Words: Andrew Newton // @aa7n
It used to be said that if you needed a world class footballer, all you had to do was shout down one of North East England’s numerous mineshafts and one would appear. Presumably after he’d finished his shift in the pit, of course. While it’s true that Northumberland produced some fine footballers, the town of Ashington being responsible for Bobby and Jack Charlton and Jackie Milburn, a relative of the Charltons, it is County Durham that created whole teams of fine footballers. In a tradition running from the late 19th century until deep into the 20th century, Durham, the southernmost of the two main counties that form the North East region, produced numerous teams that brought back honours and glittering trophies to demonstrate the pre-eminence of North East football.
Five County Durham football clubs have played in the Football League. This number outstrips Northumberland (with only two clubs to have ever played in the Football League) and numerous counties further south, including most of the Home Counties. These clubs include Darlington, Durham City, Hartlepool United, and South Shields, who joined the league in 1919, became Gateshead in 1930, and failed re-election in 1960.
Sunderland, of course, are the biggest and best known of County Durham’s clubs. The city, then a town, was removed from County Durham with the creation of the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear in 1974. South Shields and Gateshead, also both formerly in County Durham, suffered the same fate. Nonetheless, many people still consider Sunderland to be traditionally part of County Durham and the football club to be the club of County Durham, with a large proportion of its support coming from the wider county. Founded in 1879 by a group of school teachers, the club’s birth was announced to the world in October of the following year at a meeting of teachers in the Sunderland area. Initially the ‘Sunderland and District Teachers Association Football Club’ limited its membership to educators but due to a lack of funds had to open itself up to members from other lines of work, leading to a slight change in name. Sunderland Association Football Club joined the Football League in time for the 1890/91 season. This was the famous “Team of all the Talents”, a moniker bestowed on Sunderland in 1890 by Aston Villa Chairman William McGregor who had just seen his side smashed 7-2 in a friendly game. They had won the league championship by the end of the 1891/92 season. This was the first of six English league championships which puts Sunderland joint seventh on the list of total league titles won alongside Chelsea, and behind Aston Villa, Everton, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United. The last of Sunderland’s league titles came in 1936, but it took some time for the glory to fade.
Sunderland became known as the Bank of England club in the late 1940s and 1950s for the high transfer fees that they paid. Len Shackleton arrived for a world record fee of £20,500 in 1948 and two years later Sunderland smashed their own record by paying £30,000 to bring in the Welsh Centre forward Trevor Ford from Aston Villa. In the intervening period, Sunderland had paid high transfer fees to sign Tommy Wright from Partick Thistle and Ivor Broadis from Carlisle United. The late 1950s saw a downturn in the club’s fortunes, however, when in 1957 they were found guilty of making payments to players in excess of the maximum wage. This resulted in a fine of £5000, with the chairman and at least two directors being banned. Trevor Ford, who’s autobiography had played a role in bringing this widespread practice to prominence, was banned from playing football sine die, although this was overturned, and he signed for PSV Eindhoven later in 1957. The following year, Sunderland suffered the first relegation in their history. Despite this, well into the 1960s, newspaper reports were still describing Sunderland as one of the most glamorous clubs in the country. Sunderland won their last major trophy in 1973 when, as a Second Division team, they beat Leeds United, then in their pomp, 1-0. The game was notable for Jimmy Montgomery’s outstanding second half double save, as well as manager Bob Stokoe’s joyous, and sartorially discordant, run across the Wembley turf at the final whistle. Despite it now being more than 50 years since this trophy win (they have won second and third tier titles and the EFL Trophy since), they can still boast about having won a major title more recently than their traditional rivals from the north bank of the river Tyne.
Another boast that Sunderland can make is that they are one of only a handful of English clubs to have held the title of World Champions. The Football World Championship was an exhibition match played regularly, but not annually, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, between the English and Scottish champions (or cup winners, prior to the implementation of league football in both countries, and then in some years, a mixture of both). Sunderland claimed victory in 1892, when they played Celtic, 1893, when they beat Glasgow’s Queen’s Park, and 1895, when they beat Heart of Midlothian in an epic game that ended 5-3 to the Wearsiders. Queen’s Park, who they beat in 1893, are the only team to have won the Football World Championship more times than Sunderland, although Aston Villa also hold three titles.
