THE sports desk, it should be said, appears not greatly to have been overworked back in the distant-Echo days of 1872.

Barely a dozen lines appeared beneath the heading “Sporting” on Monday, December 2, and those solely to accommodate the meeting dates of the South Durham Hunt.

It seems a shame because we missed the first recognised football international, Scotland v England on St Andrew’s Day, and it had been organised by a feller from Sunderland.

Among other news items was a “great fire” among the shops in Clayton Street, Newcastle, a fatal accident on the railway at West Hartlepool – “deceased slightly the worse for liquor”

– and a seeming murder mystery up at Hawes.

“There is little to add,”

began our correspondent, and added it for 1,500 words.

The letters column ranged from the provision of spitoons in smoking carriages to the strike by the Stockton puddlers, the leading article concerned the weather.

“What an awful November it has been….” No change there, then.

There was also a substantial section headed “Jottings from the Athenaeum”, though whether it would have been of overwhelming interest to Stockton’s striking puddlers it is impossible to say.

THE Sunderland lad was Charles William Alcock, who though his time on Wearside was but short was remembered last November by the official unveiling of a blue plaque outside the natal home in Norfolk Street.

So the media claimed, anyway. In truth, reports Tom Purvis, the event was staged – exclamations of the “Oh, surely not!” variety may here be inserted – for the benefit of the press. The plaque wasn’t properly erected until this week.

“Something to do with health and safety,” says Tom, who runs a splendid website on all the City of Sunderland’s 50-odd blue plaque sites.

The house is now the office of Sunderland Central MP Julie Elliott and it’s Tom who has produced the fine photomontage.

Many thanks.

ALCOCK was quite a boy.

Born on December 2 1842, he was reckoned in 1866 the first footballer to be given offside, played for Middlesex the following year in the first county cricket match and for much of the remainder of the 19th Century simultaneously held the posts of secretary of the FA and of Surrey County Cricket Club, editor of James Lewthwaite’s cricket annual and of the Cricket newspaper.

He launched the FA Cup competition and captained the winning side in the first final in 1872, refereed the 1875 and 1879 finals and was the man behind the first cricket Test match on home soil, England versus Australia in September 1880.

He’d also organised five earlier football matches between England and Scotland, though they’re not recognised by FIFA. Whether he was also half of Alcock and Brown, whether it was his ball an’ all, must remain a matter for speculation.

MIND, the first FA Cup was a funny business, not least because Wanderers – Alcock’s team – reached the final having won just once in the four preceding rounds.

Fifteen teams entered, two or three never kicked a ball, the semi-finals and final were to be played at The Oval. Alcock, it will be remembered, was Surrey’s secretary, too.

Wanderers had drawn 0-0 with Queens Park in the semi-final, the Scots withdrawing because they couldn’t afford a second trip to London for the replay.

Wanderers beat Royal Engineers 1-0 in the final with a goal from Morton Betts who, like Alcock, was an old Harrovian and who played under the pseudonym A H Chequer.

The following year, Wanderers were given a bye to the final – the definition of a “challenge” cup, said Alcock.

That FIFA declines to recognise the first five internationals is chiefly because most of the Scots lived in London. Alcock had tried to form a broader base with letters to Scottish newspapers.

“I cannot help but think that the appearance of the more prominent celebrities of football on the northern side of the Tweed would do much to disseminate a healthy feeling of good fellowship among the contestants and tend to promote to a still greater extent the extension of the game.”

That none appeared interested may partly have been because the Scots usually played with more than 11 men.

Alcock came in for criticism, nonetheless, and again turned to the correspondence columns.

“The right to play was open to every Scotchman whether his lines were cast north or south of the Tweed.

The fault lies on the heads of the players of the north.”

The first recognised international was played on the Hamilton Crescent cricket ground in Partick, the 4,000 crowd charged a bob apiece.

Scotland, drawn entirely from Queens Park, wore dark blue. England were in white, with matching caps. Alcock, unable to play because he’d done himself a damage, became umpire instead. It ended goalless.

The first Test match on home soil was between September 6-8 1880, England winning by five wickets.

Though the Echo ignored the first day, we’d caught up with the “great and important” occasion by the third and had no doubt that the better team had won.

The South Durham Hunt never got so much as a sniff.

SPEAKING of Sunderland and of the FA Cup, John Briggs draws attention to the death this week of former Roker centre-forward Bill Holden. His recollections may be considered somewhat partial.

Striped like a stick of Seaburn rock, John remembers that Holden scored both goals in the 2-0 quarter-final win that on March 3, 1956 knocked holders Newcastle United out of the cup at St James’.

