DURHAM County Cricket Club’s on-field rise and off-field crash has been a remarkable story, inspiring and sobering.

Few of the plotlines of Five Trophies and a Funeral, a new book out on Thursday, are more far-fetched than that of Durham’s third County Championship title, in 2013. It hung on four exhilarating days in Scarborough.

In consecutive summers between 2007 and 2009 star-studded Durham claimed their first major trophy and maiden Championship, retained without losing a game. By 2013 they were feeling the post-credit crunch pinch as Michael Di Venuto, Ottis Gibson and Ian Blackwell retired, Liam Plunkett joined Yorkshire and Stephen Harmison saw out his benefit year with the fire which made him the world’s best fast bowler extinguished.

The Riversiders started the campaign with a 2.5-point deduction for breaching the 2012 salary cap.

Unable to afford an overseas pre-season tour, they could not even train indoors when it snowed over Easter because their council-owned facilities were shut.

In May, Dale Benkenstein dislocated his shoulder, and in June coach Geoff Cook suffered a heart attack.

Being bowled out for 94 when set 413 at Edgbaston early in the campaign was not promising, nor was Yorkshire’s record Riverside run-chase. But an incredible Trent Bridge win laid a marker and Ryan Buckley’s debut 5-86 inspired victory at The Oval.

When Durham went to Scarborough in August they were second in Division One with a game in hand on Yorkshire, 25.5 points ahead having lost one of their last 30 Championship games.

Technically it was no title decider, but everyone knew.

Durham were 5-2 before Mark Stoneman made 122 of the first 195 runs.

“It summed up the season on a personal and team level that we found ourselves under pressure but we maintained our manner of play and took every opportunity to throw pressure back onto the opposition,” he says proudly.

Dropped by Adam Lyth on 92, Ben Stokes made a century, as did Michael Richardson despite being on just 33 when Mark Wood was eighth out. The visitors posted 573.

If they enjoyed the excellent pitch and big-match atmosphere, so did Yorkshire. Keaton Jennings, out for a first-innings duck, was having less fun.

“We fielded from just after lunch on day two until tea on day four,” he recalls. “It was horrible. I remember fielding near the stands getting so much abuse.”

Yorkshire began day three 182-3, but were 274 all out. Durham captain Paul Collingwood had little choice but to enforce the follow-on, even with Wood’s game ended by injury.

By the end of the day a draw looked all but guaranteed with Phil Jaques 151 not out and Kane Williamson unbeaten on 90 from 276-1.

“It was kind of slipping away,’ Collingwood recalls. “I had a pint and fish and chips with Stokesey and I said we’d got to get back to disciplined bowling.

That was probably the first time I’d really had to get hold of Stokesey to focus him.”

Team-mate and former captain Will Smith was impressed.

“To have the wherewithal and the balls to rein him in but in a way that said you’re still going to win this game for us was testament to Colly,” he marvels.

If Scarborough was the match on which the title turned, Smith’s brilliant catch off Stokes’ bowling to remove Williamson three short of his maiden White Rose century was the moment which changed it.

Stokes bowled 33 outstanding second-innings overs trying to extract something from a flat pitch while leg-spinner Scott Borthwick shouldered the load left by Wood’s side injury and Jamie Harrison’s ankle problem. Borthwick cheered up his figures from 0-134 to 3-134 in his final 17 deliveries. With Yorkshire dismissed for 419, Durham made 124 for victory.

“It was like a Test match,” says Collingwood. “There was a crowd in, there was an atmosphere, a proper pitch with pace in it, (and there was) the work we had to put in with Woody going down and Scotty Borthwick having to bowl from one end.”

Chris Rushworth recalls: “When we started singing our team song, you probably would have heard it from two towns away! I remember Will Smith saying, ‘We’re going to win the Championship this year.’ He was convinced.”

Smith explains: “It was in a bit of a jokey way but I had complete conviction because we had such youthful naivety.”

That the Durham University graduate was the only visiting player in Scarborough not to come through their academy added to the achievement of the Riversiders’ third Championship in six seasons.

When Smith and Callum Thorp were released at the end of the season it was another sign of the trouble which almost dragged Durham under in 2016.

Now they are trying to rebuild, starting this season with a different coach (James Franklin), director of cricket (Marcus North), captain (still to be decided) and chief executive (Tim Bostock) to 12 months ago.

Whatever the future holds, they will be hard pushed to replicate those incredible four days by the seaside.

  • Five Trophies and a Funeral: The Building and Rebuilding of Durham County Cricket Club by Stuart Rayner is out on March 7.