While other English clubs that can also claim to have been World Champions include Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea (as winners of FIFA’s Club World Cup), Sunderland aren’t the only club from County Durham who can legitimately claim to have once been World Champions. As you drive into the village of West Auckland, you pass a yellow and blue sign stating that this is the ‘Home of the First World Cup’. West Auckland Football Club, later to be renamed West Auckland Town, were formed in 1893 and joined the Northern League in 1908, having previously played in the Wear Valley League, the South Durham Alliance, and the Mid Durham League. In 1909, they were invited to compete in the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. This was an international competition held in Turin; the trophy itself was organised and donated by the tea magnate and noted sportsman Sir Thomas Lipton. It was the first truly international club competition to feature a British team; the Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva, held a year earlier, only featured teams from Italy, France, Switzerland, and Germany. Italy, Germany, and Switzerland sent prestigious sides to Lipton’s tournament, but the Football Association refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a representative team. Lipton did not want Britain to be unrepresented and West Auckland were invited. Quite why West Auckland were the team invited by Lipton remains a mystery. However, the popular account that there was administrative confusion surrounding the club’s initials, WAFC, and that the real intention was to invite Woolwich Arsenal, is probably apocryphal.
Arsenal weren’t, at this stage, the storied club that they would later become and Italian newspaper reports from the time suggest that they were expecting a team from the Northern League. It has been suggested that an employee of Lipton’s had links to the Northern League, and this led to West Auckland being the English team selected to compete. This West Auckland team really did comply with the idea that the North East’s mines contained a rich vein of footballing talent. Most of the side were local miners and, as the club had to fund the trip themselves, many ended up selling personal possessions and furniture to pay for their passage. In their first game, on the 11th April, West Auckland defeated Germany’s Stuttgarter Sportfreunde by two goals to nil. This took them to the final, which was held the following day, to face Winterthur of Switzerland, who had beaten a Turin XI 2-1 in the other semi-final. Winterthur were beaten 2-0, with both of West Auckland’s goals coming within the first ten minutes. West Auckland had won the competition that would later be named the ‘first world cup’. Incidentally, this wasn’t the only football competition that Lipton was involved with. The Lipton Challenge Cup was played between clubs from southern Italy and Sicily from 1909 to 1915 and the Copa Lipton was contested by the national teams of Argentina and Uruguay on an irregular basis between 1905 and 1992.
The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy
Photo Credit: The Northern Echo
Two years later, the competition was held again, and West Auckland were invited to defend their title. The teams taking part in this edition were FC Zurich, Torino, and Juventus, all of which would go on to become huge names in European football. In their semi-final, West Auckland beat FC Zurich 2-0, setting up a final against Juventus, who had won their semi-final against Torino, also 2-0. West Auckland won this game emphatically by six goals to one. It’s this win over future European giants that has become embedded in popular memory. As a result of this win, West Auckland were awarded the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in perpetuity and the club, and the village, gained a certain level of fame.
At the picturesque centre of the village, surrounded by 17th and 18th century buildings, the event is commemorated in the form of a statue depicting an Edwardian footballer leaping over the figure of a coal miner, lying on his side to access the coal face. In the early 1980s, Tyne Tees Television produced a dramatised account of the first competition, starring Dennis Waterman, Richard Griffith and Tim Healy. It’s actually quite a good watch. Funny in places too, particularly if you’re familiar with the North East, and the football sequences are quite believable. Historically though, it’s pretty inaccurate and conflates the two competitions.
The West Auckland FC Statue commemorating the football heritage of the town.
