I wrote last week about the worst home defeat that Workington suffered in their Football League history – 7-1 at home to Barnsley.
It would be interesting to read my actual match report from that particular game. I used to keep a scrapbook in my early days as a sport writer with the Cumberland Star but it didn’t last much longer than two seasons.
I suppose that was mainly due to the fact that I only got the odd report to do in the early days and they were always good to look back on.
Actually the first story I ever had published was as a result of my first meeting with Tom Mitchell, but had nothing to do with rugby league.
I’d only been at the Star office for a fortnight when I had to go up to Calva Farm as a strange animal had been discovered there.
A young Graham Hancocks had found it in a field near the farm and he managed to capture it in two buckets from where it was transferred to a cardboard box.
My quote from TM was: “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” It was similar to a rabbit with soft grey fur with rodent feet and teeth, a squirrel like tail, small brown eyes and large cat like ears.
I also ran a quote from local naturalist Bill Richardson of Vulcans Lane, Workington who visited Calva and suggested the animal in question was a chinchilla – and the nearest ‘farm’ for them was at Oak Tree, Winscales.
I ended the piece by noting that an adult chinchilla is worth from £10 to £15.
Looking back it seems remarkable that under the headline Calva Farm ‘mystery’ animal there was no photograph of the creature. Maybe our snappers Alec Scott and Dennis Johnstone were a bit wary of going near it – I can’t recall.
But I digress. I was about to mention one of the worst games I saw in non-league, and there have been quite a lot over the years – but it came after I had ceased to use a scrapbook to retain my cuttings.
It only stands out in my memory bank because we were so bad I gave the Man of the Match award to the man who made the pies at Witton!
Frivolous, I know, and it didn’t go down well with chairman Colin Doorbar, but at the time it was to emphasise just how poorly we had performed in defeat.
Colin, a good friend over the years, was none too pleased, and took me to task over it. I pointed out that if the lads had done their jobs half as good as the pieman had we wouldn’t have played like that.
The pies were excellent, so much so that when the Reds introduced a guest pie for each match day during the current season, I suggested to organising director Les Byers that we should see about a Witton pie.
Les has confirmed, however, that guest match day pies at Borough Park this season have to be sourced from within the county.
I sincerely hope I’m not tempted to give any Man of the Match award this season to the Man who made the Pies!
