The formal launch of No-brainer, my book which marries the compelling life story of former Middlesbrough central defender Bill Gates with his widow’s tenaciously unrelenting fight for safer football, will now take place at Ferryhill Workmen’s Club on Tuesday May 7 from 6 30pm.
The club’s just a few hundred yards from where Bill, one of miner Jimmy Gates’s five sons, grew up in Dean Bank.
It’ll be 50 years to the day since more than 31,000 crowded Ayresome Park for Bill’s testimonial, a 4-4 draw between Boro – second division champions – and Leeds United, champions of the first. The programme, 10p, is above.
More than half of the players in that game have died with some form of neurological illness. Bill died last October, aged 79, after many years of illness.
Among guests will be former Middlesbrough, Man United and England defender Gary Pallister – featured in the book – Boro and Chelsea favourite Tony McAndrew and Eddie Kyle, assistant manager in his time of both Darlington and Hartlepool.
We’re also hoping to see England amateur international Dave “Jock” Rutherford, who played Northern League football well into his 40s and who probably would still if they let him.
Subject to Amazon’s vagaries, the 330-page book has been around for a week or two now. A lady in the north-west took delivery on Saturday and by Sunday evening had devoured it. Here – immodestly – is an extract from her email today:
“A carefully crafted, intricately researched and delicately reported account of a great scandal. The high level vocabulary and attention to the English language structure was like listening to a Beethoven symphony.”
The great scandal, of course, is that footballers at all levels and most ages continue repetitively to head the ball despite overwhelming evidence of the long-term damage caused to the brain, in very many cases leading to dementia and to death.
Through the channel of Dr Judith Gates’s Head Safe Football charity, the book has interviews with several leading medical experts, with former players and their families – both football and rugby – but also shares happy memories of growing up in Ferryhill and Spennymoor, right back to the Pig Muck Derby.
No-brainer costs £14 99, every penny from book sales going to Head Safe Football. Judith Gates and I will be happy to sign copies and the former players very happy to chat. There’s no obligation to buy, however – it would just be great to see old friends, blog readers and Northern League folk. We might even raise a glass.
No-brainer is published by Haythorp Books, available through Amazon or through me – mikeamos81@aol.com. Best of all, of course, we hope for a good turn-out and a convivial evening next Tuesday.
Slake thirst: the late Barry Richardson and his wife Andrea outside their pub
*Ferryhill Workmen’s stands square in the Market Place, impossible to miss, abundant parking over the road. Last time I was in there, ages now, was in the convivial company of Barry Richardson – known as Barfy – one of local sport’s great characters.
Barry it was who, keeping wicket for Mainsforth on a summer afternoon at Liverton Mines in the National Village Cup, protested that it was impossible to concentrate because of the blonde sunbathing topless behind the bowler’s arm.
Barry it was who spakred a dozen madcap stories while goalie for Evenwood Town but who may best be remembered for his booking with Ferryhill John Dee, Auckland and District League, for stashing 20 Embassy and a half-consumed four-pack in the back of the net.
“The ref said it was ungentlemanly conduct” said Barry. “I was either too much of a gentleman or too drunk to argue.”
He and his wife Andrea for several years kept the interestingly named Slake Terrace pub – later just The Slake – in nearby West Cornforth. The name, it was said, was something to do with limestone quarying in the same vein as Basic Cottages, up the road in Coxhoe.
Basic Cottages were for the key workers. Basic Cottages – all things considered – were posh.
Barry died in a road accident about ten years ago. With much affection, we shall raise a glass to him next Tuesday.
*It’s a real sadness to learn from social media of the death of Owen Haley, an indomitable mainstay of Sunderland RCA during my time as Northern League chairman. He was just 59.
Ever affable, usually upbeat, he was among the happy band which joined the Last Legs walk to RCA in 2016 – among the best of those 44 adventures and, courtesy of the Board Inn at East Herrington, with undoubtedly the best pit stop.
Owen’s funeral was held today at Sunderland crematorium. “A true gentleman and a good friend” says a Twitter post beneath the order of service.
The order of service itself bears a two-word epitaph: “Gone walking.”
*The opening paragraph of yesterday’s blog – and the iconic image above it – were devoted to St Totteringham’s Day.
Those who raised eyebrows – “if you were in Scotland it would be a hate crime” protests Spurs fan Gary Brand – should have read the Daily Mail’s match report of Spurs v Arsenal, in which the first four pars were given over to that great canonical feast.
The Times simply tells it as it is. St Totteringham’s Day may go back to M. Wenger’s day, when for 21 successive seasons – 1995-96 to 2015-16 – the Gunners finished above their North London rivals. The latest run may in time surpass it.
Grass Routes 