep everything going through in a straight line so that I don't fall away and push the ball down the leg side. I feel I'm getting more balls in the right areas and if I keep doing that I will take wickets."