Photo Credit: A. A. S. Newton
The second tour to Italy had left West Auckland in debt and they borrowed money from the landlady of the local inn in which they held their meetings. The trophy was offered up as security on the loan. Sadly, the club folded due to financial problems in 1912 but was reconstituted as West Auckland Town in 1914. Despite this, the trophy remained in the possession of the Inn’s landlady until 1960, when it was bought back for £100. Thereafter, it was held in the West Auckland Working Men’s Club until it was stolen in 1994, never to be returned. Winning the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy is probably the highpoint of West Auckland’s history, although they did win the Northern League in 1960 and 1961. 1961 also saw them reach the final of the FA Amateur Cup, a competition more usually associated with their near neighbours, Bishop Auckland.
The gates to West Auckland’s ground at Darlington Road, with the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy incorporated into them.
Photo Credit: A. A. S. Newton
The FA Amateur Cup was played between 1893 and 1974, when the Football Association abolished official amateur status, and the competition became obsolete. Of the 71 finals that were contested (there were breaks during the First and Second World Wars), clubs from County Durham won 20 of them. Bishop Auckland accounted for 10 of those wins and no club holds more FA Amateur Cup titles than the ‘Two Blues’.
At the northern edge of the town of Bishop Auckland lies Auckland Palace, which was a residence of the bishops of Durham from the 12th century. It remained so throughout the period of the so-called ‘Prince Bishops’, who had jurisdiction and rights over the County Palatine, usually exclusive to the monarch, until 1832 when it became their primary residence. In 1882, theological students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities studying at Auckland Palace formed a football club. This club was known as Bishop Auckland Church Institute and their colours were Oxford blue and Cambridge blue, to reflect their academic origins. In 1886/87, a dispute occurred which led to the formation of a breakaway club that was initially named Auckland Town. After briefly playing in royal blue, the light and dark blue Oxbridge-inspired colours of the original club were adopted.
In 1889, Auckland Town became one of the 10 founding members of the Northern League, the second oldest football league in the world. The team finished 8th in that first season but didn’t compete again in the league between 1891 and 1893, although they did win the Durham County Challenge Cup in 1892. In 1893, under the name Bishop Auckland, they returned to Northern League action. Their league performances were underwhelming to begin with, and they finished third from bottom in their first two seasons. Things improved rapidly though, and Bishop Auckland won their first Northern League title in the 1898/99 season and, by 1988, when they joined the Northern Premier League, had won it on a further 18 occasions. Their most successful period in the Northern League came between 1947 and 1956, when they never finished lower than second and were Champions seven times.
It was the FA Amateur Cup that brought Bishop Auckland to the attention of the wider public. Their first win in this national competition came even before their first Northern League title. In 1896 they beat Royal Artillery Portsmouth 1-0 at Walnut Street, Leicester. A second FA Amateur Cup Final was won in 1900 with a 5-1 victory over Lowestoft Town at another location named after a nut in Leicester, this time Filbert Street. Northern Nomads, a team from the Manchester/Liverpool area without a fixed home ground, were beaten 1-0 in the 1914 final. Although they made a good attempt at defending their title, Bishop Auckland lost the 1915 final against Clapton. Following a break enforced by the First World War, Bishop won back-to-back finals in 1921 and 1922 against Swindon Victoria and South Bank, with both finals played at Ayresome Park. After that it was another 13 years before the FA Amateur Cup returned to Bishop Auckland when it took a replay at Stamford Bridge (after a 0-0 draw at Ayresome Park) to beat Wimbledon. Four years later, they beat another County Durham club, Willington, 3-0 in a final played at Sunderland’s Roker Park.
Playing for Bishop Auckland in that 1939 final was one Robert Paisley, the son of a miner from Hetton-le-Hole, just outside Sunderland. Young Bob left school at 14 and initially worked alongside his dad at the pit. When the mine at Hetton closed, he trained as a bricklayer. Paisley was a talented footballer and joined Hetton Football Club when he left school. Hetton recommended him to Sunderland, a club he reportedly would have liked to have joined, but they rejected him for that old chestnut of being ‘too small’. As a result, he signed for Bishop Auckland before the 1937-38 season. In his second season, he played in the FA Amateur Cup win against Willington and also won the Northern League title and the Durham County Challenge Cup. The week after the Durham County Challenge Cup final win over South Shields, he signed for Liverpool. He stayed at Liverpool in various capacities until 1983. By the time he stood down as manager, this former County Durham miner had won six League Championships, three League Cups, six Charity Shields, three European Cups, one UEFA Cup, and one UEFA Super Cup, becoming regarded as one of the greatest English football managers of all time.
