Backtrack

Fingers outing

1:00pm Saturday 13th July 2019

n the tea train up Wensleydale we find ourselves sitting opposite Dave “Fingers” Morrison, the wicketkeeper with metacarpals like a relief map of the Himalayas.

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Tangle o’ the Isles

12:00pm Saturday 13th July 2019

A 35-0 win, a great exhibition and memories of the day that ladybirds stopped play

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Early kick-off - the football season's already started in this town

9:20am Saturday 29th June 2019

BEFORE Wimbledon, long before the first test match, the day after the summer solstice, football returned last Saturday – Richmond Town v Penrith on what’s twice been voted England’s most scenic ground

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Winded in the Willows: Village with no pub, shop, state school or church, sa bus service which seldom runs and a railway which doesn’t stop

8:20am Saturday 29th June 2019

NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS, permanent population about 350, is an attractive village a few miles west of Bedale in North Yorkshire and must on no account be confused with the much larger place of the same name, pop 22,000, between Manchester and Liverpool.

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When Bishop Auckland’s footballers really hit the heights

12:10pm Saturday 22nd June 2019

Year after year the open-topped bus would edge down the thronged main street, town band to the fore, before decanting Bishop Auckland’s triumphant footballers at the Frenchified town hall.

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Ultra-runner gearing up for greatest challenge

12:10pm Saturday 22nd June 2019

The truly astonishing ultra-runner Sharon Gayter, now 55, nears her greatest test yet – an attempt to beat 12 days for the 822-miles from John o’ Groats to Lands End.

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A downcomer for Spout

8:00am Saturday 15th June 2019

SPOUT HOUSE, custodians of Christendom’s most vertiginous cricket ground – and one of its most magnificent – have resigned in mid-season from the Feversham League.

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Magnificent milestone for the Wensleydale Football League

7:00am Saturday 15th June 2019

A MAGNIFICENT milestone and a tribute to tenacity, the Wensleydale Football League marked its centenary at Tennant’s in Leyburn last Friday.

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Ice hockey team secures place in the world elite group

5:03am Saturday 8th June 2019

MUCH else may be on the rocks, but British ice hockey has rarely been in a better place. Helped by Robert Dowd and Ben O’Connor – good North-East lads – the GB national team has just confounded all expectations by securing its place in the world elite group for the second successive season.

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Blow by blow account

5:00am Saturday 8th June 2019

IT must be half a century, almost to the minute, and more of minutes anon, since last I covered a council meeting beneath the stained glass dome of Spennymoor town hall.

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Parental Guidance

9:13am Saturday 1st June 2019

A cricket record that can never be beaten, only equalled, was claimed among the grass roots of the Langbaurgh League second division last Saturday. Ten of Yarm’s third team against Nunthorpe II were father and son.

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McPheat’s feat

9:04am Saturday 1st June 2019

The column three weeks ago recorded the death of former Sunderland footballer Willie McPheat, 23 goals in 72 appearances in the early 1960s.

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Clique and go

8:41am Saturday 25th May 2019

Sir Ian Botham and David Thomas, international sportsmen and pretty much of an age, played Barnard Castle Cricket Club last Friday evening.

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Mike Amos: Queen for the day as all roads head to Dumfries

8:30am Saturday 25th May 2019

On and off for many a year, it has been the column’s irregular custom to convene a gathering of the FA Cup Escape Final Committee (and Scotch Pie Fest), its direction northwards, its intention obvious.

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Mountaineer Alan Hinkes may have hit 65 but insists he’s still at the top

8:40am Saturday 18th May 2019

The Times, still supposed the top people’s paper, recorded the other day the 65th birthday of Alan Hinkes, a man with a unique place among the nation’s high achievers.

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Mike Amos: Region's top Watford fan in fine fettle ahead of FA Cup final

6:00am Saturday 18th May 2019

A beer at Darlington Cricket Club where Jonny Barnes, one of the North-East game’s great all-rounders, has clicked over another decade and looks forward to playing for Durham County over 50s.

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Mike Amos: Magic moments as the football season edges to an end

5:10am Saturday 11th May 2019

LARGELY unmemorable, the football season edges to an end. Both with a back story, the column’s final matches – probably – took place over the bank holiday weekend.

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Washing cycle: Mike Amos spends a couple of hours in a launderette

5:10am Saturday 11th May 2019

HIS book on North-East football has twice been named among the top 50 sports books of all time; two of his cricket books have won the MCC/Cricket Society’s top annual award.

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Mike Amos: Last man standing from epic FA Amateur Cup team dies aged 89

6:00am Sunday 5th May 2019

Tommy Riley, last man standing in the Crook Town team which won the twice replayed and truly epic FA Amateur Cup final in 1954, has died. He was 89.

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Mike Amos: Dropping a Berwick with anxious fans at the North-East’s favourite Scottish League club

6:50am Saturday 4th May 2019

Three things everyone knows about Berwick-upon-Tweed: it’s in England (just), it’s at war with Russia and its football team plays in the Scottish League.

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