On Saturday to Hibs v Kilmarnock, the former managed by Middlesbrough legend Tony Mowbray and the visitors boasting the sonorously named Danny Invincible, an Aussie formerly at Swindon. Roald Dahl would have loved him.

Admission was £18 and ultimately proved well worth it. A papier mache pie was £2, Bovril a quid.

We'd been up to see Mogga on Burns Night, supposed that he probably thought a haggis should be addressed via Princes Street post office, charted his ambitions for Europe.

They made it, drew FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk of the Ukraine, ended goalless in Edinburgh. Hibs fans travelled to the return with £5,000 worth of essentials for the local orphanage. The Ukrainians showed their gratitude by stuffing them 5-1.

The first half on Saturday seemed a bit like taking boilings off bairns, an' all, the performance as green as the team was cabbage looking. Invincible insuperable, Kilmarnock led 2-0 after 42 minutes. The Ayrshire club also included 31-year-old Allan Johnson, known as "Magic" and once signed by Sunderland for £5.5m.

His tricks proving rather more elusive than illusive, they sent him to Rangers on a free.

Mowbray tormented the technical area, assistant manager Mark Venus - Hartlepool lad - dutifully in his orbit. In the Famous Five stand - named after Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Lawrie Reilly, Eddie Turnbull and Willie Ormond, Hibs' forward line of the 50s - a chap announced that he was returning whence he came and headed for the pub.

Scottish imprecations cascaded forth. Since they love the manager, they blamed the referee. Mainly they were unintelligible, or perhaps they'd been learning Ukrainian.

Hibs are sponsored by Whyte and Mackay, the whisky people, thus known as the team spirit. Killie or cure, old Mogga must have mixed it with the half-time tea. They emerged reinvigorated, deservedly won 4-2, moved up to third. Victors jigged, Invincible licked his wounds.

It was the sort of rising from the dead, said Scotland on Sunday, that Lazarus would have been tickled with.

"We gambled a bit, now they can believe in themselves," said the manager.

The next home game is against arch-rivals Hearts, the premier division's surprise leaders. If the Saltburn Scot can win that one, they'll give Leith for life.

Steve Tierney's funeral filled every inch of St Patrick's RC church in Hartlepool and then, inevitably, overflowed it. The coffin was half the size of a team bus.

There were pollisses on crowd control and some to direct the traffic. If it had been a football match, they'd have had to delay the kick-off.

If it had been a match, they'd have had a tea hut, too. Who ate all the pies? The Big Feller, more than likely.

Steve was the 17 stone goalkeeper - "17 clem," he'd say, and bloody good with it - whose death at 32 stunned so many in North-East non-league football.

He'd spent half his life in the Northern League, had a short spell at Hartlepool United - extraordinary talent, Billy Horner would recall, but not too fond of training - and who impassively, unpassably, stood guard for Hartlepool Lion Hillcarter.

Fr Thomas Cunningham, whose homily began with the recollection of three saved penalties in the All England Sunday Cup final at Villa Park, admitted that so great was Tino's devotion to football that they didn't see too much of him in church.

"Everywhere he played he brought joy and enthusiasm," said Fr Cunningham. "He was loving and he was lovable."

His gloves, a replica of the All England Sunday Cup and a photograph of him that victorious day were carried to the altar with the offertory. Players formed a guard of honour in a service attended by much dignity.

It lasted 75 minutes. We sang Come On Let's Celebrate - a life, not a death - and heard a nice song called Time Of Your Life, apparently by a band called Green Day.

It's something unpredictable

But in the end is right

I hope you had the time of your life.

Best remembered in the Northern League with Horden, latterly at Billingham Synthonia, the Big Feller died just days after being diagnosed with leukeamia. He leaves a partner, daughter, his partner's two children, his parents and his grandma Madge, who knew the way to his heart.

Much is mooted in his unforgettable memory. Whatever happens, it will be overwhelmingly affectionate.

Everything comes....quoting Jimmy Greaves's views in his new autobiography on former Newcastle United hardman Jimmy Scoular, Friday's column said: "If Tom Watts's voice could be turned into a face, it would be Jimmy's."

"Tom Watts," says Brian Dobson in Bishop Auckland, "is the skinny Cockney actor who played Lofty in EastEnders and who has a phone-in on Talksport radio. The gravel-voiced American singer is Tom Waits."

Reference in Friday's column to the death of former Durham County batsman Jackie Keeler prompted a note from Don Clarke in South Shields: "He was one of only two batsmen, Ken Longstaff of Boldon the other, who appeared to be able to read C S Nayudu."

Nayudu, an Indian, spent several highly successful seasons at Shields, bowling leg breaks and googlies with what Christopher Martin Jenkins describes as a flail-like action and the Beardless Wonder supposes akin to a whirling dervish.

In the Ranji Cup between 1934-61 he averaged 30.20 with the bat and claimed 295 wickets at 23.49. He also held the record for most balls, 917, in a first-class match.

In Test matches, alas, they read him rather more plainly. In 11 games he took just two wickets, at 179.5 apiece.

The solitary England cap won by Boro winger Ralph Birkett, against Northern Ireland in 1935-36, goes under the hammer at an auction on October 27.

Methuselah, Middlesbrough- based, are also offering Birkett's Football League v Scottish League medal, his England tie and blazer badge and a silver statuette presented to him by the FA.

The sale, at Marton Country Club, also includes hundreds of programmes and other memorabilia.

The catalogue can be viewed on www.methuselahltd.co.uk or obtained free on 077181 20274.

And finally...

The identity of the only Nobel Prize for Literature winner to appear in his own right in Wisden (Backtrack, October 15) stumped everyone. It was Samuel Beckett, who played for Trinity College, Dublin against Northamptonshire at a time when the College enjoyed first-class status.

His bowling, observes the Stokesley Stockbroker, appears to have been like his dramatic dialogue. "Eight tight, economical overs for only 17 runs," said Wisden.

Since we've been discussing Hibs' Famous Five, readers are today invited to provide the first names of Enid Blyton's. Since GNER offered transport to Edinburgh on their swish new Mallard fleet, there'll be a GNER corkscrew and bottle stopper - boxed and rather posh - for the first correct entry drawn tomorrow evening.

Unstoppable, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 18/10/2005