Innings closed

A customer’s car had conked out.

Sam and friends forsaking the pub’s snug embrace to help him change the wheel, an exercise ultimately unsuccessful.

So we went back inside, had a restorative pint – goodness knows, Sam needed it – listened while the make-do mechanics cursed the inanimate obduracy of wheel nuts.

“The only trouble,” said Sam, “Is that I don’t think we’ll be getting that call from Brands Hatch.”

Sam, who died on his wedding anniversary last Saturday, was a truly remarkable man – cricketer, buttonbright educationalist, sports administrator and (by no means least) a glorious raconteur.

He was found dead at the home of his daughter and son-in-law – Sarah married former England batsman Graeme Fowler – at Hett. He’d been watching the racing.

Sam was from Browney, a few miles south-west of Durham, attended the Johnson Grammar School and was a county schools swimmer until the redoubtable Alderman Cecil Ferens sent word that Durham City’s juniors were short of a bowler.

Sam was summoned, though at Browney there was no such thing as cricket kit. Even his bat was fashioned from a piece of pit plank.

His much-loved father sent for some new black sandshoes from the Co-op, cut down a pair of grey flannels, found an old white dress shirt.

Thus attired, Sam was – to his surprise – allowed onto the field. “I felt like a willick,” he observed, memorably, many years later.

Yet more greatly to his surprise, he was thrown the ball when City’s cause seemed lost, claimed five wickets – “five for something ridiculous, three I think” – helped the team to victory and was still playing for them 50 years later.

In 1999, retiring as principal of St Cuthbert’s Society at Durham University, he was still opening the third team bowling with Ray Pallister, who was 71. “I have a GTI zimmer frame,” said Sam.

He played twice for Durham County, for Durham University and for Combined Universities, was Durham’s assistant secretary in Minor Counties days, became chairman of the North Regional Council for Sport and Recreation and, in 1995, a member of the English Sports Council.

Formidably bright, he was every bit as unassuming and always excellent company. If ever a man earned Browney points, it was Sam Stoker.

Though funeral details are yet to be announced, the reception will be back at the Daleside.

BEFORE being sidetracked by a putative pit crew, the column had been headed that February night in 2013 to the annual presentation at Tudhoe Cricket Club.

They’ve another do on Sunday September 7, when the junior section celebrates its 50th anniversary – “and still going strong,” says Alan Courtney, the first captain.

They began in the Coxhoe and District Junior League, long defunct, now field four teams at different age levels. Alan recalls the benefit of Sam Stoker’s advice. “I was full of edge and he put me in my place,” he says.

The seniors play Burnmoor on September 6, a match that could decide the Durham Cricket League title. The following day there’s a reunion, a dads and lads game, barbecue and sports for the kids.

They’d love to hear from all former players – Alan’s on 07748 308 247, Ian McGrath’s on 07905 083 552.

LAST Friday evening to the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, not for some pre-season pantomime but for North Riding FA’s summer dinner – a happy occasion. The admirable Len Scott, NRFA chairman and retired Wensleydale farmer, supports the Boro, too. “They drive me mad on that little bit of grass out there, but they put on a right good do,” he said. So they do do.

A CONFESSION: the first part of last week’s column shouldn’t have been there at all. A remembrance of custodial cackhandedness, it had been written for the Newcastle Benfield v Darlington 1883 match programme – a benefit for Benfield’s Andrew Grainger, an altogether more capable keeper.

Inexplicably, illegitimately, that and the piece which followed had become technologically entwined.

Still, Brian Dixon enjoyed it, not least because it reminded him of similar schoolboy ineptitude. “In 1963-64 I captained possibly the most incompetent primary school XI ever seen,” insists Brian, in Darlington, though there may be stiff competition for that inverted accolade.

The same day’s paper carried tributes to Peter Turnbull, ever-welcoming owner of the Tapas Bar in Darlington, who had been found dead there.

Brian particularly recalls postmatch Saturday evenings when football could be shown on three different screens in three different rooms.

“In all those years there was never a drop of trouble or unpleasantness. Peter would always take command with a well-timed quiet word. The atmosphere was always excellent – a massive contribution to the ‘needs’ of the football followers of Darlington.”

….and finally, the only wicket keeper in test cricket history who has now conceded more byes than Matt Prior (Backtrack, July 22) is Mark Boucher, of South Africa.

Paul Hewitson in Darlington today invites readers to identify the footballer who was a sub for England against Chile in 1998 and played against England in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Three lions on its shirt, the column returns next week.