IT was the start of season 194950. After failing to score in Gateshead's opening game in the Third Division (North), Co Durham miner Eddie Passmore hit four in the second, was again on target in the third and fourth, claimed another hat-trick in the next and followed with all five - Monday, September 5, 1949 - in the 5-3 win at Hartlepools United.

Described in the following day's Northern Echo as "quicksilver", he'd scored 14 in the first six matches. Scouts camped at Redheugh Park, serious money was rustled.

Aston Villa were ready with a bid of £10,000.

Gateshead were top of the league, 14,254 at Redheugh to see him score a fifteenth in the seventh match.

Then things started to go wrong. . .

If Eddie didn't dry up - for by every account the fair haired centre forward liked a drink - then the goals certainly did. Gateshead won one of the next 13, just one more strike from their star centre forward before a serious cartilage injury on October 22.

They were the days when doctors didn't so much perform keyhole surgery as break the door down.

Eddie Passmore, who'd created more records in a month than most men can dream of in a lifetime, never played in the Football League again.

We'd briefly mentioned him a couple of weeks ago, aping the record books in mistakenly calling him Ernie. "I've heard him called all manner of things, " says Tom Passmore, his son, "but I'd never heard him called Ernie."

The reference elicited more details from Colin Foster in Hartlepool and, more unexpectedly, from George Alberts in Thailand. Himself a former Gateshead goalkeeper, George was manager of the Millburngate Shopping Centre in Durham and a treasured sponsor of the North-East Durham Cricket League.

Colin checked the statistics and thought them "peculiar". George consulted "A Complete Record of the Team Nobody Noticed" - clearly a modest volume - to discover more about Eddie Passmore's golden summer.

He was born near Hetton-le-Hole in 1922, blacked his feet to go to school because the family couldn't afford shoes, played for Portsmouth during the war, signed in the street for Swansea while resting the form against a cinema wall, joined Gateshead on a free.

Tom was but a babe in arms when his father set the football world afire. He himself became a goalkeeper, now lives in Belmont, Durham, still cherishes Eddie's extensive scrapbooks.

One cutting recalls how Carlisle United had offered £500 at the start of 1949-50 and could have had him for £1,000 - "there'll be a lot of head shaking at Brunton Park" - another details how the records kept toppling.

In scoring five away from home he'd join a select group like Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Tambling and Jimmy Hill; in bagging three hattricks in the first month of the season he equalled Jack Rowley of Manchester United and England.

There are some wonderful photographs of Redheugh Park; incredulous reports, treasured programmes.

Unable to regain his first team place, claimed from him by Dunston lad George Wilbert, Eddie signed for Guildford City in the Southern League and, since there were precious few pits around Guildford, became full-time on £10 a week.

In his first Southern League season he scored 50 goals, for which they gave him a clock. Twenty goals into the second he transferred to Kidderminster Harriers. A cartoon from the gloriously named Kidderminster Shuttle talks of Passmore passing and Bloomer blooming.

Something like that, anyway.

Eddie returned to Durham, finished his playing career at Shotton Colliery, went back down the pit and became storeman at Tursdale, near Ferryhill. He died suddenly in Durham in December 1988, aged 66.

"He never bragged, never talked about it, never had nowt and sold most of his medals, anyway, " Tom recalls. "People would talk to him about what might have been but it just didn't worry him, he never cared.

"Before that amazing start to the season they'd apparently thought he couldn't hit a barn door. So far as my dad was concerned, it was like he never had."

TOM Passmore kept goal for Spennymoor and West Auckland, affectionately recalls the hospitality offered by the late and legendary Cissie Summons at West and the sherry before the match at club secretary Sid Douthwaite's pub.

"He said it was good for our wind.

It never did us much harm, anyway, but I still wish I'd never left Blackhall Colliery."

It was while there that he played three games for Hartlepool Reserves alongside the likes of Ambrose Fogarty and Willie McPheat - and where he tangled with Pool manager Brian Clough.

Usually he'd be needed in an emergency, the first team goalkeeper indisposed and his deputy duly promoted. "They'd phone the pub in Blackhall and someone would come round for me.

"One day Cloughy rang himself and I thought me must want to sign me. It turned out he'd been reported for an illegal approach and he wanted me to agree to changing the date on the forms. I think they fined him a fiver."

ABSENCE clearly making the heart grow fonder, George Alberts also recalls John Sproates, whose death at 62 we reported on February 10.

John, whose brother Alan made 346 appearances for Darlington, joined Gateshead in 1964-65 from Barnsley and was on one occasion relegated to join young Alberts in the Stiffs.

It was, recalls George, a "cold, damp and generally horrible" afternoon at Dipton St Patrick's. Ninety minutes endured, the groundsman appeared with two pails.

"There's nee hot watter cos we seem to have a problem, " he announced, and George to this day can still see John Sproates' face.

No more reserves occupation, he returned to the North Regional League side and with George and the late Jackie Milburn became a regular in charity matches for The Ship at Felling, run by Roy Smith, one of a famous quintet of singing brothers.

Charlie Crowe and Ken Chisholm also played, the game usually preceded by Laura Milburn's bacon sandwiches.

"When the publicity was right, the crowd would stand four deep around whatever recreation ground we were playing on, " says George.

"When it wasn't, there'd be six men and a dog - but oh, they were lovely days."

LLES Gallantree, Newcastle Unit - ed's oldest former player, has died. He was 92 and, like several others in today's column, also played for Gateshead.

Born in East Boldon, the valourously named right winger joined United from Harton Colliery in 1931 but made just nine first team appearances, scoring twice in 1934-35.

His nephew was Colin Nelson, a Sunderland full back in the 60s, who for a while combined semi-professional soccer at Roker Park with helping run a pharmacy in Shildon.

Les spent a year at Aldershot before returning to Gateshead. He died at a care home in Durham.

His passing means that 88-yearold John Shiel from Seahouses, who made just one appearance, is now the oldest surviving Magpie. Ivor Broadis, capped 14 times by England, is next. He was 83 in December.

TTHE fund for the dependants of the late Steven Tierney, goalkeeper extraordinary, received a further £1,000 boost from Durham City's match against Brandon on Tuesday.

Referee Russell Tiffin and his assistants Elton Martin and Geoff Eltringham gave their match fees, City's players chipped in £50 from their pool. Total receipts of £840 were topped up to four figures by Archibalds, City's main sponsor.

Sadly, the Arngrove Northern league chairman is unable to provide further information. Having broken his glasses upon arrival, he remained in a state of half-blind ignorance throughout.

NNEWCASTLE United go to Manchester City and lose 3-0.

Graeme Souness is sacked. Sunderland lose 2-1 at City; Mick McCarthy is sacked.

"I find it very distressing that my beloved City have become the yardstick by which mediocrity is measured, " writes Dave Kilvert, from Darlington.

"Any team can ride out a string of bad results but as soon as they go to Manchester they know the manager's head is on the block and raise their game."

Middlesbrough are at Eastlands on April 1.

AND FINALLY . . .

THE former Middlesbrough player who is Dundee's manager (Backtrack, March 7) is Alan Kernaghan.

Alf Hutchinson in Darlington points out that every member of England's first test team against India was under 30 - and invites readers to suggest when it last happened.

The time, and the team, when the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 10/03/2006