Backlog jam

Good also to bump into boyhood football heroes like Eddie Swift – still in Shildon and celebrating his golden wedding that very day – and Raymond Ayre, also a canny cricketer in his time, who was 80 on Monday.

Shildon are now left to wade through a fixture backlog so impenetrable that it’s made headlines across Europe. Club secretary Gareth Howe sends cuttings from three Dutch newspapers, two of them showing pictures of the snowcovered Dean Street ground, which highlight their plight.

The headline speaks of 21 matches in 40 days, but that was a week or two ago. If the season’s to finish at the end of this month, they now face 19 in 27.

ANTICIPATING sunnier days, Martin Birtle discovers an article in which long-time Queensland Cricket Association scorer Robert Spencer recalls the three best innings he ever saw at the Gabba in Brisbane. One was by Colin Milburn, the dear old Burnopfield Basher.

It was November 1968, Queensland v Western Australia, for whom the youthful Ollie was then opening with Derek Chadwick.

When Milburn was out in the first over after tea, Western Australia became 328-1. He’d scored 243 of them, 38 4s and four 6s. In the 28 eight-ball overs after tea, the visitors had thrashed 229.

Finally, they declared at 615-5, winning by an innings and 75. The watching Western Australia captain Tony Lock – the only cricketer to amass more than 10,000 first class runs without ever once making a century.

THE column two weeks ago included a valediction to Harry Pollock, a legendary figure in local Darlington football – Pat Jennings-style goalkeeper, secretary and manager for many years with Darlington RA. His funeral was a week back Tuesday at Holy Family church in Cockerton, the same day that Harry’s Farewell won the 5 10 at Fontwell at 15-2.

Cockerton Coral’s is said not to have been troubled.

WE’D also carried a splendid photograph of world-beating athlete Sydney Wooderson, sent by Eddie Roxburgh and apparently taken sometime around the Second World War at a crowded stadium in the North-East.

Since none has been able to identify it, Eddie – with a little help from his friends – answers his own question.

It was May 25, 1946, Billingham Synthonia Recreation Club’s sports day, presumably on the old Belasis Lane ground.

First in the relatively slow time of 4.28.2, the bespectacled Wooderson was still 20 seconds ahead of G Schoey (Thornaby RAF) in second place and L Darling, of West Hartlepool Burn Road Harriers, in third.

Wooderson was clearly working towards a peak. On May 13, he’d opened the season with a 4.49 mile.

On June 14, he clocked 4.19.7.

Colin Milburn

The three miles and 5,000m were his real targets in 1946, however, and he paced himself beautifully. Less than two months after being content to run at Billingham sports, he ran 13.52.2 – a British record – when winning the AAA three miles at the White City.

The following month he took the European 5,000m crown in 14.08.06, the second fastest time in the world.

THERE’D been memories, too, of the great Derek Ibbotson running in a Round Table mile race at Bishop Auckland. John Maughan sent the column to his brother who not only recalled being at Kingsway that night but that Ibbotson pulled up in the last lap after inadvertently being spiked.

The youngsters gathered with their autograph books. “Line up, chaps,” said Ibbotson. They thought he talked real posh, says John’s brother.

THE phone rings: 8.30pm over here but half past three in the morning in Thailand from where George Alberts is sleeplessly calling. The former Gateshead Reserves goalkeeper and Durham Millburngate shopping centre manager is listening to Gateshead v Newport County, played at Boston United, on BBC Radio Wales. The commentator has just described it as the worst match he’s ever seen. “Do you think I’m mad?”

A Dutch newspaper highlights Shildon’s plight

George asks.

...and finally, the London nonleague club which plays at Champion Hill (Backtrack, March 28) is Dulwich Hamlet. David Whitfield in Bishop Auckland was the first of several on top of that one. A question filched from one or other of the Ground Hop programmes, readers are today invited to name the 1980s Grand National winner that shared a name with a lighthouse on Jersey.

Further enlightenment next week.