Harmy takes the Colliers' reins

It may not be widely known outside the North East that former England and Durham fast bowler and occasional media pundit, Steve Harmison is now the manager of Ashington FC. The Colliers, briefly members of the Football League in the nineteen twenties, play their football in the Northern League, a stronghold of the semi pro game with its member clubs stretching form Northumberland to North Yorkshire and with a couple of out posts in Cumbria.

 

Last week Ashington visited Dean Street, the home of Shildon FC and close friend, fellow Durham member, Sunderland devotee and resident of Shildon, Peter Sixsmith attended the match as well as writing a column for the programme.

Peter's column's theme of cricketing footballers was sparked by Harmison's tie up with his home town club, for whom he played as a teenager. Steve took up the manager's position in early February, since when the Colliers have shown improvement and made progress up the Division 1 Table, the ninth tier of English football. The blog has previously touched on cricketers who made the grade as footballers and the article included names like Willie Watson, Chris Balderstone, Arnold Sidebottom, Ken Taylor, Brian Close and  Jim Standen. Pcws may well be able to name their cricketing counties, their football clubs might be a little more taxing. Something for the Thoroughbreds to chew over between mouthfuls of jam roly poly when they meet for the last of this winter's lunches later today.

With Peter's permission I reproduce the final two paragraphs of his article which are devoted to former Sussex, Hampshire and England cricketer C B Fry.

'The ultimate all-rounder was C B Fry, who won an FA Cup runners up medal with Southampton in 1902, played 26 test matches for England in the days when there were maybe 15 in a three year cycle, held the world long jump record with a leap of 26' 3.5'', had a trial for the England Rugby Union team and had a party piece where he would 'leap from a stationary position on the floor and do a back flip and land on a mantelpiece. He would perform this trick at country houses much to the interest of the guests. He was also asked by a newly independent Albania to become King of that country ( he refused, presumably because of the lack of net facilities in Tirana) and was almost elected as Liberal MP for Banbury, losing by 829 votes.

Steve Harmison may not have done all these things but C B Fry was  never asked to be manager of Ashington. Should Harmy's boys win tonight, he may want to do a backward leap onto the bar.'

For the record Ashington were 4-3 winners thus denting Shildon's hopes of a first championship in 75 years. Whether Harmy tried to emulate Fry's party trick is not recorded. Readers wanting to know how Fry filled his afternoons might like to search for CB The Life of Charles Burgess Fry by Clive Ellis.