Published on Wednesday 14 September 2011 12:43

A GREEN-FINGERED wagon driver has reclaimed his champion spot at a leek show, setting a village record.

Jack McKitten, of Fence Houses, took the first place ribbon at the Burnside Workingmen’s Club Leek Show.

This is the third time in four years that the 42-year-old has claimed the first prize, after growing two leeks measuring 300.33 cubic inches, the equivalent to almost five litres, and the biggest ever grown by anyone in the village.

He said: “I’m over the moon to have won. I’m chuffed to bits. Growing leeks like this takes a lot of hard work.

“You get 10 months of growing time leading up to the competition and you have to tend to them every day, so it’s a lot of hard work.

“I won the first two years I took part then came second last year, so it’s great to reclaim my title. I’ll definitely be coming back next year to defend it. I’m the one to beat now.”

Trevor Chapman, steward of the Fence Houses club which hosts the show every year, said: “The leeks are the size of tree trunks, it’s no wonder it’s a village record.

“Jack is in our show so we’re really happy that he’s won and set the record. We’re Very pleased
www.sunderlandecho.com

Come on anyone know who is in this picture?

Thanks Barry any more gems in the wardrobe? At least this is one photo saved for posterity

 Rob Gray is gearing up for the fight he never dreamed he could have.The 17-year-old was born with talipes – a painful condition where his feet were back to front.

But after endless operations on both legs throughout his childhood, Rob, of Ravensworth Avenue, Fence Houses, is now in training for his debut bout after taking up boxing a year ago.

The former Houghton Kepier pupil said: “I never thought I would be able to do this. I couldn’t even play any sports really a few years ago so it’s amazing and I’m really excited.”

Rob, who works at Ramside Hall, underwent the first of many operations at Sunderland Royal Hospital to fix his feet at just six weeks old.

Since then, he has had more than eight surgical procedures on both his legs and feet, as well as metal plates inserted to help straighten them,

Medics also inserted pins through his legs that twist to help gradually move the feet round.

Rob’s mum Margaret Shearer, 53, said: “I’m so proud of him. I’m proud of him whatever he’s done because the way his feet were he would never have walked.

“Any achievement he makes is great and it’s amazing to see how he has come on.

“When he was about 15, he went for his final check-up and since then everything has been fine.

“He’s been amazing through all this and has never let anything bother him.”

A year ago, Rob decided to put his feet to the test when he joined Houghton Boxing Club.

Since then, he has attended weekly training and fallen in love with the sport.

“A couple of friends started doing it so I thought I’d give it a try,” he said. “I loved it so I stuck with it.

“I would not have been able to do this five or 10 years ago.”

And now, after a year of hard training, Rob is ready for his first fight tonight.

Ken Allen, of Houghton Boxing Club, said: “I’ve known Rob since he was at infant school and can remember him having operations over and over again.

“It’s remarkable how he has got on and he is a really strong boxer.”

