For the second season, we were fortunate to have people who would serve on a Committee - Tom Jobling was Chairman, Mr. Pollard was Treasurer, Willie Wright was Club Captain and Joe Hibbert was Secretary. Tom Lilley, Jim Matters, Jim Ineson and Harry Beaney gave valuable support. We also had great encouragement from Bob Britton and Eddie Pearson.

 

During our time in the League, we had only one player sent off -and that was in dubious circumstances.  We played against Cleadon St. Cuthbert's B.C. at Temple Park, South Shields on Saturday, 8th November 1958. The official referee, Mr. T.W. Noble, had refused to accept  the game owing to the bad marking of the field. The home side then presented an alleged Jarrow Y.O.C. league referee, Mr. S. Nichols. as a result of this and the club having had £3/10/- travelling expenses (Wilfie Williams' Bus) we agreed to play. During the game, our Right Half, Billie Gibson and one of their forwards were ordered off for alleged fighting, we considered this decision to be harsh as neither player had, in our opinion, been fighting. A strongly worded protest was made to the League Management Committee and no action was taken. On the whole, our disciplinary record for the three seasons in the Sunderland and District League was very good.

 

If I was to single out one special game, it would have to be against North East Metal Fabrications, who were top of the League at the time. We had been defeated 8-2 on the Store Field on 27th December 1958 and the return game was played at Hylton Road, Sunderland on 14th February 1959. Mr. Hodgson was referee.   Our team on that occasion was George Cox, Eddie Oliver, Matty Summerside, Stan Jobling, John Ferry, Billie Gibson, John Burgess, Harry Pollard,    Barry Slee, Willie Wright, Joe Hibbert.   Two of our players were simply superb on the day - George Cox in Goal, who saved everything that came his way, and John Ferry, Centre Half, who had a stormer - and even managed to head home a corner from John Burgess for our winner.   At the end of the match, their Secretary came up to me and said that if this game had cost them the League title he would 'have my guts for garters' - only in a friendly, light-hearted way of course!!   A few years later, my father was very pleased to tell me that he had a visit from George Cox, who had emigrated to Canada and was on vacation. Apparently he had joined the Mounted Police. Let's hope that he had as much success stopping the wrongdoers as he had in stopping N.E. Met Fabs on 14th February!!!