Sad loss of England’s ‘greatest woman bowler’

She was 72. And had been playing bowls just a few hours earlier.

Norma had won 26 national and international titles, was world champion both outdoors and in – the titles 16 years apart – was northern sportswoman of the year in 1982 and appointed MBE in 1985.

“Didn’t we meet in Australia?”

asked the Queen and they had, at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, three years earlier.

The English outdoor singles title, last of the set, came two months before her 61st birthday.

Just a few weeks ago, she and two team mates from Norton- on-Tees had qualified for the national triples at Leamington Spa, where she would have represented Durham on August 5.

“She was the greatest woman bowls player England has ever produced,” says bowls writer and former international David Rees-Jones.

“Indoors, she could land a bowl on a sixpence,” says triples partner Joyce Jones.

“She won every single bowls title there was to be won and I had the privilege of winning a few with her.”

Others remember an epic match against the perennially pipe smoking David Bryant, the one man Norma couldn’t beat, at the annual Vaux-sponsored tournament in Darlington in the 1980s.

“I’m not kidding you, she’d drawn him off the green,” recalls Norton colleague George Turley. “Eventually David had to resort to his fire power, and scattered her bowls all over the place. I think everyone thought it was quite a shame but David wasn’t world champion for nothing.”

Born near Wakefield, Norma moved to Norton in the early 1960s with Dennis, her husband.

Though she’d occasionally played crown green bowls, and thought little of it, she discovered the other man’s grass wholly by chance.

“We were out for a walk one night when we heard the noise of bowling from behind a hedge and just went in and sat,” she told Backtrack in 1993.

“They were very encouraging, asked us to come back on the Saturday and that’s how it began. I’ve never been sporting but it seemed to come naturally, like I had it in me.”

Her hallmarks were an elegant delivery, a coolbox calm and her renowned sportsmanship – “There are times when you want to lock yourself in a room, stamp your foot and scream, but it wouldn’t do any good.”

A toy rabbit called Thumper occupied the chair opposite – “It was given to me because its big, flat feet were supposed to be like mine, all that walking up and down” – an exercise bike stood behind the kitchen door.

“You have to be fairly fit. It takes a lot out of you, being on your feet so long,” said Norma, who’d started wearing spectacles around 1990. “More bowlers should,” she said.

“You can see them squinting 40 yards.”

The only written record of her achievements was on an envelope stuffed in a sideboard draw – even then, there wasn’t much room for a stamp – the only sign of substantial winnings the photograph of her receiving the £2,000 runner- up cheque at one of the Darlington tournaments.

“It costs me money but that’s fine. I don’t smoke or anything. Bowls is my life.”

The county champion, she thought, got three quid.

David Rees-Jones confirms her natural ability. “She was largely self-taught but she had a terrific delivery, stood up nice and tall, did absolutely everything right.

“She was also very calm, which won her a lot of matches when she seemed to be in a losing position, and she was certainly one of the best drawing players in the world.”

David Bryant, now 78 and still in his native Somerset, also won 26 top titles. “He wasn’t necessarily any more skilful than Norma, but he was very good at drawing players as well,” says David Rees- Jones.

“If he was being outdrawn by Norma, as he was several times, he’d produce the big gun and scatter her.”

Norma had played a Teesside triples match the day after her 72nd birthday. “We had a lovely afternoon, a nice chat with our opponents and then that was it,” says Joyce Jones.

“She’d had a fuzzy head for a while but the hospital had done tests and everything came back all clear. She seemed absolutely fine that afternoon.”

Another match was due two days later. That morning, Joyce found the curtains drawn and called the police.

Norma had died in her armchair.

“She had a beautiful delivery, always seemed to have just the right weight, line and length and would never panic, no matter what. If she missed anything, it was always very near,” says her friend.

Dennis, who also played a leading part in Norton bowls, had died in 1989. They had no children. Back in 1993, Norma saw no reason to jack it in.

“Some people go on for ever, even though they’re always being beaten, and I wouldn’t want that. You know when your time’s come, at east I think I will. I just hope it isn’t for quite a while yet.”

Details of her funeral have not yet been announced.

The Bob Hardisty story is finally told – warts and all

SURPRISINGLY never before attempted, a biography nears completion on the late Bob Hardisty, reckoned the best amateur footballer in history.

“It’s proving absolutely fascinating. He was an amazing man but it’s going to be warts and all,” says author Alan Adamthwaite, who has already had published a book on Bishop Auckland’s post-war glory years.

Hardisty, born in Chester-le-Street but long a Bishop resident, won 15 England amateur caps, three FA Amateur Cup winner’s medals and represented Great Britain in the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympics.

The 1952 games may be the most easily forgotten. We went out to Luxembourg in the qualifying round.

He also played cricket for Bishop Auckland, round the back, scoring 1,052 runs and claiming nine wickets with his leg breaks. “I’ve so much detail about that, I even know what they had for tea,”

says Alan, born and raised in Crook but now in the Midlands.

Hardisty’s family have been helpful, not least in handing over a great suitcase of mementos and memorabilia.

