Backtrack

New town old boys

6:06am Saturday 8th December 2018

A nostalgic gathering tonight will reunite all 12 members of a record breaking football squad more than half a century after last they played together.

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The Railroad to Wembley travels by train but flies with the Lancasters

5:00am Saturday 8th December 2018

THIS is the Christmas Railroad to Wembley, almost a flight of fancy, though things get off to a distinctly unfestive start.

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Backtrack: Munich remembered

5:01am Saturday 1st December 2018

BORN out of terrible sadness, the story of the enduringly happy relationship between Bishop Auckland and Manchester United football clubs began a new chapter last week.

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Backtrack: Round figures

5:01am Saturday 1st December 2018

TIM WELLOCK, affectionately remembered on the Echo’s sports pages, is the new seniors captain at Barnard Castle Golf Club. Come up and see us, he suggests.

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Backtrack: Mike Amos finds rich pickings on the presentation circuit

7:30am Sunday 25th November 2018

BACKTRACK and Thornton Watlass Cricket Club go right back to 1995, when a letter in The Times supposed it the world’s finest ground.

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Brandon Cricket Club under a cloud, but one man is up to the challenge

5:30am Sunday 25th November 2018

UNDER a pretty heavy cloud, Brandon Cricket Club’s presentation evening takes place tonight.

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Bennett's time at Sunderland prompts star crossed photo of 80s squad

7:30am Saturday 17th November 2018

THE column a couple of weeks back recalled Gary Bennett’s time at Sunderland, prompting Alan Peart in Sedgefield to send what might be termed a star-crossed photograph of the 1985-86 squad.

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The Railroad to Wembley heads paradoxically north, but first remembers an old friend

5:00am Saturday 17th November 2018

HIND legs, hindsight, the column found itself speaking last week at Hartlepool Indoor Bowls Club, home down 40-odd years to top players like former Great Britain team manager Mally Hughes and of internationals like Carole Winn, who was at the talk.

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Double tops

6:21am Saturday 3rd November 2018

A presentation tonight will acknowledge a memorable double for Haughton Cricket Club and some welcome good news for the grass roots game.

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Back home

6:14am Saturday 3rd November 2018

Back where it just about began, Frank Clark was at Crook Town last week to launch his autobiography. Since it was near enough Hallowe’en, his ghost came with him.

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Penalty clause

6:07am Saturday 27th October 2018

Reporting Paul Joannou’s new book on Newcastle United’s World War I heroes, the column a fortnight back mentioned Captain Thomas Sowerby Rowlandson MC, from a landed family at Newton Morrell, south of Darlington.

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Colour piece

5:59am Saturday 27th October 2018

Sunderland’s second black player recalls the shock among the red-and-whites

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To Hull and back

7:27am Saturday 20th October 2018

It’s impossible to arrive at Hull railway station, formerly and more satisfactorily known as Hull Paragon, without being reminded at every turn that in 2017 this was the UK City of Culture.

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Mike Amos: 1975 recalled and a Shildon lad in the Guinness Book

6:11am Saturday 20th October 2018

PAUL Edwards in School Aycliffe, near Darlington, has been down to Tremadog to help sort his late father’s effects. Among them he finds a Backtrack cutting from 2001.

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BACKTRACK: The great all-rounder

5:04am Saturday 6th October 2018

RAYMOND AYRE – great all-rounder, great guy – died on Monday evening. He was 85.

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BACKTRACK: Forestry commission

5:01am Saturday 6th October 2018

HAMSTERLEY is an attractive village of around 500 souls, just seven miles west of Bishop Auckland but pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

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Backtrack with Mike Amos: Roger’s and hammock time

5:00am Saturday 29th September 2018

LIKE Santa Claus three months early, but timed perfectly nonetheless, Mr Roger Jennings arrives bearing gifts.

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Former Boro star Jamie Pollock arrives to save Synners

8:00am Sunday 16th September 2018

HE has played at high level for Middlesbrough, Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers. Now Jamie Pollock – older, wiser and very significantly heavier – is seeking to restore the fortunes of Billingham Synthonia, the Synners having dramatically fallen from grace.

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C-2-C worthy

5:20am Saturday 15th September 2018

Some may have walked, others cycled, all or bits of the 140-mile Coast-to-Coast route from Whitehaven to Tynemouth. Many will understand how formidable it is.

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Scoular and a gentleman?

5:58am Saturday 8th September 2018

The Times obituary on Burnley legend Jimmy McIlroy, an Irishman among a team of North-East lads, recalled an encounter with the formidable Jimmy Scoular – more indelibly remembered at Newcastle United but then at Portsmouth.

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