Northern Echo again.... before you get at me!!!

Well you have to keep those Kelloe links alive, wouldn't you agree chaps?


National Orphanage Cup's parentage

Recent recollections of Winterton Hospital FC, near Sedgefield, overflowed into memories of the National Orphanage Cup - and the thought that the "nation" seemed not to extend much beyond a five-mile radius of Trimdon.
By way of possible confirmation, Jack Turton in Coxhoe sends a photograph of the East Hetton County Mixed School side of 1947-48, which beat Trimdon Grange 1-0 in the NOC final.
His dad Jim - "goalkeeper and probably the smallest player on the field" - holds the ball aloft. Afterwards, says Jack, they paraded the cup through Kelloe and raised enough to buy a new strip.
The picture shows, back: George Strong, Norman Luke, Eddie Wilkinson, Herbert Ward; Middle: George Fisher, Jim Turton, Tom Vance, Ray Clark; Front: John Hesler, Ray Lowery, Gordon Parnaby, Stan Johnson, Clifford Seaton.
Mr Ellis and Mr Ruddick are the teachers on the left, headmaster Mr Thompson and, behind him, Tommy Hunt the caretaker are on the right.
We've also heard from Martin Jones in Chilton, whose Winterton hat-trick we mentioned a couple of weeks back - "All from 25 yards," he insists - and from Mal Dickenson, whose father Brian ran the successful sides of the 60s and early 70s and who's hoping to revive the cup competition played in his memory.
Brian died in 1984, the trophy contested between representative sides of the Auckland and District and Durham and District leagues. "With the Auckland league disappearing, so did the match and the trophy," says Mal.
Someone recalls seeing it in Cockfield workmen's club. We'll pass on any information.
None of this, however, gives much clue to the parentage of the National Orphanage Cup. John Briggs only muddies waters by sending a 1929 team photograph of West Auckland FC with both the Northern Orphanage and Tudhoe Orphanage Cups.
Before finally we put it to bed, can anyone shed some benevolence on the Orphanage?