Among it all is a blazer badge with the inscription ISSECC 1946 and, beneath, the words “Indian, Burma, Malaya.”

Alan’s initially puzzled. Imperial Services?

Cricket Club? Whatever can it mean? We’ll pass on any suggestions.

AS if we shouldn’t have known better, Tuesday’s column wondered if any of the three dropped “dollies” which cost Barton further progress in the National Village Cricket Cup had fallen from the fingers of the old feller behind the stumps. Both Danny Shoulder and Dave Morrison, the old man himself, safely confirm that it was otherwise. Dave had already completed a catch and a stumping and successfully appealed for an LBW when the neutral umpire in the match at Harome asked how old he was. Dave replied, truthfully, that he was 66.

“Don’t talk ****,” said the umpire. “After that,” says Dave, “I never got another decision.”

TUESDAY’S column also noted that the great W G Grace had played cricket on the slopes of Spout House, bowled for a hairy duck by the 28-stone Fangdale blacksmith.

Jack Chapman, a gentleman no less distinguished, offers an intriguing alternative theory: might it not have been William Gilbert Grace, born in Bristol, but William Grace Grace, born in Winlaton and educated at Repton and Durham University?

Jack’s the author of Cream Teas and Nutty Slack, the wonderful history of club cricket in Durham County.

He points to page 118.

“W G Grace passed away at the beginning of World War I. His namesake quit this life at the start of World War II.

“William Grace Grace was passionate about cricket and needed no excuse to get up an XI. When work took him to Yorkshire in 1938 he expressed a wish to be buried in Shincliffe cemetery (near Durham).

“One June morning, having first acquired a length of piping, Grace drove his yellow car from a Pontefract hotel to a country lane near the cemetery, penny farewell and fulfilled his wish.”

ALREADY producing replica “World Cup” shirts in West Auckland colours, The Old Fashioned Football Shirt Company is now making them in the shocked pink of Juventus, West’s 1911 opponents.

“The West Auckland shirt has been going really well over here. We hope the Juventus version will be just as popular in Italy,” says company secretary Michele Finch.

The deal’s been helped along by Francesco di Bartolo, an Italian who works for Gateshead-based TOFFS and who’s negotiated licence agreements with both Juventus and the Italian FA.

The Turin side has rather less reason to remember the final, to be reprised when West Auckland visit Italy on August 1. They lost 6-1.

Michele’s husband Alan, the company chief executive, is meanwhile celebrating the acquisition of an Arsenal season ticket after several seasons on the Emirates waiting list. Michele’s allegiance is rather closer to home. “I’m looking forward to a day out in Scunthorpe,”

she says.

NOTING Coundon’s remarkable success on the football field, last Saturday’s column also repeated the claim that the south-west Durham village may have had more pubs per head than anywhere, similarly sized, in the land.

Local historian Cliff Howe, now in Billingham, supposes the glass to be more than half full.

In 1901, says Cliff, Coundon’s population was 3,700 – thirsts assuaged in the Lord Stanley, Greyhound, Wagon and Horses, Hare and Hounds, Black Boy, Shepherd, Durham Ox, Miners Arms, Foresters Arms, Wharton Arms and Three Tuns plus the Workmen’s, Conservative and Liberal clubs.

Those able to stagger a little further would find the George at Coundon Gate, the Hermitage or Station and the Blue Bull at New Coundon and the Sportsman and Old Black Ball at Canney Hill.

Mind, adds Cliff soberly, they mightn’t all have been open at the same time.

We’d also wondered about the pub known as the Ducket, and if there were any link with the Blessed John Duckett, a sixteenth century Roman Catholic martyr particularly venerated around Tow Law.

Cliff doubts it. The Ducket, local dialect for dovecote, was the Greyhound – so nicknamed because it was in a long path called the Ducket.

A cree, see.

SPEAKING of pubs, which quite often is the case, the Caledonian in Darlington tomorrow becomes the latest permanently to hang up the bar towels.

We’d last had a pint there in 2003, recording the flag flying exploits of the Cally branch of cricket’s Barmy Army, just back from Australia.

“The trip cost about £3,500 and was worth every penny,”

said Martyn Brown at the time. After a chance encounter on Christmas Day, they’d also been joined by Angela Brown, Tow Law’s physio for the 1998 FA Vase final at Wembley.

“I’m young, I’m a nutter and I love cricket,” she explained.

Martyn Jackson recalls the 1990s, when the Caledonian had an outstanding football team, reflects on the nights when the celebrated Phil Nixon played darts there.

A wake’s planned tonight, the Cally flag flying one last time. “Probably,” says Martyn Jackson, “it’ll be half mast.”

BACK to William Gilbert Grace, Tuesday’s column seeking the identity of his brother, who also played test cricket. There were actually two, Edward and Fred.

That Fred failed to trouble the scorers in either innings may explain why England never summoned him again.

Readers are today invited to name the sport which begins with the instruction “tekk hod”

– and may find out when the column returns on June 30.