Spuhler - a Boro star on £12 a week

He was also an outstanding footballer - Sunderland before the war, Middlesbrough, chiefly, thereafter - and always Nancy on the same side.

"If I'd not taken an interest in football," she once said, "I'd never have spoken a word in this house."

They'd met on a tram on the way to the match, courted when she attended teacher training college in Darlington - Johnny had to have a note from her mum just to get into the place, never mind to get her out again - married on November 11, 1939.

"Peace Day, and we've argued ever since," Nancy once joked.

"Contentment is entirely down to a good wife," said Johnny.

He was born in Fulwell, Sunderland, watched Sunderland play for a tanner a time, won the first of his two England schoolboy caps against Wales, an honour so great that the school had a whip round to buy him a suit.

"Two paper rounds and I couldn't afford one. Mind, I looked a real toff," said Johnny - and so, inarguably, he was.

Arsenal offered £2,000 for him in 1937. Johnny turned it down, stopped at home with Nancy, wondered forever after if he might have won England caps had he migrated.

Middlesbrough came in after the war. Though there were dire warnings about venturing into the unknown - "People said it was a queer place, Middlesbrough, it was Yorkshire" - Nancy didn't like Sunderland manager Bill Murray and urged acceptance.

"A real snotty feller," she said, "used to leave me standing round like a tin of milk."

They moved down the A19 in the little Standard for which they'd saved £160, two children, cat, dog and budgerigar in the back and Nancy crying all the way.

Boro put them up in a clubhouse with a telephone - they didn't know anyone else who had one, so had it taken out again - paid £12 a week but looked after them well. He hit 81 goals in 241 Cup and League games, so fast off the mark that he beat Jackie Milburn in the pro footballers' sprint at Powderhall.

His mates included the late Tommy Blenkinsopp, the hard-as-hobs half-back from Witton Park with whom he'd have the occasional drink, magnified then as now.

Tom once recalled how he and Johnny had been doing a darts presentation at the Princess Alice in Middlesbrough. "We had four halves all evening. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs, we'd had ten pints."

When Johnny moved to Darlington to finish his career under Bobby Gurney, Middlesbrough still threatened court action unless he vacated the clubhouse pretty quickly.

He became manager of Shrewsbury Town and of Spennymoor United, coached the Army in Germany, took charge of the West Auckland side which reached the FA Amateur Cup final in 1961.

He was sub-postmaster at Yarm, retired at 55, moved to Barnard Castle, where he fished, swam, played bowls, kicked about, lived life and loved it.

His final move, in 2003, was to be closer to the family in Fishburn, near Sedgefield. Whilst good news for Middlesbrough and Sunderland fans, it disappointed Newcastle supporters, who'd misheard that the newcomer was former Magpies skipper Jimmy Scoular.

That Scoular had by then been dead for five years only added to the confusion.

Though he still rarely missed a Middlesbrough match, Nancy - "an absolute angel" - had stopped him from driving. "It's not because I'm a bad driver, it's because there are so many other cars," he said.

Nancy survives him, had always worried about the effect of all that heading leather footballs. Johnny, whose funeral is at Middlesbrough crematorium on January 22, was just grateful to have played. "I'd do it all again," he said, "but mebbe not for £12 a week."

Mourning the passing at 92 of former Sunderland opening batsman and Vaux Brewery company secretary Mandy Mitchell-Innes - England's oldest surviving Test cricketer - Tuesday's column noted that the oldest had become Ken Cranston, a Lancastrian dentist who made eight England appearances in the 1940s.

It was only briefly correct. The Beardless Wonder, who last year alone recorded the passing of nine former Durham County players, points out that Cranston died that very day.

England's oldest is now former Surrey wicketkeeper Arthur McIntyre, who stood up stoically and skilfully to Alec Bedser as well as to Lock and Laker, and who'd have won more than his three caps had Godfrey Evans not crouched in front of him. He'll be 89 in May.

backtrack briefs...

It was simply more than the QEII could take on board. "Who won the first football World Cup?" asked the leisure deck quiz master, half way through a four-month cruise.

"West Auckland," replied Lottery millionaire Ken Wynne, realising that it was a small world after all.

"Afraid not, it was Uruguay in 1930," insisted the question master (doubtless Cunardly able to believe his ears). Still all at sea, Ken stood his ground and demanded his point. The well-heeled hollered, the decision stood.

A year later he's again back on the QEII - and this time determined to rock the boat. He's taken the first World Cup with him.

"Kenny was absolutely determined to prove he was right. He asked if he could borrow the trophy and we agreed so long as he fixed the insurance," says West Auckland general manager (and former Newcastle United full back) Stuart Alderson.

"It's the same captain and everything. Kenny was more excited about making his point than he was about the cruise."

Ken and his wife Anita won £3.6m in 2001, moved to a posher house in Darlington but have otherwise changed little.

When last we bumped into him, he'd just won 15 pints in the beer draw at the Archdeacon, his local, and ten at Hogan's. "They called me worse than clarts," he said.

