Evan Bryson, a man who devoted his life to getting kids off the streets and into football, has died. He was 82.

For 48 years he was secretary of the celebrated Redheugh Boys Club in Gateshead, the two great unwritten rules that there should be no smoking and no swearing.

We'd written about him in 2007, chatted for two hours in his little first-floor flat. "Maybe we should have taught them other things," he said, gazing from the window. "You should see the number of prams around here."

Five years ago he was awarded the MBE, the letter from 10 Downing Street framed on the wall. "All those kids from Bristol Road school," he mused, "and only me ever got that."

Redheugh old boys included Paul Gascogine, Don Hutchison, David Hodgson, Tommy Robson - the first to make a Football League career - and Ian Branfoot, who after more than 300 Football League games with Sheffield Wednesday, Doncaster and Lincoln became manager of Reading, Southampton and Fulham.

Ian, now 64, was among the three guests Evan asked to join him at Buckingham Palace. "Evan being Evan he wanted to go down on the seven o'clock train that morning and come straight back in the afternoon," he recalls.

"We said we weren't doing that and luckily I knew someone who got us rooms in a good Hyde Park hotel at a silly price.

"Luckier still, West Ham were at home the night before the investiture and I knew Alan Pardew who was manager at the time. He got us an executive box, laid on a lovely buffet, made a real fuss of Evan.

"It was a memorable occasion, one of those when everything just seems to go right, but none of it changed Evan. I don't think he ever wore the medal."

The Boys Club started in an old school kitchen in 1957, plans to use an old double decker bus as changing rooms abandoned because scrap metal thieves stole the fittings.

Evan never took a penny, cherished the horse's head motif with the Greek motto "Prego". It meant friendship.

Though Gazza remains the club's most famous discovery - "plump little feller, couldn't cope with pace but you could see he was very special" - he was particularly pleased that they helped Don Hutchison, the Gateshead miner's son who played 26 times for Scotland after starting as a YTS lad with Hartlepool.

"There are people who claim they can spot a footballer when he's three years old and they can't," said Evan. "Don Hutchison was the one they almost all missed."

He only became involved, he'd insist, because he was becoming far too fond of a bet at Gateshead dogs. "I'd just come out of the Army, was bored to tears and spending too much time at the stadium.

"I wouldn't say I was addicted, but it was like Woodbines if you were a smoker. I started just going to the first four races then the first three, weaned myself off it. The boys club helped that, too.

"I had no great ideas about channelling kids' energies. I just happened to like football, simple as that. It didn't matter that they couldn't play particularly well, the great thing was that parents trusted me with their sons.

"Everyone was welcome at Redheugh. It didn't matter about your race or background, but probably about 60 or 70 per cent were from around the doors. It wasn't about playing football, it was about companionship."

Now there are 15 teams and work's in progress on a new £2.6m headquarters. Terry Ritson, former club chairman and now project co-ordinator, was also at Evan's investiture.

"He was the most honest man I ever knew," says Terry. "I never heard him swear and I never heard him say a bad word about anyone.

"Evan was the last of the Last of the Summer Wine, the men we affectionately called the Redheugh Politburo, they've all gone now."

George Alberts - former Redheugh goalkeeper, Durham County Cricket League sponsor and manager of the Millburngate shopping centre in Durham - got in touch from Thailand. "A simply wonderful man, one of the finest I ever came across," he says.

Ian Branfoot is now in "happy retirement" in Hampshire, awaiting the arrival of his fifth grandson. His wife reckons he can start a five-a-side team.

"Evan was just a genuine and a genuinely nice man," he says. "Discipline was the great thing, you did as you were told at Redheugh but it was a very good place to be. Evan just always seemed to be there."

He'd stood down as secretary in 2005 because of ill health. "I've just told them to carry on as if I wasn't there," he said four years ago. "If they want me, I always will be, of course."

BACKTRACK BRIEFS...

Shooting, it may safely be said, is not the Backtrack column's usual bag. Not inner circle, not outer circle, not in the same field.

Senses cocked, nonetheless, at the news that millionaire financier Jonathan Ruffer - Stokesley lad originally - is paying £15m to protect the Zurburan paintings at Auckland Castle.

