MARK JOHNSTON’S achievement in becoming numerically the most successful trainer in British racing history recalls a 9.30am chat in the kitchen of Kingsley House, Middleham. It was July 1989 and the champagne stood, unopened, on the worktop.

Until two weeks previously, the 29-year-old Scot had had ten winners in two-and-a-half years. Then there’d been five in a fortnight, including Hinari Televideo, a 10-1 shot in the William Hill Handicap at Ascot.

Two had been partnered by 48-year-old Bobby Elliott, who’d recommended the Kingsley House yard to Johnston and who’d ride for another five years. Even his travelling head girl, Debbie Doran from Darlington, topped the Racing Post table for the best turned out. Whatever happened to her?

Mark was a qualified vet and whippet racing enthusiast. Deirdre, his wife and childhood sweetheart., had been a teacher. They’d spent £160,000 buying Kingsley House, empty for two years, a further £340,000 on restoring house and yard.

“You need to have experienced some of the lows we’ve had really to appreciate this high,” said Deirdre.

“It sounds crazy, but I want to train Classic winners from Middleham,” said Mark.

The subsequent column was headed “Racing vet reveals his ‘crazy’ dream.” From 15 to 4,194, they may now have opened the champagne.

AN attempt to bring new life to the Sabbath, Durham FA’s Sunday Champions League kicks off on September 2.

Some may suppose it’s needed – the Durham and District Sunday League, for example, had almost 100 clubs in eight divisions at the millennium and now has around 50 in four.

Others aren’t so sure. A letter to the county FA from a Durham league official supposes it a “vanity project” that could only add further to fixture congestion.

The new competition, embracing winners of all eight Sunday leagues under the DFA aegis, begins with two groups of four, divided north and south.

The south group includes Thornaby Oddfellows, on the North Riding bank of the Tees, but probably they walk on water.

JUST 89 teams have entered this season’s FA Sunday Cup – once there were several hundred – and only one, the Iron Horse at Newton Aycliffe, from the Durham Sunday League. Others include Oyster Martyrs and Canada, both from Liverpool, Real Milan (Thames Valley), Borussia Martlesham (Suffolk), Sporting Dynamo (Hinckley) and Cock o’ the North, but they’re no more north than Halifax.

THE Crook and District League, now the only “local” Saturday league in Co Durham, has surprise early leaders of the first division – newly promoted Darlington Travellers, of whom the column remains president, already having seen off all-conquering Shildon Railway and then Heighington, 6-0, last Saturday.

Long serving secretary Alan Smith can’t resist crowing. “I seem to recall that James Cagney soon met his downfall after a similar proclamation. And as pride comes before a fall, I’ll be surprised if we don’t meet the same fate.”

REDCAR last had a Northern League team in 1922, their departure little lamented because the pitch was on the racecourse and the changing room in a pub more than a mile away.

Now Redcar Athletic are back, and almost en suite. Several of us went last Saturday, enjoyably refreshed before the match by a pint or two of Redcar Promotion Red Ale in Rita’s Pantry, a seafront micropub opposite the £1.6m Beacon (nee Vertical Pier.)

The Beacon’s ranked 14th of 16 Redcar attractions on Tripadvisor, appeared closed but apparently wasn’t. Lights and bushels came to mind, nonetheless.

The ale’s made by Taylor Illingworth, a brew newcomer on Middlesbrough riverside who also make Beam Mill, Blast Furnace and, less explicably, Bunker 241.

Athletic beat Durham City 4-0, several players and officials themselves back to Rita’s to raise a celebratory glass. For those who’d been to the match there was 80p off a pint. Welcome back, boys.

THESE summer-wine outings usually start with a Wetherspoons breakfast in Darlington. The television talked mutely of weekend closures at Euston station and of subsequent diversions. The sob-titles supposed them “diet versions” Over a Wetherspoons large, 1,515 calories even without the optional black pudding, it may not wholly have been appropriate.

LAST week’s column again celebrated the wonderful village green cricket field at Thornton Watlass, near Bedale, where the road runs 15 yards inside the boundary.

David Walsh notices a pic on a blog by Jonathan Calder – “Liberal Democrat Blogger of the Year, 2014” – of something very similar at Gumley, in Leicestershire.

The only difference is that at Gumley a board urges drivers to wait for a sign at the end of the over – and on the other side says “Thank you.”

….and finally, the six England cricketers before Chris Woakes who’ve claimed five wickets and hit a century at Lord’s – last week’s column– are Gubby Allen, Ian Botham, Ray Illingworth, Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes. None has more than one ton. Allen and Broad recorded two five-fors, as they say, Botham eight.

Bournemouth, now joint top of the Premier League, were 91st in the English leagues just nine years ago. Readers are today invited to name the four clubs above them at the time who are now at the sixth tier of the game.

Cherries on the cake, the column returns next week. As the 1st Earl of Stockton immortally observed, you’ve never had it so good.