Witton Park Rose and Crown last week won the Wear Valley Sunday League without dropping a point - 100 years almost to the day since the village team had also won every game in the Wear Valley League, a clean sweep before sweepers were invented.

"It's an amazing coincidence. We weren't even aware of the possibility until a couple of weeks ago," says team secretary Jackie Foster, 54.

Jackie, once a familiar Northern League midfielder with Bishop Auckland, West Auckland, Willington and Crook, kept goal in the final game, a 1-0 win over Shildon Three Tuns, because regular Marc Adamson was unavailable.

"We've gone through a season unbeaten before, but to have a 100 per cent record after 100 years is unbelievable," he says.

The Rose and Crown website even suggests that Jackie played in both teams. "It just feels like it," he says.

Dale Daniel, who runs the village website (www.wittonpark.net) and helped produce a village history called Witton Park: Forever Paradise - has also kindly sent pictures of the two teams, the 1902-03 boys with medals pinned to their chests.

"The great thing is that 90 per cent of today's side still either live in the village or have parents and grandparents here," he says.

From goalkeeper to outside left, the side which played on Paradise Fields is: Jos Roddam, Jack Smith, Tot Carlin, Toby Gill, Jackie Millington, Billy Franklin, Jackie Richmond, George Maughan, Jack Hathaway, Billy Casson and Tommy Todd.

The present team hit double figures six times, including a 13-1 and a 12-0 against The Comedian, a pub team from Sunniside. Unlike the history-makers, they were probably not amused.

Tommy Blenkinsopp, who came from Witton Park but never really left it, is now in a care home in West Auckland, a couple of miles down the road.

"The lads have still had him out for a couple," says Jackie Foster.

The first and probably the only professional footballer from that celebrated south-west Durham village, he signed for Grimsby Town before the war, joined the Green Howards, became Middlesbrough's right half in 1948, made two appearances for the star spangled Football League XI and managed Witton Park Institute's team until he was 65.

Tommy also earned a reputation for liking a drop to drink before a match at Ayresome Park - but only, he once told the column, two raw eggs and two sherries, good for the wind.

"We'd go to the Corporation Hotel all right - me, Wilfy Mannion, Billy Whittaker and Dick Robinson, but everyone thought if you went to a pub you got drunk.

"The directors were there, too, and you didn't ever dare have butter on your toast. If we'd been drunk, they'd have smelled it a thousand miles off."

Not just the routine of a pre-match stiffener in the Corporation Hotel has changed dramatically, as evidenced by a 1939 Auckland Chronicle cutting offered up by Dale Daniel.

Tommy had just signed for Grimsby, an achievement which so delighted his own folks in Witton Park that a dance and presentation evening was held in the War Memorial Institute.

Music by Billy Raymond and his Band, medal subscribed by team-mates, presentation by Bishop Auckland FC treasurer Mr J G Waine, who brought along the newly-won FA Amateur Cup and three other trophies.

The whole village turned out - all except Tommy. He was too shy, reported the Chronicle. They gave the medal to his mum.

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