Associated primarily with Liverpool, Bob Paisley played with Bishop Auckland at the start of his career.
Photo Credit: History of Soccer
By the time Bishop Auckland next won the FA Amateur Cup, finals were regularly being played at Wembley Stadium and it was here that they won the first of three FA Amateur Cups in a row with a 2-0 victory over Hendon (in North London, not the suburb of Sunderland) in 1955. In 1956, a 1-1 draw against Corinthian-Casuals at Wembley meant that a replay was required which Bishop Auckland won 4-1 at Ayresome Park. The hat-trick was completed in 1957 with a 3-1 win over Wycombe Wanderers back at Wembley. This was their tenth and last FA Amateur Cup win and also their last appearance in the final. In addition to the ten finals they won, Bishop Auckland appeared in a further eight finals and were semi-finalists on 27 occasions.
The year after their last FA Amateur Cup win, Bishop Auckland came to the aid of Manchester United who, in the wake of the Munich Air Disaster, required players at short notice to fulfil their immediate fixture commitments. Three amateur internationals, Derk Lewin, Bobby Hardisty, and Warren Bradley moved from Bishop Auckland on loan to Manchester United’s reserve team. Following his recovery from the injuries he sustained in the crash, Matt Busby was sufficiently impressed by Bradley’s performances to sign him as a part-time professional in 1958. In May 1959, Walter Winterbottom selected Bradley for the England team and he became the only player to have played for both the amateur and professional England teams in the same season.
Bishop Auckland’s history since that last FA Amateur Cup win has been up and down. League and cup titles were won in the 1960s and 1980s, but the 1970s were a lean period for the club. Their move to the Northern Premier League in 1988 lasted until 2002 when they suffered their first ever relegation as a result of a ground technicality. In 2007, they were relegated back to the Northern League, which had by this stage become part of the league pyramid. In 2023/24, Bishop Auckland won the Northern League Division One and were promoted to Division One East of the Northern Premier League, which sits at Step 4 (or Tier 8) of the English league system.
Of the eight FA Amateur Cup Finals that Bishop Auckland lost, perhaps the most notable was the 1954 edition. Bishop were drawn against their local rivals Crook Town, located five miles to the north-east on the edge of Weardale. The two teams shared a bitter rivalry, not just due to their proximity, but dating back to the so-called “Crook Town incident” when, in 1928, Bishop Auckland reported Crook to the Durham FA for illegal payment of players, contravening their supposed amateur status. This led to a widespread investigation, Crook Town’s expulsion from the Northern League, and the suspension of 314 players from numerous clubs.
Such ‘shamateurism’ was clearly widespread and it is unlikely that Bishop Auckland were completely innocent of such practices themselves. Following their expulsion, Crook Town spent a season playing in the Durham Central League and were readmitted to the Northern League in 1929. Nonetheless, they turned professional under the name Crook and joined the North Eastern League in 1930. This only lasted until 1936 when, with the club almost bankrupt and bottom of the table, it was decided to revert to amateur status.
Crook Town and Bishop Auckland are led out on to the Wembley pitch ahead of the 1954 FA Amateur Cup Final.
Photo Credit: The Northern Echo
The 1954 FA Amateur Cup Final saw Crook Town win the trophy for the second time. Their first win came in 1901, when the beat King’s Lynn 3-0 at Ipswich, following a 1-1 draw. Against Bishop Auckland, who were far and away the favourites, in 1954, they required two replays. The Two-Blues had beaten Crook 3-1 and 4-1 in that season’s league encounters and the local press anticipated a similar result in the final. Nonetheless, local interest was high; 20 special trains and 250 coaches were put on to transport fans from County Durham down to Wembley where a crowd of over 100,000 was in attendance. This game was drawn 2-2. Very early in the game, Bishop Auckland’s half back Jimmy Nimmins fractured his leg in a tackle and was stretchered off. With no substitutes in those days, Bishop were down to ten men.