Was it not in the early 1970s that I wrote about Major John Edward Maurice Ruffer - forever JEM - a Stokesley travel agent who'd produced a book called The Art of Good Shooting?

So it proves, the benefactor's old dad. Though the cuttings library sadly scores a blank, it was 1972.

Others will now track down the local angles. Suffice that Major Ruffer, a Royal Marine, served four wartime years on warships, witnessed the sinking of the Hood, headed Churchill's bodyguard at Potsdam and for 25 years wrote a fortnightly column in Shooting Times. He died, aged 98, last October, his book still much treasured.

"Although it's dated, the guy is clearly a genius," writes one on-line reviewer.

The only problem may be that some of the descriptions of available copies - "bumped corners and hinges weak….spike mark at head of spine….slightly discoloured in accordance with age" - sit uncomfortably close to home.

Still, there's not much wrong with the old memory - and with the son who saved the Zurburans, JEM Ruffer was clearly bang on target.

Electronically searching for "Stokesley" and "Ruffer" proves interesting. Closely juxtaposed on eBay are The Art of Good Shooting and the Esh Winning v Stokesley programme from earlier this season. The latter want for £1.51, the former may have aimed a little higher.

Coincidentally, the column was itself in Stokesley on Wednesday evening - North Riding Senior Cup final, Guisborough Town v Marske United. Had news of Jonathan Ruffer's largesse broken a few hours earlier, who knows what else might have been forthcoming.

A bit early for a cup final, perhaps one or two of those lads in need of shooting boots as well, the game attracted a 599 crowd. "I think we're going to have to take advice on windfall tax," said Len Scott, the North Riding FA chairman.

The Zurburan windfall not yet having been unveiled, conversation turned instead to the Mars largesse that has brought a new sports pavilion to Carberby, in Wensleydale on the back of a television commercial.

The high-profile Peter Crouch, it may be recalled, flew up for the last day's filming.

Curiously, Crouch has yet to appear in the ads. Could the big lad have been dropped again? Len doubts it. "I think," he said, "that you can expect him off the bench any day now."

Beneath a summer sky and the headline "Are bears out of the woods?", we wrote last July of an enjoyable night at the speedway - Redcar Bears v Kings Lynn Stars.

Redcar were bottom, Kings Lynn top. "While it may be true that what goes around comes around, with the Bears it's usually a few seconds slower," we observed.

Though the Bears mauled ‘em, there were those who were more shale shocked about the column. Among those who did approve was prolific speedway author Jeff Scott, also in attendance.

Jeff, above, who lives in Brighton but holds a Sunderland football season ticket, now sends an advance copy of his tenth book. Mike Amos, it says, is legendary, prolific, elegant, witty, modest (!), prodigious, professional - "intense staccato bursts of shorthand" - amiable and engaging.

Improbably and incredibly, it gets better still. Mr Amos, says Jeff, was the best dressed man in the stadium. Clearly I must go to speedway more often.

Addressed to the secretary of the Darlington 5s and 3s League, Phil Robson - for it is he - finds on his doormat a magazine about sex trafficking. "Are you sure your neighbour isn't a sex slave?" it asks. Phil, who's pretty sure, is puzzled to be a recipient. "We're described as a games league," he says. "I think they may be taking it too literally."

Tuesday's Wembley ceremony to honour Arthur Wharton, Darlington's goalkeeper 100 years ago and Britain's first black professional footballer, caused someone to dig out a 1942 cutting from the Sheffield telegraph and Independent.

T H Smith, the writer, recalled a match between Rotherham and Sheffield Wednesday at Olive Grove. "I saw Wharton jump, take hold of the crossbar, catch the ball between his legs and cause three onrushing forwards to fall into the net."

"I have never seen a similar save and I have been watching football for over 50 years."

AND FINALLY...

the four cricketers who've played in the current World Cup and also for Durham II (Backtrack, March 29) are Imran Tahir (South Africa), the Irishmen Kevin O'Brien and Will Porterfield and - who'd have thought it - Paul Collingwood.

Today back to the North Riding Senior Cup, first contested in 1881-82 and won - the first of 52 triumphs - by Middlesbrough. Readers are invited to suggest the teams second, third and fourth in that list.

The column now hopes to take a week off. Back tracking on April 12.