DEVOURED like the first chocolate bar of Easter, a book called The Far Corner landed here in September 1994 - so long ago that a hardback was just £9.99, so wonderful that we extolled it a month before publication.

The temptation was irresistible, a bit like finding a new racing bike behind the wardrobe and being told you can't ride it until Christmas.

"If it doesn't win Sports Book of the Year, " the column added almost 12 years ago, "we'll eat hay with a cuddy or, worse, start to support Bishop Auckland."

It came second, helped make Harry Pearson's name as a literary goal grabber, became an enduring best seller. The Far Corner was the angle of the north.

This week Harry's muck and bullets masterwork takes centre stage once again, adapted to become a one-man show - same title - with its debut at the Gala Theatre in Durham.

The book chronicled his travels around North-East football in 1993-94, chiefly at its how-green grass roots. The one man is Tyneside-born actor David Nellist, who once played for Walker Central against Wallsend Boys' Club when Alan Shearer was in the opposition.

"I didn't really think much of him at all, " he recalls. "Next I knew, he'd scored a hat-trick for Southampton against Arsenal."

Since Harry was a Great Ayton lad, book and play begin with the confession that he's a Middlesbrough supporter, taken to Ayresome Park by his grandfather because his dad wasn't much into footy.

"For a while I used to think he was the only man in the NorthEast who couldn't kick a ball properly, " he'd written. "Then Newcastle signed Alan Gowling."

The adaptation is faithful, the performance gloriously energetic, the action appropriately divided into two 45-minute halves. A passion play, as it were.

For total authenticity, of course, the Gala should not only have sold weak Bovril and polystyrene pies at the interval but had a meat draw in which most tickets would be about four million out.

Nellist's a little feller, five five - "Not much call for five foot five footballers, " he said afterwards - but well suited to the occasionally aggressive outbursts. It's always the little fellers, isn't it?

Sometimes he sounds like Jimmy Nail, sometimes like Kevin Whately, not often like Harry Pearson. They talk posh in Great Ayton and, of course, it doesn't matter a jot.

Probably it could have been called The Best of The Far Corner, the audience reminded - for example - of the fat bloke, Sunderland v Millwall, Boxing Day.

"He had a voice so reverberating that, when he spoke, far out in the North Sea great herds of elephant seals came over all broody."

We were reminded how Boro fans were forever told to be patient - "By that time even Mr Gandhi would have nutted someone" - of the centre forward at Langley Park who hacked and chopped like a lumberjack on sulphates, of the vastness of the MetroCentre. "It takes so long to walk across I'm surprised Wainwright didn't write a guide."

Then there were the women who'd got on the bus at Brancepeth, when Harry was off to watch Willington.

As folk do, they'd compared ailments, better or worse. "The consultant, " observed one, "told me that he'd never seen so much mucus in all his life."

The consultant was called Mr Hurley. He was probably no relation to King Charlie.

Best of all, director Simon Stallworthy had kept in the bit from Seaham Red Star about a chap blowing his nose like a supercharged air horn and then carefully examining the resultant contents of his handkerchief.

"Why do people do that? What are they expecting to find? Did you ever see anyone blow their nose, examine the contents and say 'Bugger me, that's where the shed key got to'?"

They laughed politely, affectionately, but without really getting stuck in - like a schoolboy centre forward told by his mam to mind and not get his knees dirty.

Harry was there, too, thought it all fantastic, had to dash away at the end to puppy sit the new dog. The dog's called Colin, though for shame it answers to Manny. Nothing to do, apparently, with the late Lord Shinwell.

Good lad, Harry.

Dave Nellist sat afterwards in the bar, jacket zipped to his chin like he was secreting the Sunderland Shipowners' Cup beneath it, offered crisps and drinks and things by an attentive young lady from the theatre.

"He's like our crown jewels this week, " she said, "we have to look after him." The play closes tonight.

He still plays football for a theatrical team called the Old Rums - "We're quite good, not just a lot of ponces" - but has had little time since they gave him the script for an altogether more challenging 90 minutes.

"There's been a lot of pressure, " he said. "So many people told me how tremendous the book was and I'm thinking 'God, I have to play every character in this and to remember every word. For the last six weeks I've had a panic attack if I've had more then ten minutes away from the script. My wife just said she'd lost me.

"She's in the dining room thinking about affairs of state, and I'm in the kitchen thinking Esh Winning."

Snorts and all, they hope it will tour in the autumn and lose nothing in the translation. "We've invested too much in it not to have a go, " said Dave.

Tight-angled, right-angled, they can still score direct from the Corner. Ha'way the Bishops, an' all.

It's best bib and tucker for Peterlee, jeans for Hampden

THE great benefactor as never we'd seen him before - that is to say, dressed up - Brooks Mileson spoke at Peterlee Lions' Club's 20th anniversary bash.

They gave him about a stone and a half of ham and pease pudding and a couple of bottles of Lucozade for his trouble.