Despite this disadvantage Les Dixon gave Bishop Auckland the lead, but Ronnie Thompson equalised almost immediately with a low drive into the bottom left-hand corner of Harry Sharratt’s goal. Bishop Auckland again took the lead through Ray Oliver to make the score 2-1 at half time. On 55 minutes, Eddie Appleby equalised for Crook from a Bill Jeffs cross and the score remained 2-2 for the remainder of the 90 minutes and extra time. A replay would be required. Nine days later, the two teams faced each other again at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park with 56,008 watching, a record for an amateur match outside of London. Crook rushed into an early 2-0 lead, with Ken Harrison scoring twice inside 4 minutes. Bishop Auckland pulled one back on 79 minutes and within a couple of minutes had equalised. The score remained the same and a second replay was required.
Before the second replay it was decided that the tie would not go to a third replay and if this game also ended in a draw, the cup would be shared. Each team would hold it for 6 months, and who went first would be decided by the toss of a coin. Midway through the first half of this third game, held at Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park, Bishop Auckland thought they had the lead. Ray Oliver headed in from a corner but Alf Bond, the one-armed referee, ruled it out for a foul. Bishop Auckland should really have taken the lead a few minutes later but four minutes before half-time, Crook Town took the lead. Despite an onslaught from Bishop Auckland in the second half, they held firm to win their second of five FA Amateur Cups.
In 1959, Crook Town beat Barnet 3-2 at Wembley to win their third FA Amateur Cup. They drew 1-1 with Hounslow Town in 1962, before beating them 4-0 at Ayresome Park in the replay. Their fifth win came in 1964 when Enfield were beaten 2-1 at Wembley. This fifth win puts them joint second on the list of most FA Amateur Cup wins, some distance behind their rivals from Bishop Auckland and equal with Clapton who won their last title in this competition in 1925.
Joining Crook Town around the time that they won their first FA Amateur Cup Final in 1901 was a 17-year-old miner’s son who would become a miner himself. This was Jack Greenwell, and he would play for Crook Town for approximately 11 years, with his last appearance coming in December 1911. He also starred as a guest player for West Auckland during their 1909 appearance in the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. This County Durham miner would go on to be hugely influential in world football.
In 1912, Jack Greenwell travelled to Barcelona. No one is entirely sure why he went there but, despite not being a sought-after international, indeed never having played professionally, he played for Barcelona’s first team against their reserves on 1st September 1912. Much of Greenwell’s story is unclear and how and why he ended up in Barcelona is subject to a variety of theories. What is known is that he made his full debut for Barcelona on 29th September 1912 in a 4-2 win over FC Espanya de Barcelona.
It is possible that he went to Barcelona because he knew Jack Alderson, another player from Crook, who had been appointed player-coach in 1912. When Alderson left the club in 1913, Greenwell was given the role of player-coach and soon arranged a series of friendlies against his former club Crook Town. Crook beat their hosts 4-2 in the first game and, therefore, joined West Auckland on the list of amateur County Durham clubs with famous wins against future European royalty. The following two games were drawn 1-1 and 2-2. Crook Town undertook further tours in 1921 and 1922 and, in total, played ten games against Barcelona, winning twice, drawing four times and losing four times.
Jack Greenwell had two spells in charge of Barcelona’s first team.
Photo Credit: FC Barcelona
Greenwell’s legacy at Barcelona is significant. He was appointed manager in 1917 and would go on to win the Catalan Championship four times and the Copa del Rey twice. He managed some of the most legendary players in Barcelona’s history; such names as Paulino Alcántara, Ricardo Zamora, Emili Sagi-Barba, and Josep Samitier. More importantly, he is credited with laying the foundations of Barcelona’s commitment to attacking, passing football and building attacks from the back. In his excellent book Mister, Rory Smith suggests that Greenwell should be considered as one of the men who contributed to establishing Barcelona as a football superpower.
