The part of Newcastle Central Library where “Football” John Allan could frequently be found is on the sixth floor. The sixth floor has glass sides.
Don’t look down, but it’s for reasons of heightening terror that it was perhaps fortunate that I was unable to attend a ceremony in his memory.
Blog readers Kevin Mochrie and Ray Ion did both make it to the top, Ray with similar apprehension. “It wasn’t so bad when it got dark” he says.
“I supplied cheese footballs, a kilo of chocolate footballs and a selection of Tunnock’s” reports Kevin, Heaton Stan man.
What John didn’t know about North-East football was hardly worth knowing, or could be learned by further sixth-floor ferreting. Better yet, he happily shared his compendious knowledge with any who could use it (and, quite often, with the library staff, too.)
Though a passionate newcastle United men, he’d also become a Heaton Stannington follower. His brother and sister attended the ceremony at which a Newcastle shirt, the frame suitably engraved, was unveiled to hang in his accustomed place on high.
*Festive frivolity continues today in Yarm, that footballers’ retreat on the south bank of the Tees, in the comany of Tony McAndrew (Boro, Chelsea, Vancouver Whitecaps), Eddie Kyle and dear old Dave “Jock” Rutherford, he of the angular elbows.
We’re getting old. Tony, who belongs to Glasgow, says he sometimes doesn’t stay up to watch the Hogmanay bells on television but records it and watches the highlights next day.
Muse restaurant – continental cafe it calls itself – is ding-donging merrily. Last time I was in there, a good 20 years ago, was with Big Malcolm Allison, another Yarm resident at the time, who had to leave a bit early to collect his partner’s bairn from school. Nice chap.
A few years since I was asked to do the ribbon cutting at a charity shop a few doors along, the star attraction a couple of suits donated by former England manager Steve McLaren, another Yarm resident. Word was they’d never been worn. How much might they have raised if he’d donated his brolly?
Eddie, former Darlington and Hartlepool assistant manager and now returning to full vigour after a second hip replacement, reckons that Yarm isn’t as busy as once it was, not even on grab-a-granny night – Tuesday in those parts. Today’s heaving, but that’s just the lunchtime Muse.
*Last Sunday’s blog noted the young lass at the end of Crook Town’s match with Newton Aycliffe, holding up a notice seeking Crook defender Toby Pacoe’s shirt. It proved to be his sister, and thereby hangs a shirt tale.
Crook chairman Vince Kirkup had already secured sponsorship for all of the squad shirts when asked about the No 3 in memory of a late supporter. He arranged to put something on the “free” sleeve, the shirt worn for the first time last Saturday.
“I chased after them down the tunnel to get it back. There wasn’t a problem” he says.
Ar Crook, the chairman is also the laundryman. “After Saturday’s weather I could have done with washing one fewer” says Vince. “They were absolutely minging.”
Grass Routes 