THE column which last year mentioned Andy Potts’s book on a season in the Northern League – look left - was topped by reference to From Delhi to the Den, nailed on (we said) for Sports Book of the Year.

That it was written by Owen, my younger son, should in no way be thought to have influenced that assessment.

Last Thursday evening, duly shortlisted in the football category, he attended the annual awards ceremony at Lord’s, the event unashamedly timed in the run-up to Fathers’ Day.

As a finalist, he went free. As a spouse, his wife had to pay nearly £200. We baby sat, free to a good home, even foregoing the tenner-an-hour convention in the capital that post-midnight jobs also incur taxi fare. It was 250 miles, after all.

They had a memorable night, spoke to Judy Murray – whose teeth had been in the previous day’s Daily Mail – had a pint with Jonny Bairstow, whose autobiography was shortlisted in the cricket section. “Good bloke,” the boy reports.

Neither of them won, the football award going to The Billionaires’ Club, about oligarchs like Roman Abramovich who now control so many clubs. Its author lives in Serbia, or somewhere. Win some, lose some, we appear to be playing Russian roulette.

FROM Delhi to the Den is about Stephen Constantine, globally travelled but now managing India who in two years have risen from 166th to 97th in the world rankings. Last week they played Taipei. In one of the world’s most populous nations, the crowd was 2,500.

A couple of days later, the bairn and his brother were back up north, to Edinburgh for England’s one-day cricket international.

They do it partly because they’re closet ground tickers, The Grange claimed as another first. Though goodness knows it wasn’t.

All three of us were there, though they neither remember nor believe it, when Stockton played The Grange in the last 16 of the Abbot Ale Cup, July 1994.

It rained, inevitably. “If we didn’t play when it rained we wouldn’t play cricket at all,” said a lachrymose Scot.

“The wicket,” the column observed, “was as green as a Hibernian jockstrap, the outfield the consistency of a mealy puddin’.”

An all-day breakfast was £5.50, a pint of heavy £1.85, an orange and water 80p.

The teams had met previously, 1856 and 1860, honours even. “Come on lads,” said Mark Fletcher, the Stockton skipper, “they haven’t beaten us for 134 years.”

Stockton batted. Sticky wicket notwithstanding, local polliss Billy Webster hit 80, Mickey Thomas – known as Slasher – a fast 40 at the end. They finished on 190-3.

Thereafter it rained some more. Between showers they came up with a sort of Pictish Duckworth-Lewis method which by the time things were washed out completely left our boys the winners.

This time a pint of beer was £4.80 and a carton of haggis and neeps – on no account to be confused with mealy puddin’ – £7.50. For some reason the bairns failed to report the price of a half of orange and water.

MARK Cowan, Guisborough lad and geography teacher, has himself written a richly entertaining e-book about a season in North-East football. It’s called On Unfamiliar Grounds and, like all the best, enjoys a digression direction. Watching Willington v Stockton Town, foe example, Marks falls to pondering the punny names we give tanning parlours. In Durham there was Bronzi Beach – this was 2012-13 – in Newton Aycliffe Tanz in Ere and in Sunderland Tantalize. The column’s favourite was in Thornley, near Peterlee, though brown study fails to recall its name. Any other nominations?

OBSERVING former England captain Mike Gatting at Durham v Yorkshire a couple of weeks back, the column took the perhaps less-than-rounded view that he appeared to be losing weight.

It reminded reader Trevor Nichols that it’s exactly 25 years since Gatting fell victim to Shane Warne’s “ball of the century”, prompting the writer Martin Johnson to wonder “How anyone can spin a ball the width of Gatting boggles the mind.”

Graham Gooch was equally unsympathetic. “If it had been a cheese roll it would never have got past him,” he said.

Unanswered in Alnwick, last week’s column wondered why an egg-and-chips breakfast at Barter Books is called Spike Milligan’s Favourite.

Further reading reveals little, though Google recalls the results of a 2006 global survey of 300,000 people – the work of a learned professor at the University of Hertfordshire – which conferred upon the Goon the honour of the world’s best joke.

It’s the one about the two hunters in the jungle. One collapses, eyes glazed, appears not to be breathing.

His colleague rings the emergency services. “My friend’s dead, what can I do?”

“Calm down, I can help,” says the operator. “First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”

Silence, then a shot rings out. “OK, what now?”

….AND finally, last week’s column sought the identity of the two other clubs whose ground had the same name as Alnwick Town’s. The ground’s St James’ Park, the clubs Newcastle United and Exeter City.

Since today’s offering has a distinctly Russian feel, readers are invited to suggest Lev Yashin’s nickname.

An answer when the column returns in a fortnight.