Former North-East boxing champion Gary Hodgson married Karen Seedhouse in Spennymoor on Saturday. The bride looked delightful, the gentlemen of the party looked (as someone observed) as if they'd escaped from Doggart's window.

Gary's father is, of course, the column's dear old friend Paul Hodgson, secretary of Spennymoor Boxing Academy and British and Commonwealth dole-drawing champion.

The evening do was at the town hall, where Hodgy even got the beers in. "I got lucky, the wedding fell on Giro day," he said.

Among the family guests was Vic Day, from Bishop Auckland via Chiswick, who made Local Heroes three years ago after cycling 80 miles on his 80th birthday and still has an 18-mile training circuit.

Will it be 90 on his 90th? "Nothing more certain," said Vic, accent still as broad as Chiswick Reach.

There, too, was the admirable John Heighington of Shildon Boxing Club, chief coach and chief rival. "We've had 94 British finalists since 1979," said John, by way of wedding speech.

The honeymoon, alas, has had to be curtailed. This Saturday at Knottingley, West Yorkshire, 12-year-old Ben Jackson from Spennymoor is in the national finals of the Golden Gloves

Gary's one of his coaches; last night he was back in the gym. Love hurts.

That afternoon to Brandon United v Newcastle Benfield, the perennial debate about the Arngrove Northern League's coldest ground further ventilated by a chill wind blowing no-one any good. At 4pm, an anonymous text message arrived. "Just had my last Saturday pee at Highbury," it said. Whoever it was, it's to be hoped that he enjoyed it.

After leaving things perilously late, the Lyons of Hetton finally roared on Sunday - they're in the FA Sunday Cup final, at Anfield on April 30.

Officially, as last Tuesday's column noted, they're Hetton Lyons Cricket Club FC - and as Roy Simpson in Peterlee in turn points out, the cricketers are also on a roll. They start next month in the North East Premier League, having been promoted from the Durham Senior last season.

The Cricket Club footballers, effectively an Arngrove Northern League select, played Leicestershire side Birstall Stamford at Durham City, 600 in attendance on the Sabbath.

Birstall led with a 20-yard header in the first half, the Lyons trailing until Roy Allen, also of Crook Town, equalised in the 81st minute. Adam Johnston hit the 86th-minute winner.

"The occasion and the spectacle seemed slightly to overawe us at first," says team manager Bradley Groves, and one or two may also have been feeling a little overawed yesterday morning.

After a few in Durham they headed back to the cricket club where Bobby Knoxall, back to full vigour, provided the entertainment.

"The atmosphere was fantastic, Birtsall even brought their own band, but I just didn't think it was going to be our day," says Lyons secretary David Leitch.

The first cricket club to play at Anfield, they meet St Joseph's of Luton in the final. The column plans an appearance, too.

What's probably the region's most expensive sportsmen's dinner is being planned in the autumn, when former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson - billed as "the baddest man on the planet" - hits Newcastle.

Though details aren't yet being released, tickets will be "like gold dust" says Steve Wraith, the organiser.

Any old Iron? They're £150 apiece.

Recent recollections of Eddie Passmore, Gateshead's extraordinary goal scorer of 1949-50, also mentioned George Turley - Shotton Colliery's unfortunate goalkeeper when Eddie and Easington put nine past them.

George's claims to fame - as the indefatigable Hails of Hartlepool happily points out - heavily outweigh that well remembered afternoon.

As a footballer he was a 17-year-old on Middlesbrough's books, the well-remembered Rolando Ugolini wearing the first team jersey. Eventually they gave him a free transfer.

As a bowls player he was a member of England's world championship winning fours team, represented his country in the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane and won numerous other national and international honours.

"Mind," says George, "I still preferred football."

Ron Hails wrote of him a few years ago in Bowls International magazine - "The epitome of a sporting hero: graceful in victory, chivalrous in defeat. Soccer's loss was our gain."

Now 74, George took up bowls when an old back injury - "I still don't really know how I did it" - necessitated a spell in a plaster cast.

"Someone suggested I play bowls. I was 29 or 30 and thought it was an old man's game, and in those days it probably was. I soon realised that I was quite good at it."

Long in Norton-on-Tees, he played bowls at Hartlepool, Thornaby and Norton and still bends his back. "These days it's for pleasure," says George. "Come to think, it always was."

Peter Lax, probably the best liked man in North-East non-league football, is recovering in North Tees Hospital after a heart attack at the weekend. Peter, 70, played football and cricket for Billingham Synthonia, has held just about every position at the football club - they had to sack him as chief tea-maker, folk dropping like flies - and is a long-serving member of the league management committee. Many will wish him a full and speedy recovery.

Recalling that he was the only man to play football for Marske United and claim a hat-trick for England, Friday's column said that fast bowler Paul Jarvis was last heard of in Australia.

Wrong again. He's captain and coach of a team in Wellington, New Zealand, says Marske statistician and scorer Dave Beach.

The youngest man to represent Yorkshire in the county championship - at 16 years, two months - Jarvis, Marske lad, was also the youngest to claim a Sunday League hat-trick and, three years later in 1985, to achieve a championship hat-trick.

He claimed 21 wickets in nine Tests at an average 45.95, and 24 in 16 one-day internationals, averaging 28 - "relentlessly injury prone and a victim of the most extreme selectoral whimsy," says the Cricinfo website, sympathetically.

He'll be 41 in July. No longer the victim of selectoral whimsy, he's been invited, says Dave, to play next month in the World Masters 20-20 in Bermuda.

Back in August last year, we trepidantly told the tale of Aston Villa, a detached house in Quarrington Hill, east of Durham.

Legend, we said, had it that ardent Sunderland supporter and local bus owner Albert Gillett had promised to name his new house after the side which won the 1913 FA Cup final - confident that the Wearsiders would easily beat their Birmingham rivals.

An e-mail from Albert's niece Barbara Hogan, now in America, confirms what was feared. It couldn't have been Albert because he wasn't born until 1905.

Barbara apologises for spoiling a good story - "but you were right about Gillett Brothers bus service; it was pretty good in its day."

And Finally...

The last England cricketer before Alastair Cook to score a century on his Test debut (Backtrack, March 17) was Andrew Strauss in 2004. John Scotter in Bishop Auckland was first with the correct answer.

W G Grace was the first, in 1880. The others are K S Ranjitsinhji, Plum Warner, Tip Foster, George Gunn, the Nawab of Pataudi, Bryan Valentine, Paul Gibb, Billy Griffith, Peter May, Arthur Milton, John Hampshire, Frank Hayes and Graham Thorpe.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today asks what first was recorded when Liverpool played Arsenal on August 22, 1964.

First and last, the column returns on Friday.

Published: 21/03/2006