THE two managers have much in common: both were Durham miners, both have beaten cancer, both are still as passionate about football as they were all those years ago.

Both are called Bobby Robson.

"I just tell them they knighted the wrong one, " says the younger and perhaps less successful Robson, 61-year-old team boss of the Ivy Leaf in Sunderland.

The team he started 22 years ago are bottom of the fifth division of the Over 40s League, still celebrating after gaining their first point since October 15 in a 2-2 draw with Trimdon Vets on Saturday.

There isn't a sixth division.

"They're wonderful, " says league secretary Kip Watson.

"They always fulfil their fixtures, always have a full side, never complain about anything."

Like the plant from which their name is taken, the Ivy Leaf now has five points. The manager - perhaps inevitably nicknamed Sir Bob - credits the improvement to four new signings.

They include 63-year-old Mickey Reeves, known to be economical about his age, and Tommy Blanchard, who's 64.

Mickey came with John Taylor, believed only to be in his 40s - "a babby, still in nappies, it's our youth policy, " says Wearside Bobby. "Since they came, we've been rejuvenated."

As well as cancer, he's survived a heart attack and last year had a toe amputated.

"I might still be playing myself if it wasn't for that, " he says.

"It's a bit hard to be a twinkletoes if you only have four.

"I still have the enthusiasm for it, still kick every ball from the sidelines. I'm just mebbe not quite the player I was."

The two Bobbies have never met - "He seems a canny enough feller, mind" - another difference that Wearside Bob, from the Hendon area of Sunderland, is regrettably reluctant to have his picture in the paper.

Their next four games are against the division's top quartet, a test of the Ivy Leaf 's budding re-awakening.

"If we get anything out of that lot, " says plain Bobby Robson, "I'll be in for the England job in the summer."

IIN the matter of underachieving football teams, we turn to the Greyhound in Darlington - eight goals for, 142 against, tail between the legs. It is, for all that, a distinct improvement on last season.

Last season they didn't win a single point, but didn't have a single player so much as cautioned, either. This season they've actually won a game but also had a man booked.

"We had a word with him afterwards, " says joint manager Phil Marsay. "We told him it wasn't the sort of thing which happened around here."

The Greyhound, a team whose bark may be worse than its bite, play in the Darlington Church and Friendly League.

"I'm really chuffed with them, " says league secretary George Simpson, 74. "They're a good bunch of lads who always have 16 or 17 players turn up. I'd rather have them than one or two I could mention."

George, 40 years on the league management committee and a player since Coniscliffe Road Methodists days in 1947, is so sensitive about these things that he doesn't even include goal difference in the league tables.

"It can dishearten people, though I have to say that the Greyhound appear to be very resilient.

"Their disciplinary record is wonderful, the true spirit of the game, and I was very disappointed that Durham FA gave them nothing for it last season.

"They've lost a lot of games in the last ten minutes.

"If they only played for 70, they'd be halfway up the table."

The 1-0 win - every dog has its day - came against East End WMC, and was duly celebrated. "We weren't very popular at East End but it was an unusual experience for us, " says Phil, who runs the team with Chris Dixon.

"We've had a lot of young lads this season and quite a lot of chopping and changing, but we're quite careful about obeying the laws of the game.

"We're out to enjoy it really and I suppose we just don't see the red mist.

When you're getting beaten so heavily, it doesn't matter so much."

East End WMC, not a quarter of a mile up the road, have a goal difference of F32 A83 but just one point.

Tomorrow the two sides meet in the return match - Greyhound derby, as it were.

The bookies wouldn't bet against a draw.

BACKTRACK BRIEFS . . .

AN anxious weekend ahead for Sky Sports anchorman Jeff Stelling - his beloved Hartlepool in life or death action tonight, newly-adopted Gretna in the Scottish Cup semi-final tomorrow.

"I was hoping it would have been the Sunday semi-final, I think we'd have had an office outing, " he says.

