FOR decades, not least in these columns, it has been proclaimed without challenge as a unique claim to sporting fame.

The late Warren Bradley became, in 1958-59, the only footballer to win amateur and “full” international caps in the same season.

We repeated it when the former Bishop Auckland winger died in 2007 and again just a few weeks back – and are now advised by Geoff Wood of the Durham Amateur Football Trust that it’s simply not the case.

Max Woosnam achieved the pro-am double in 1921-22 – and very much else besides.

Charles Burgess Fry, Sir Ian Botham and others have been hailed The Great All Rounder. Max Woosnam may simply have been The Greatest.

As a footballer he captained Manchester City, as a tennis player won Olympic gold and the Wimbledon doubles, as a cricketer hit a century at Lord’s, as a snooker player achieved a 147 break and as a golfer played off scratch.

We’ll come to table tennis in a minute.

Dedicated to the Corinthian ideal, Woosnam also had a lifetime’s devotion to Capstan Full Strength.

He was born in 1892, son of a wealthy clergyman who became Archdeacon of Macclesfield, no relation to Ian Woosnam, the golfer. His sororal grandniece, however, is Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland.

He attended Winchester College and Cambridge University, won five Blues, hit 144 for the Public Schools X1 at Lord’s, played post-war football for Chelsea and Corinthians, declined to captain the Great Britain team at the 1920 Olympics because he’d already committed himself to the tennis.

Woosnam also turned down numerous invitations to turn professional. It was, he said. “vulgar.”

After moving north to work for ICI in Cheshire – he became a director – he joined Manchester City as an amateur, becoming captain at the urging of his professional team mates.

After several 1921-22 caps as an amateur he captained the “full” side in a 1-0 win against Wales, the English side including Frederick “Fanny” Walden, at 5ft 2ins still the smallest player to represent his country.

Max Woosnam died in 1965 of respiratory failure. No one mentioned the Capstan.

THE only other occasion on which Max Woosnam has been mentioned hereabouts was in 1996, a question about the only Premier League club to have been represented by two Olympic gold medallists – the other was Kazimierrz Deyna, a former Polish captain who died in a car smash in 1989, aged just 41.

Above the question was a piece about Neasham Women’s Institute, near Darlington, enjoying a night out at Cleveland Park dogs – “elderly and near-empty” – in Middlesbrough. The ladies, we said, had nothing to lose but their reputation.

First off in 1928, Cleveland Park greyhound and speedy stadium closed soon afterwards. Better bet, the WI still meets in Neasham.

AH yes, table tennis. While captaining Britain’s Davis Cup team in America in 1920, Woosnam was invited as a guest to Charlie Chaplin’s Hollywood mansion. The pair, it’s recorded, seemed to take an instant dislike to one another.

Chaplin challenged his guest to a tennis match. Woosnam won. Next there was a game of table tennis, which Woosnam won while using a butter knife as a bat. It was said to be his party piece.

Thereafter the guest just pushed the host into the pool.

WITHIN hours of Geoff Wood’s email, another arrives from David Thompson – drawing attention to the unveiling in Kent of a memorial to Flying Officer Peter Pease, killed when his Spitfire crashed there in 1940. Son of Sir Richard and Lady Pease from Richmond in North Yorkshire, buried at Middleton Tyas, Peter Pease had been engaged – to Denise Maxwell Woosnam. She was, of course, Max’s daughter.

WOODNAM was also in the England amateur side which in January 1922 beat Wales 7-0 at the Vetch Field, Swansea, team-mates including Edgar Kail about whom – to the tune of Sing Hosanna – Dulwich Hamlet fans still chorus at every game.

Former Darlington Grammar School boy Norman Creek, a man almost as versatile and every bit as unassuming and as Corinthian as Woosnam, hit a hat-trick.

A Queen Elizabeth I school contemporary had been Graham Doggart, of the North-East department store family, who became FA chairman and died during the annual meeting in 1963.

Creek was commissioned into the Durham Light Infantry straight from school, transferred to the RAF, flew 62 missions before the end of the war and won the Military Cross before he was 21.

At Cambridge he switched from medicine to natural sciences because, say his family, he couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

He played Minor Counties cricket, turned out for the Quakers, became a public school teacher, an acclaimed radio and television broadcaster, author of seven “Teach Yourself” sports books, was appointed MBE in 1943, became the FA’s assistant director of coaching and manager of the England amateur team.

Creek acknowledged the Northern League’s notorious under-representation in the national team but said it was impossible to get to Bishop and back in a day.

Son of a senior LNER official and prominent Freemason, he was also an ardent monarchist, said to stand even when the king’s speech was on the radio. He was greatly dismayed when, in 1974, the FA abolished “amateur” status.

In 1997 his son, living in Canada, sent his father’s caps to his old school – “his grandsons are more interested in ice hockey and Canadian football,” he wrote. Last we heard, they were lost.

NORMAN Creek was the BBC’s co-commentator for the 1936 FA Cup final, a late replacement for former Northern Echo reporter George Allison from Hurworth. That Allison had become Arsenal manager, and that they were in the final, may have had something to do with it.

By 1939 his standing was so high that the broadcaster sent him north, first class on the Silver Jubilee and with the promise of a “sumptuous dinner” on the way back, to commentate on the FA Amateur Cup final between Bishop Auckland and Willington at Roker Park.

It went to extra-time before Willington’s 3-0 victory. Whether the BBC paid half an hour’s overtime overtime is, sadly, not recorded.

WARREN Bradley, a quiet and genuinely nice man, was among several players who travelled from the north-west to play for the fabled Bishop Auckland side of the 1950s.

He’d studied at Durham University, played university cricket alongside Frank Tyson, became a pilot officer at RAF Middleton St George, answered Manchester United’s call – along with Bishops’ team mates Derek Lewin and Bob Hardisty – after the Munich air disaster sixty years ago.

Though he became semi-professional, United still found him a job as a teacher. On one occasion he followed a tough day at school with an evening friendly against Real Madrid.

After 11 amateur international appearances, the first of his three full caps came in May 1959. Warren scored in a 2-2 draw against Italy at Wembley, Bobby Charlton hitting the other.

In the year 2000 he underwent a quadruple heart bypass, appeared to have made a remarkable recovery but died in 2007, a fortnight before his 74th birthday.

Though his achievements may no longer be supposed unique, he remains just one of seven English footballers – Terry Venables another – to have represented the country at amateur and pro levels. He remains a very special guy.