Club based on friendship going strong 50 years on

It was the club which nurtured the likes of Paul Gascoigne, David Hodgson, Ian Branfoot and Don Hutchison, which took thousands of kids off the streets, which brought an MBE for Evan Bryson, one of its founders.

Its motif is a horse's head with the Greek word "Prego". It simply means friendship.

"I had no grand ideas about channeling kids' energies. I just happened to like football, as simple as that," says Evan, now 78. "It didn't even matter that they couldn't play particularly well. The great thing was that parents trusted me with their sons. It wasn't about playing football, it was about companionship."

The club, in the Teams area of Gateshead, had two great unwritten rules - no swearing and no smoking. Evan gazes from the window of his Gateshead flat: "Maybe we should have taught them other things," he says. "You should see the amount of prams around here."

It was formed in an old school, the first football changing rooms intended to be in a redundant double-decker until scrap metal thieves took all the fittings. Evan also denies credit for helping the launch.

"I'd just come out of the army. I was bored to tears and spending too much time at Gateshead greyhound 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."

The school remained their long term home - "I remember the drains collapsing, we were playing table tennis in wellington boots" - now they meet at Eslington Park, where there are changing rooms but no other facilities.

Club chairman Terry Ritson, who joined Redheugh - pronounced Redhyuff - as a 15-year-old player, now heads a drive to attract funding for a clubhouse. "We have changing rooms but particularly miss our canteen," he says. "All sorts of good things used to go on in there."

Terry was a Lobley Hill lad, knew that a Northampton Town scout lived up the street, was excited one morning when the scout asked him if he wanted a trial.

"I thought he meant Northampton but he meant Redheugh Boys Club. That was considered almost as important."

Tommy Robson, the first Redheugh boy to make a professional name, had himself gone to Northampton before spells with Chelsea, Newcastle United and over 500 games for Peterborough.

Then there were just two teams. Now there are 16, between eight and 18 - the girls team folded through shortage of players - and a hard won FA charter standard award. Because times and necessities change, there's a child protection officer, too.

"What was so special about Redheugh was the total honesty and utter enthusiasm of the people like Evan who ran the club," says Terry. "Everyone was welcome at Redheugh, it didn't matter what your race or your background, though probably 60-70 per cent were from around the doors.

"We've had all sorts play for us, and that's what made it home."

Now a car sales manager and sports injuries practitioner, Terry managed Gazza from under-12 to under-15 level. "He was only a little lad, but he had unbelievable skill.

"He always had two good feet and was great when he had the ball, but sometimes he could be put off by the big lads. He was always a character even then, always Jack-the-lad, always talking. Really he hasn't changed all that much, still just a kid at heart."

Evan, his MBE notification framed on the wall - "All those kids from Bristol Road school, and only me ever got that" - remembers the young Gascoigne with equal affection.

"He was a plump little feller who couldn't cope with pace, but you could see that he was very special.

"These days we wouldn't see people like that because of the academies. There are people who claim that they can spot a footballer when he's three-year-old, and they can't. Don Hutchison was the one they almost all missed and look at him now, a millionaire."

After his transfer from Spurs to Lazio, Gazza also bought the club a second-hand mini-bus - "I think he'd been given a few bob for going to Italy," says Terry - and came back to Gateshead to present it.

"We asked how he was going to pay," Terry recalls. "He said there was a suit case full of lira in his hotel."

Gazza had hoped to make the jubilee dinner but finally sent apologies - "still not 100 per cent," says Terry Ritson. Many other familiar North-East football names attended. Inevitably Evan received a standing ovation, inevitably insisted that he deserved nothing of the sort.

"Like the medal, it would be naïve to say that I wasn't as pleased as punch, but you do these things because you enjoy them."

Ill health obliged him to stand down two years ago after 48 years as secretary. "I've told them just to carry on as I wasn't here," says the undisputed hero of the Boys' own story. If they want me, I always will be, of course."

Watching the Chester-le-Street test match, Tony Ford in Northallerton noticed - like everyone else - the scoreboard. It said "Overs R'ning."

What's R'ning, wonders Tony. Overs returning? Overs running? Overs raining? (Lots of those.)

"Feel for the poor, innocent, preposterous apostrophe dragged in because there isn't room to write 'remaining' and because no one thought of writing 'Overs left'," says Tony.

Saves paint, he adds, an' all.

The splendid Patrick Conway - recently retired Durham County Council director of culture and leisure, appointed OBE in the Birthday Honours - is a fan of Sunderland, Grimsby Town and Mayo. The last one's hurling. He is also an occasional visitor to this column.

Following Saturday's list, we shall also have to amend the style for I T Botham. After 20 years as the mere Squire of Ravensworth, he is now the Knight.

Patrick, at any rate, has been instrumental in advising us on everything from the great soda siphon scam - how young Crook Town supporters afforded Amateur Cup final tickets in the 1950s - to the Great Battle of Leadgate, in 1890.

That was when Leadgate Exiles played Leadgate Park, left footers against right. "A rather serious riot ensued," observed The Northern Echo at the time.

Particularly, however, we recall Patrick's angst in 2004, having watched Grimsby lose at Darlington and then driven home to watch Sunderland lose on television at Coventry.

Finally, he took himself off to Stanley Blues festival. "It seemed rather appropriate," he said.

Four years since former Evenwood Town favourite John Noddings collapsed and died during a fund raising match at Tow Law, the now-annual game in his memory takes place at the Ironworks ground on Friday, July 13.

As ever it will be between Tow Law and Weardale select XIs, as usual there's talk of shenanigans. "Tony Monkhouse, their manager, is applying for Weardale passports for all sorts of dodgy people," insists Tow Law secretary Steve Moralee.

"I never knew so many folk had a grandmother who came from Cowshill."

Border disputes resolved, the kick-off's at 6pm. All proceeds to the British Heart Foundation.

After last week's note on the Yorkshire trio hopping around the country's cricket grounds, Tim Grimshaw in North Shields reports that since 2000 he's been photographing every ground in the North-East - Darlington and District League to Alnwick and District League - with a view to a book on his adventures.

Spennithorne and Harmby, in Wensleydale, is the southernmost; Kelso's the most northerly. Tim's 168 down and several dozen to go.

"Over the years I've met some incredible people, visited some really beautiful grounds and had some magnificent teas," he says.

Some early favourites: Willington - "wonderful teas for £1", Rock, Northumberland - "a gem", North Bitchburn - "and afterwards at the Red Lion" - and the whole of the NYSD League, "everyone so friendly and the teas simply out of this world."

...and finally

What was unique about England's victory over Australia at Lord's in 1934 - Backtrack, June 15 - was that it was the only occasion in the 20th century when we managed to beat them at headquarters.

Hedley Verity, Yorkshireman and Green Howard, had a match analysis of 15-104, his 14 for 80 on the third day - six of them in the final hour - still the most wickets to fall to one bowler in a day in a test match in England.

John Briggs in Darlington: which Scottish League side plays its football in Pratt Street?

We return, without comment, on Friday