www.sunderlandecho.com

Newcastle V Sunderland Sunday 31st October 2010
This extract was taken from the guardian in 2005.
On Sunday afternoon, about one million people in Tyne and Wear and an additional million more from the North-East’s diaspora, will watch and listen to what they consider to be the most important match of the season. Yet, to the rest of the watching world, the outcome will be observed with indifference.
The Tyne-Wear derby may be perceived by the uninitiated as parochial and unsophisticated, but like the world’s greatest derbies it has a historical conflict as its bedrock. And if anything, as a basis for a rivalry, the Sunderland-Newcastle derby is the most legitimate conflict anywhere.
Some of the great derbies are based on issues that are trite and irrational. The historical class difference, for example, between the Milan clubs – Milan traditionally unionist and working-class, Inter upper-class and conservative – is now moot, given the chairmanship of the right-wing Silvio Berlusconi at Milan. Their historical reason for difference has dissipated, as it arguably has for Juventus-Torino, Real Madrid-Atletico, and Panathinaikos-Olympiakos.
The Celtic-Rangers rivalry has been written about extensively, and needs no elaboration. Other than to say that if football can act as a metaphor for international and jingoistic warfare, then the Old Firm is the most articulate. But the Tyne-Wear derby wins in its secular and concise regional conflict.
It does, after all, predate football by 226 years. It is a conflict that has divided two cities, 12 miles apart, for more than three centuries.
In the epoch before the 1600s, King Charles I had consistently awarded the East of England Coal Trade Rights (try to contain your excitement) to Newcastle’s traders, which rendered the Wearside coal merchants redundant. People died because of it. Coal and ships were Sunderland’s raison d’etre.
But when, in 1642, the English Civil War started, and Newcastle, with good reason, supported the Crown, Sunderland, because of the trading inequalities, sided with Cromwell’s Parliamentarians, and the division began.
It became a conflict between Sunderland’s socialist republicanism, against Newcastle’s loyalist self-interest. A purposeful enmity if ever there was one. Unlike rivalries between other clubs, the differences between Newcastle and Sunderland date back to fighting based on the necessity to live and feed one’s children, and benefit one’s city.
The political differences between the two culminated with the battle of Boldon Hill. A loyalist army from Newcastle and County Durham gathered to fight an anti-monarchist Sunderland and Scottish army at a field equidistant between the two towns.
The joint Scottish and Sunderland army won – and Newcastle was colonised by the Scottish. It was subsequently used as a Republican military base for the rest of war.
And while this is a lucid basis for two cities hating each other, it has, like every other modern-day derby, developed profoundly irrational manifestations.
It has been noted that some Newcastle fans refuse to buy bacon, because of its ‘red-and-white appearance’ – the pinnacle, regardless of any jovial flippancy, of irrational behaviour. Likewise the past Mackem boycott of a particular breakfast cereal, because of the Newcastle-orientated marketing of its brand, is silly beyond words. However, these are benign occurrences.
In March 2000, more than 70 Sunderland and Newcastle hooligans took part in some of the worst football-related violence ever seen in Britain. It was not even a match day. What the police called ‘usually respectable men and fathers’ had decided to meet in mutual territory with their enemies, to fight with knives, bats and bricks.
Sunderland fans boarded a ferry towards Tyneside, found the awaiting ‘army’, and fought. One man was left permanently brain-damaged. Dozens of people were arrested, and years upon years of prison-time was sentenced.
The continuation of tension involves a new sense of injustice. For well over a decade, Sunderland’s population has bemoaned that they have been paying their local taxes to finance both the Newcastle Metro and airport.
A perceived bias towards Tyneside in the regional and national media further compounds a feeling of inequality. It seems that history is repeating itself for the people of Sunderland, albeit in a less livelihood-threatening sort of way. Perhaps a more trivial, city-image sort of way.
But this makes little sense. Let’s just hope that despite the hijacking of the game by the corporate class, and the working-class ostracising that comes with it, there remain terraces from which Mackems and Geordies can vent their invariably abusive opinions of each other without violence and civil war.
Why Mackems and Geordies?
The derivations are uncertain, but both have theories based in historical political allegiances. ‘Geordie’ because of Tyneside’s staunch support of the Hanoverian King George II during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion – ‘Geordie’ is a common diminutive of ‘George’; and Mackem because of Wearside’s accommodation of the Scottish ‘Blue Mac’ army during the civil war.
It is more likely, however, that the origins stem from aspects of the shipbuilding and coalmining industries. The Tyneside coalminers preferred George Stephenson’s ‘Geordie’ safety lamp over the more widely used Humphry Davy lamp. And it has been accepted almost universally that Mackem is derived from the phrase Mak(e)’em and Tak(e)’em, coined by Tyneside shipbuilders to insult their counterparts on the River Wear, who would build the ships and have them taken away by the richer classes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2005/oct/23/newsstory.sport

Durham Wildlife Trust

Saturday 5th June 2010 11am – 4pm

Free Admission

Learn about wildlife and have fun, with displays and activities for all ages, including rare breed livestock, birds of prey display, conservation exhibits, face painting, tradition crafts, live music and daning, refershments and much more. FREE – no booking requried. Some activites may charge.

 

For further information call Cheryl Nicholson on 0191 512 8948

 

Event information may be subject to change or cancellation, please check before travelling. Sunderland City Council makes every effort to maintain the accuracy of the information on this website but cannot accept responsibility for any error or alteration to details which may occur.

  

This Club plays in the Durham and District League.

The members train every Sunday morning 10.00 a.m hail rain or snow at there own

Ground next to the Burnside Working Men’s Club, ample parking available.

Gary Ellison is the clubs manager (a hard task master who gets results)

Over the past four seasons Gary’s team had to start in the fourth division, with hard work and motivation they became champions of division four.

Promoted to division three same result champions, promotion to division two again champions, (can you see a pattern?) last season division one again you guessed it CHAMPIONS

Next season they are promoted into the Premier league, a big step for a small club in Fence houses, what an achievement by these un-sung hero’s of our village.

Latest results & Fixture list