Having a high old time on the hill top

Other things never change, of course: the Little House on the Prairie, the Aged Miners - as if expecting royalty - standing sentry over their garden gates, Vince Kirkup, Vince's haircut...

But on Wednesday night, uniquely in the column's considerable experience, the smoke didn't go up the chimney just the same.

This was Stanley, Crook, sometimes known as Stanley Hill Top and sometimes as Mount Pleasant but forever regarded as the coldest place in Christendom.

In January 1948, it's still remembered, United finished an Amateur Cup tie with seven men, the other four having sought shelter lest (as a County Durham lad might say) they perish.

"Soft devils," said Jack Pye, there in 1948 and there again on Wednesday.

They were playing Ferryhill Athletic, former Northern League colleagues, kick off 6.30pm or (as the hoary old joke purports) whenever you can get there.

Now they're together in the Wearside League, Stanley unbeaten in their first four games, midweek matches necessarily fitted in before the children's bedtime. The same evening Thornaby had travelled to Windscale (that well known Wearside location) and Whitehaven made the reverse journey to Wolviston.

Stanley did once have training lights, it's recalled, though the source of the electricity remains uncertain. "Probably Vincey in the toilet peddlin' like mad," someone said.

We arrived early, sun on full beam and three - a crowd - off the No 1 bus from Billy Row. Referee Paul Alderson was already there, sun glasses pushed exotically to the back of his head.

"That same spider's been in the bath for four years," he said.

"Eats referees," someone replied.

"So does the crowd," said Paul, though in truth there is no finer place on earth to watch football, or to remember that it's still supposed to be a sport.

Upstairs in the Little House, fire laid in case of emergency, Margaret Donnelly and Bev Heslop had the boiler on, the hot dogs howling, the penny bubbly ready for the bairns.

Margaret's been all things to Stanley United for 45 years, even called upon the previous Saturday to restrain Mr Ivan Moxon, the centre forward, from making his views somewhat forcibly known to an opponent.

Mr Moxon is big and bearded, memorably described by Harry Pearson in The Far Corner as looking as if he'd just jumped over the prow of a longship. "I just talked quietly to him," said Margaret.

Bev - now 43 - inherited United genetically and watched them from her pram.

Ron Tunstall, her late father, came to Stanley from Lambton Street Boys in Sunderland, played on that numbing afternoon in 1948, met Stanley lass Jean Armstrong and married her at 11am on September 26, 1953, the derby with Crook Town kicking off four hours later.

The women stayed at the reception, the men went to the match. The groom played, Lol Raine scored, Stanley had something else to celebrate.

The Armstrongs, proud Stanley folk, also included big Ernest, later to become deputy Speaker of the House of Commons and president of the Methodist Conference but known for entirely plausible reasons as Sikey, the Vinnie Jones of his day.

Jack Pye ("soft devils") remembered a game at Tow Law where Sikey had to be escorted from the field, so great the queue of those seeking post-match retribution.

These days they're not only unpaid but chip in £3 a week for the letter draw. "It's just such a smashing little club, you wouldn't want owt," said Andy Collin, the long serving, long suffering, goalkeeper.

Vincey, 25 resilient years Stanley's secretary and manager and about 24 with the same haircut, arrived at six o'clock, professed that he'd been running round like a blue tailed fly (or some similar species), reckoned it was status quo.

"That's a band isn't it?" chorused half the team.

"When I got home from work at quarter to five I had 16 players, at five o'clock I had 12," said Vince.

At 6.17 he was on the phone to Steve Hodgson, a United man for 20 years on and off, imploring him to reinforce the bench. A second call received the automated reply that they were sorry not to be at home.

"Not half as sorry as I am," said Vince.

Steve arrived ten minutes later, declined the team talk - "he's on about being effective, I've never been effective in my life" - admitted that he'd thrown his boots in the bin at the end of last season.

"Vincey took them out again," he said.

Vince remained in mufti, fourth sub at 50. "It's take three brocken legs before they get me changed," he said.

It kicked off at 6.45, everyone having arrived, Tommy Spence's early goal for Stanley earning the column a quid from Mr Dennis Mitchell, Ferryhill committee man and renowned former Darlington taxi driver.