A West Auckland sponsor, he's also taken the medal won by club captain Bob Jones in 1909 - the team of miners again won the World Cup in Italy two years later, beating Juventus 6-1 - and armfuls of other memorabilia.

The original trophy was stolen in 1994, replaced by a solid silver replica. The team's exploits were also made into a film, starring Dennis Waterman.

Sadly, the column's efforts to interrupt Ken's dream holiday with a bit crack to the paper back home have proved unsuccessful. Stuart Alderson simply looks forward to his return.

"Kenny's a lovely man and a great ambassador for the football club. Goodness only knows what he'll come back with, but he'll be pleased with himself, no question."

West Auckland FC is also the venue, on Sunday, of Coundon Conservative Club's last 16 tie in the FA Sunday Cup - against the quaintly-named Pablo Derby Arms from Liverpool. The Cons, the North-East's last survivors, have already beaten Hetton Lyons Cricket Club, the holders. Kick-off's at 1.30pm, admission £3, concessions £1 50. No longer blackballed, we plan a Tory story on Tuesday.

Steve Smith's Christmas reading included "Boots, Balls and Haircuts", a "social history" of football by Hunter Davies, which includes a 1910 photograph of the Barnsley mascot, a donkey, outside the Clarence Hotel.

The donkey's called Amos. We mentioned as much when the book was published, five years ago.

Steve's anxious to add that he sees no physical resemblance. "It's just that he was on all fours outside licensed premises."

Once one of the Northern League's most prolific strikers, Paul Rowntree - known universally as Jellies - shows little sign of advancing years. Playing for Norton and Stockton Ancients, appropriately named, in the Over 40s league last Saturday he scored after eight seconds against Hylton Castle and added a further six in the 11-0 win. "He's in line for three trophies," reports league secretary Kip Watson, 90 this year. "I doubt if anyone will beat eight seconds."

The day Gurney lit up Anfield

Arsenal's midweek hammering of Liverpool, about which Gunners fan Tom Stafford e-mails ecstatically from Yarm - "I fell asleep in the chair, woke up at ten o'clock and thought I'd gone to heaven" - was the first time that Liverpool had leaked six at Anfield since April 19 1930.

It was Easter weekend. Ever unpredictable, Sunderland had lost 3-0 at Bolton the day previously but stuffed the Scousers 6-0. Bobby Gurney scored four, Seaham Harbour lad Albert Wood and George Lawley, his only goal for the club, the others.

"A sensational game," the Echo reported next day. "Sunderland were a transformed side. It was incredible that they made Liverpool look like second raters."

Gurney, who'd scored 131 in a season for Hetton Juniors, joined Sunderland from Bishop Auckland for the regulation £10 signing on fee, paid in gold sovereigns and taken home on the bus to his mum.

He scored 229 goals in 2388 League and Cup appearances, was the club's top scorer for seven successive seasons in the 1930s, still travelled to home games on the tram.

Eight months later, Sunderland again put six past Liverpool in a 6-5 win at Roker Park, Gurney hitting a hat trick. He subsequently spent five and a half years as Darlington's manager and six months as Hartlepool's. Lovely man, he died, aged 86, in 1994.

Since Newcastle and Middlesbrough also won on that April Saturday in 1930, the Echo was moved to suppose that the clouds were "certainly lifting" over the North-East. They weren't, of course.

Since it was Easter, it poured down. The wind blew wicked from the west, the thermometer dropped like Cristiano Ronaldo.

Spennymoor and Tow Law drew 1-1 in the Durham Challenge Cup final - "miserable conditions, miserable match," said the Echo - while Crook v Willington was abandoned after 20 minutes in conditions described as "deplorable."

In the Northern League match between Chilton and Stockton, meanwhile, four Chilton players hurried off after 65 minutes, complaining - soft clarts - that they could no longer stand the cold. Chilton led 6-0 at the time.

Thus rekindled, Stockton scored four in the next 18 minutes - Cook adding a seventh for the home side - before Chilton left back T Stephenson collapsed and, blue with cold, was carried semi-conscious from the field.

As only six men were left standing, the referee finally abandoned the match. Ten days later, Chilton won the replayed game 1-0.

Arsenal, of course, are well accustomed to scoring six on their travels. The first time was on February 2 1894 at Middlesbrough Ironopolis, the Nops' first season in the second division after leaving the Northern league. Thus chastened, the club folded two months later. It is unlikely to happen to Liverpool.

AND FINALLY...

Tuesday's column noted that Mandy Mitchell-Innes was one of four Scotsmen who'd played cricket for both England and Scotland and sought the names of the others.

They were Mike Denness, former Durham all-rounder Gavin Hamilton and, the hard one, Ian Peebles, an Aberdonian who also became a noted cricket writer.

John Phelan in Howden-le-Wear today points out that, despite their unparalleled FA Amateur Cup success, there were two Northern League teams - both within six or seven miles of Kingsway - whom Bishop Auckland never beat in the competition, despite a total six meetings.

Readers are invited to name them.

Bishops' move again in four days.