Greenwell left Barcelona in 1923 and took up the role of manager at UE Sants, a club based in a suburb of Barcelona. He moved on again in 1926 to CD Castellón, a club in the Valencia area. In 1928, Greenwell joined Espanyol, Barcelona’s city rivals. At Espanyol, he delivered the Copa del Rey and the Catalan Championship in 1929 but moved again in 1930 to Mallorca, or as they were known then, Real Sociedad Alfonso XIII. He returned to Barcelona in 1931, winning a fifth Catalan Championship in 1932. He then managed Valencia and Sporting de Gijón before leaving Spain in 1936 due to the civil war.
After a brief stint in Turkey, Greenwell moved to Peru where he was appointed manager of both Universitario de Deportes and the Peru national team. He won the Peruvian Championship with Universitario in 1939 and took Peru to their first Copa América the same year. In 1940 he moved to Colombia to work with the national team there and in 1942, he was appointed manager of Independiente Santa Fe but died of a heart attack later that year while driving home from a training session.
The third most-successful County Durham football club in the FA Amateur Cup is Stockton. They shouldn’t be confused with the current Stockton Town. This club from Stockton-on-Tees was dissolved in 1975. Known as ‘the Ancients’ due to their longstanding presence in the town, they were founded in 1882 and were founder members of the Northern League in 1889. In 1897, they reached their first FA Amateur Cup Final but, despite taking Old Carthusians to a replay, eventually lost 4-1. In 1899, they beat Harwich and Parkeston 1-0 to win the FA Amateur Cup for the first time. They won it again in 1903, beating Oxford City but again required a replay, which they won 1-0. They reached the final again in 1907 but lost 2-1 to Clapton and lost by the same score the following year to Depot Battalion Royal Engineers. In 1912, they won their third FA Amateur Cup with a 1-0 win over Eston United. Sadly, this famous club folded in 1975, and its assets were transferred to Norton Cricket Club, who subsequently founded the Norton and Stockton Ancients who play in the Wearside League.
West Hartlepool Football Club was formed in 1881. They joined the Northern League in 1898 and never finished higher than fourth. Until 1908 they were the biggest football club in the Hartlepool area. This position was confirmed in 1905 when they beat Clapton 3-2 at Shepherds Bush in the final of the FA Amateur Cup. This was their first and only title in this competition but the sixth time it had been won by a County Durham club. However, in 1908, Hartlepool United was formed. Just two years later West Hartlepool folded, and their assets and liabilities were taken over by the new club who were then playing in the professional North Eastern League.
Willington is a village in the Weardale area of County Durham close to Crook and Bishop Auckland. In 1906, a football club, Willington AFC was established in the village. They joined the Northern League in 1911 and finished as runners-up in their second season. The following season they won the title for the first time. They won it again in 1926 and 1930. During this golden spell, they reached the semi-finals of the FA Amateur Cup for the first time. There they met Cockfield, another County Durham club, and lost. Cockfield is a tiny village close to West Auckland and the football club became known as the “Village Wonder Team” due to their exploits in the FA Amateur Cup in the 1920s. Following their 1928 win over Willington, they met Leyton in the final at Ayresome Park. This team, which consisted of unemployed miners from a two-street pit village in County Durham, twice took the lead but couldn’t hold on for a famous win against their opponents from London. Willington, a much bigger and more successful club than Cockfield, had another bite of the cherry and actually reached the final in 1939. They met Bishop Auckland and lost 3-0. Eleven years later they got a second chance in the FA Amateur Cup Final meeting Bishop Auckland again, beating them 4-0 in front of a crowd of 88,000.
Willington playing against Bishop Auckland in the 1950 FA Amateur Cup.
Photo Credit: The Northern Echo