That afternoon he'd also been helping make a Gretna CD and video, appropriately called Living the Dream, with a band called Hugh Troosers (or some such), enough downloads in 24 hours to put them into the charts.

"If we're not careful we'll be on Top of the Pops, " he told the team.

"Why not, " replied an as yet unidentified player, "you're on every bloody thing else."

Come the Scottish Cup final on May 13, Brooks will be back in his best jeans. "We had a meeting with the FA on Tuesday when they tried to insist I went to the president's luncheon beforehand. "I told them there was no chance. It's Michael's fish bar for me."

ALSO roaming with the Lions was 62-year-old Malcolm Dawes, more than 200 first team appearances for Hartlepool United and also for Aldershot, Workington and, more improbably, New York Cosmos.

"How are you doing, Jimmy?"someone said.

It was a reference, a perceived resemblance, to Sunderland legend Jimmy Montgomery, five months his senior. Malcolm's grown used to them.

"The first time it happened was in a fish shop at Horden, " he recalls. "This chap was calling me Jimmy this and Jimmy that.

"I thought nothing of it for a while. There's parts of Horden where they call everyone Jimmy, anyway."

THERE, too, was Ian Prescott, Football Foundation member and principal of East Durham and Houghall Community College and planning to do a Mileson.

Ian, himself a former professional footballer, is taking over a village side near Valencia, in Spain, where he has a holiday home.

"It's mainly juniors, a ground a bit like Peterlee Newtown, but we're very ambitious, " he says.

A scent of Europe, like Gretna?

"The Spanish third division, section B, would suit us nicely."

WILLIE Applegarth, the Guisborough Flyer, has finally been recognised at a ceremony in his home town.

Rated by Boys Own as the greatest athlete of his day, Willie anchored Britain's triumphant men's 4x100 team in the 1912 Olympics - a record not beaten until the Athens games 92 years later.

He also broke three world records, won two other Olympic medals and included in his training tips to Boys Own readers that it was better not to be a silly Billy.

Kathleen Towers, Willie's mother's niece, last week unveiled a plaque in his memory at the opening of a £750,000 athletics facility at Laurence Jackson School in Guisborough.

Aidan Applegarth, Willie's great nephew, was also there.

Mrs Towers, 87, reports a wonderful occasion but an uncharacteristic family problem. "I met Lord Gisborough and lots of nice people and there was also a relay race.

"Don't ask me who won or what it was about. I'm afraid I don't understand that sort of thing at all."

RECOGNITION, too, for Harry Clarke, the free-scoring former Darlington footballer and Durham County cricketer whose 85th birthday we recorded a couple of weeks ago.

Harry, taken to watch the Quakers as a birthday present, was at once made a life member by new chairman George Houghton. Like the Guisborough folk, they had a good day.

"Mr Houghton was very kind, he told Harry he can go any time he wants, " says his old cricket team mate Bob Elliott.

"There was all sorts of cheering and clapping when he was introduced to the crowd and there were a few tears as well. I'm afraid we didn't get away until almost eight o'clock." Thus feted, they'll be back again tomorrow.

FC Basle's presence on Teesside last week reminded Hartlepool United historian Colin Foster of Percy Humphreys, who in 1913 became Basle's first player/manager.

Humphreys, an England international, had become Pools' player/manager in 1912, scoring 18 goals in 38 games, though he almost pulled out because he couldn't find a tenant for his flat in London.

Though content with his basic wage of £3 10s, the following summer he demanded a £15 signing-on fee.

The board refused and appointed Jack Manners for a fiver.

Percy Humphreys committed suicide in 1959, jumping from the roof of a building.

BEFORE disappearing, we noted that Shildon Railway FC were again playing the RMT union - including general secretary Bob Crow - on April 1, followed by a dinner in Shildon Civic Hall. The date proved unfortunately appropriate.

In short, they discovered that Duncan McKenzie, the speaker, had been booked for April 8. Increasingly desperate telephone calls finally recruited ex-Liverpool centre half Ron Yeats as a replacement.

The Railway won 7-3, Crow also playing centre half - "If he had the pace to do some of the things he intended to do, he'd have smashed someone in half, " says Shildon official Alan Morland.

By 6 30pm, Alan was the second person at the Civic Hall. The first was Duncan McKenzie. He'd noted the date correctly; they hadn't.

They contacted Yeats an hour into his journey north. "He was absolutely brilliant about it, " says Alan. "We're planning something similar next year, but it won't be at the start of April."

And Finally...

THE former international footballer sold in 1982 for 11 tracksuits and a line marking machine (Backtrack, March 31) was Tony Cascarino - "number nine in a Nemesis list for Sunderland FC, " recalls Paul Dobson in Bishop Auckland.

Paul in turn today invites readers to name the only two men to play in the last FA Cup final and the last England game at Wembley.

The column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 14/04/2006