They led 2-0, and still kicking up-over, when after 40 minutes duty called us elsewhere. The sun still shone brightly on the Little House on the Prairie.

SO DOWN bank to Crook Town v Tow Law, kick off promptly at 7.30, several million midgees also in attendance. They'll be growing palm trees on Low Mown Meadows next.

Now managed by our old friend Dr Graeme Forster, late of Hamsteels, the Lawyers hit six and might have had more but for Gary Mullen, the goalie.

Word ran effortlessly down from Mount Pleasant, meanwhile, that Stanley United had scored six, too. High times on the hill top.

THE previous evening to Whitley Bay FC, next to the ice rink, a first visit since 1988 when they forsook the Northern League, the little 'un fell in the briny and the Seahorses Social Club resembled a drying out clinic. On Tuesday they were back.

Paul Dixon was there, too, former Whitley Bay player and assistant manager and now part of BBC Radio Newcastle's sports team. With radio colleague Barry Hindson he's writing a book called Touchers - potted biographies of 23 North-East non-league luminaries like Colin Richardson, Les Mutrie, the indefatigable Ian Crumplin and the just-married Dean Gibb.

Tony Monkhouse, Weardale farmer and Evenwood Town's captain when they won the Northern League in 1970 and 1971, will also be featured. "A lengthy interview that one, we didn't half shift some whisky," says Paul.

Touchers? A Tyneside term meaning "characters", he insists, though it's never penetrated further south.

The book's almost finished; the Seahorses may have a little further to go. Whitley Bay 2 Billingham Town 4.

RICHARD Ovington, another author in the writing, rings from dear old Donny. We'd mentioned a week ago his work on Famous Folk of Brandon and Byshottles, heinously hinting that the book might be rather less than voluminous. On the contrary, insists Richard, Browney by birth, B&B brims with them.

We'd acknowledged the late Ray Wilkie, Amateur Cup medal winner and successful FA Trophy manager. There's also Sammy Crooks, Bearpark miner, Derby County and England outside right and for 14 years chairman of the Players' Union, in whose memory Durham City's New Ferens Park stadium is dedicated.

Who else? "I'm not telling you, someone might copy the idea, young man," says Richard, who himself played for Sunderland Reserves and Blyth Spartans after the war.

Aw, go on. "Well, there were MPs and musical celebrities but I'm not saying any more than that."

He's collaborating with Tom Fox, another Browney exile to south Yorkshire, whom perchance he met in hospital. To date, however, Ray Wilkie's is the only completed chapter. Brandon and Byshottles' claims to fame may have to wait a little longer.

HEADED "New recruits to silver surfing", an e-mail arrives from Dave Gill - not for nothing known as Hawkeye - in Eaglescliffe.

Did we know, it asks, that that Tiger Woods's real first name is Eldrick?

Happily, adds Dave, such transposition wasn't available to William Blake. "Eldrick, Eldrick burning bright would never have sounded the same."

SINCE on Sunday afternoon we shall officially be opening the handsome new sports facilities at Spennithorne and Harmby, in Wensleydale, it's impossible to attend the Alternative Stokesley Show - from 2-4pm that afternoon at the many splendoured White Swan.

It's redolent of the annual ugly vegetable shows at Wheatley Hill old scouts hut, right down to the class for "rude root" - the judge, warns the programme, is likely to award the title on a whim.

Other categories, not strictly sporting, include "allotment item not usually found on a supermarket shelf" - crisp lettuce given as an example - and "useful handicraft - mustn't be possible to find a better one in Boyes".

Best local limerick, too. Whatever on earth rhymes with Stokesley?

All welcome, all income to Macmillan Nurses, all proceedings reported second hand in next week's John North column, where less alternatively they belong.

...the goalkeeper who's made most appearances for a single English club (Backtrack, August 22) is Alan Knight, of Portsmouth, with 682.

Bill Moore, again. Bishop Auckland boast a record ten FA Amateur Cup wins, but which two clubs are second - five apiece.

We return, weather permitting with a report from the region's first day/night cricket match, on Tuesday.