So he did – “grand goals”

wrote Tynesider in The Northern Echo. The crowd topped 61,000, the gate £9,600.

It was the same day that Boro won 5-2 at Stoke, that stalwart Darlington defender Brian Henderson suffered a double cheekbone fracture in the home defeat to Halifax and that leading referee Arthur Ellis sent off Hartlepool full-back Jack Cameron in the 2-2 draw at Chesterfield.

Bishop Auckland had continued on their annual Wembley way with a 4-0 win at Finchley – “a sharp rebuke to the England amateur selectors,” said the Echo after the Olympic squad failed to include anyone from the North-East.

Bill Holden, at any rate, had signed for Sunderland at Christmas 1955 – the fee an astronomical £12,000, the circumstances unusual.

Sunderland – the bit poor John Briggs appears to have forgotten – had lost 6-1 to Newcastle in the Boxing Day massacre at Roker Park. Bill Curry, Vic Keeble and Jackie Milburn each scored twice.

The board decided that something had to be done before the return – and the return was the following day.

They signed Holden late that night, the player heading to the North-East at dawn.

Though he scored on his debut – a 3-1 defeat – he didn’t hit the target again until that cup tie.

Bill, who finally hit seven goals in 24 appearances before for signing for Stockport County, had been ill for some time at a nursing home in Morecambe. He was 82.

Backtrack briefs

ON Tuesday evening to West Auckland v Ryton, talk at West quickly turning to the golden jubilee of the club’s only FA Amateur Cup final appearance – April 22 1961.

It’ll be marked, they hope, by a reunion on April 23 both of the surviving members of the team and of other players from that era.

Bishop Auckland, their neighbours, were never away from Wembley. Crook, a few miles up the A68, had won the cup twice in the 1950s and would do it again in 1962 and 1964. For West the occasion was to prove unique, a special midnight train laid on from the village station.

“It was so long, they had to have one half in the platform and then the other half.

The whole village emptied out,”

recalls Stuart Alderson, then an excited 12- year-old and now the club’s general manager.

Already he was on Newcastle United’s books, though he still trained with West Auckland – “if I’d been lamed there’d have been hell on.”

West led Walthamstow Avenue 1-0, lost 2-1. “They still laid on an open topped bus, still turned the town band out to march it up from St Helen’s,” says Stuart, who made three Football League appearances for the Magpies and 17 for York City.

The reunion will start at the Spennymoor Town v West Auckland match, followed by a do in the West clubhouse.

Former players, or any who know their whereabouts, can contact Stuart on 07818- 223798.

JIMMY McMillan, one of the Amateur Cup greats – four Wembley appearances with Crook Town, four winner’s medals – is the subject of a three-week exhibition starting at Crook library on February 21.

To tie in with it, the Durham Amateur Football Trust plans a film evening at the St Catherine’s Centre in the town on March 8 at which they, in turn, hope for a players’ reunion.

The public is also very welcome at that evening, though free tickets should be claimed in advance from Crook library or the Community Partnership office in Hope Street.

Jimmy’s alive and well and living near Gateshead.

Other players from that era should contact John Phelan on 01388-768551, email john.mphelan@yahoo.co.uk PETER Crouch was in Carperby on Thursday. There may not have been such excitement in that lovely little Wensleydale village since the column presented the Lord Dugdale Cup to the Dales Cup winners getting on 11 years ago – and on that occasion, we’d noted, Carperby hadn’t known such excitement since James Herriot spent his honeymoon at the Wheatsheaf.

Now they’re getting a magnificent new sports pavilion, principally funded by Mars as part of an advertising campaign.

Carperby was chosen from three finalists.

“They got lucky,” says a local. “The producers came up on a fine day, not one of those horizontal rain days up here when you wouldn’t take a dog out.

They were swept away by it.”

Just one small disappointment. The great Theo Walcott was supposed to be coming as well but had to cry off. Carperby works, rests and plays, nonetheless.

And finally...

TUESDAY’S column sought the identity of the England cricketer to have bagged the most Test match ducks – and found itself on a pair.

Steve Harmison has 20 from 84 innings, with an average of 12.16. Mike Atherton, no less, has 20 from 212 innings. His average, 37.69, is a bit healthier, though.

Caddick, Hoggard and Underwood tie for second place with 19 apiece.

Flintoff had 17, Botham 14. The hapless Courtney Walsh has the most round-figure totals in Test match history, 43.

Norman Robinson in Annfield Plain points out that a footballer who appeared for Arsenal in the 1968 League Cup final, a Scottish athlete who won silver at the 1972 Olympics and a former incumbent of Auckland Castle all have the same name.

What is it? The column returns on Tuesday.