In l958, my hero in life, the person I most wanted to be, was Keith Dewhurst. I had arrived on the Manchester Evening Chronicle straight from Durham as a graduate trainee reporter, which was a laugh, as they did no training. Keith was the paper’s Manchester United reporter, knew all the players, went to all the games, and he wore a white raincoat with the collar turned up. Rapture.
I don’t think I exchanged more than a few words with him, just ogled his raincoat from afar. Have never met him since. If I were to, I am sure he would deny he ever wore a white raincoat. It was all part of my fantasy.
Now, after a long and distinguished career as a playwright and TV dramatist, he has returned to football with a book about a long gone team you have never heard of, unless you are awfully well up on football history, like what I is.
It is the story of a football team from the Lancashire town of Darwen, who in the third round of the FA Cup of 1879, playing their first ever game in London, astounded the football world by beating a posho team from the Home Counties called Remnants, going on to play Old Etonians in the next round.
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