His flirtation with Gretna - "They'll never take the place of Hartlepool, " he promises - came because of a fascination with free-scoring striker Kenny Deuchar, the so-called Flying Doctor.

"I mentioned him a couple of times and his grandma wrote to say how nice it was of me. I mentioned her in turn and then Kenny wrote to say how pleased his gran had been. It just sort of snowballed."

He's also much taken with Brooks Mileson, the Sunderland-born entrepreneur whose backing has helped Gretna progress.

"In television terms it's just something I'm hooked on, like Brooks is hooked on Marlboro and Lucozade.

"I tried to call him a philanthropist on air the other day and made a right pig's ear of it. In future I'll just call him a good bloke."

He also confesses a soft spot for East Stirling, and honorary membership of the Shire Supporters Club - "because they always lose."

Hartlepool haven't been winning many, either. "We've got into a real mess and you can explain it in two words, Boyd and Porter, " says the former Hartlepool Mail reporter.

"You can't be brilliant every season. I'll happily settle for hanging on by our fingertips, but it's getting much too close for comfort."

MAKING his mark, the engraver rings to report that the Durham Challenge Cup is 100 years old this season. It's not, it's just the etchings on the handsome old trophy which are.

John Topping, Durham FA chief executive and Sunderland season ticket holder, points out that the competition was first contested in 1884 - when Sunderland, appropriately, won it.

The only winners in the first ten years were Sunderland, Darlington and Bishop Auckland Church Institute.

This year's final, at Durham City on Good Friday morning, is between Billingham Synthonia and Whickham.

John, meanwhile, was much taken by Arsenal's demolition of Juventus on Tuesday evening. "It was just like watching us against Blackburn last Saturday, " he insists.

EILEEN Sproates, editor of Wear Down South - the magazine of Sunderland's London area fan club - appears to be rather less impressed with what's going on at the Stadium of Light.

"The bizarre story that is Sunderland continues, " her latest editorial begins. "Once again we've made the news with our own brand of illtiming and weird PR. Why sack Mick now?"

Still, it's not all bad news.

After victories over Manchester City and the mighty Dagenham and Redbridge, the branch's quiz team has just been promoted.

No question.

MERVYN Hardy, the man who put the querulous into Critics' Corner, is back home after his gall bladder op and looking forward to the new season at Chester-le-Street Riverside.

For the third year running, Durham begin with two "warm-up" games against Scotland, on April 13 and 14.

The past two seasons it was so wet, they told the intending visitors not even to bother putting their coats on.

Mervyn, Shotton Colliery lad and Peterlee magistrate, expresses particular gratitude to his friend Brian Maddison from Wheatley Hill, who arrived at his bedside with a pound of black grapes and a raw cauli.

"Judging by my rapid recovery, cauliflower must have restorative powers hitherto unsuspected."

JIM Caddy, that remarkable octogenarian from Redcar, is back from the world veterans' athletics championships in Austria with two silver medals - "the nicest I've ever won."

It might have been three, had not the plane from Newcastle been cancelled and he missed the 800m. "I had to go Ryanair next day, it cost me £123, " he says.

Chasing 82, he now looks forward to defending a clutch of British titles at Horwich before the European Games in Poland in July.

Among other North-East successes in Austria was Kath Stewart of North Shields Poly, who won three silvers in the Over 65 category. Ever the gentleman, Jim doesn't know her exact age. "It is not, " he says, "the kind of thing you ask."

WHITBY Town, who used their posh new 505-seat stand for the first time on Wednesday, have Showaddywaddy back in town in an attempt to raise funds for the club.

A sell-out last time, the 70s swingers are at the Spa on Friday June 30, with support.

Tickets are £15, c/o the Nationwide Building Society, 5 Victoria Square, Whitby YO21 1EA. Cheques to Whitby Town FC.

AND FINALLY...

THE first team to score 1,000 Football League goals (Backtrack, March 28) was Aston Villa.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee today invites the identity of the former international footballer sold in 1982 for 11 tracksuits and a line marking machine.

With a report from the heart of Hampden, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 03/04/2006