From the 1984 York Rock Festival – Echo & The Bunnymen and The Sisters of Mercy shaking the Knavesmire to modern blockbuster crowds, the tradition runs deep.

Remembering the huge gigs that have rocked York Racecourse – including pictures and memories from the 1984 York Rock Festival on Knavesmire. (Image: Submitted)

Sir Tom Jones drew more than 30,000 in 2015, arriving just in time to deliver a masterclass under evening skies.

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There had been fears the then-septuagenarian sex bomb himself would be a non-runner after a respiratory infection had put paid to his earlier concerts at Saint Tropez and in Germany.

Sir Rod Stewart kept the sell-out momentum rolling, with his July 2019 concert at York Racecourse held on a specially-constructed pop-up venue on the Knavesmire.

STILL WEARING IT WELL Rod Stewart at York Racecourse in 2019. Picture Cuffe and Taylor Rhodes (Image: Cuffe and Taylor Rhodes)

There have been screams for Boyzone in 2018, club vibes as Craig David brought his TS5 set, and pop-punk revivals with Busted.

In July 2021, 30,000 thousand fans packed York Racecourse again for the first time in almost two years due to the Covid pandemic.

Racegoers watched a series of races followed by a concert by pop band McFly on the second day of the course’s Music Showcase weekend.

Races had been held behind closed doors the previous year while York’s capacity had been limited to 4,000 at meetings earlier that year.

Olly Murs charmed the crowds at York Racecourse Picture Jeremy Phillips Photographer (Image: Jeremy Phillips Photographer)

Those restrictions on numbers at race meetings had been removed under the Government’s recent relaxation of Covid rules.

In 2022, about 45,000 packed in for Madness and Sugababes, proving the appetite only grows.

As this season returns, memories of Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones lighting up 2012 remind us that the music is just as big as the racing.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Wildlife enthusiast Timothy Treadwell spent 13 successive summers living among grizzly bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park

A fearless wildlife enthusiast and his girlfriend spent their final moments crying out for help as a starving grizzly bear mauled them to death, leaving behind a horrific collection of remains and the “worst recording ever made”.

Timothy Treadwell, 46, was convinced he had developed a unique connection with Alaska’s most dangerous predators.

For 13 consecutive summers, he lived amongst grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, giving them names and engaging with them, despite constant warnings about the dangerous animals.

In October 2003, his conviction would claim both his life and that of his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard.

The couple had remained later than usual into the season, setting up their tent near Kaflia Bay as autumn approached and food grew scarce for the local wildlife, reports the Express.

They were awaiting a seaplane to transport them home when the horror unfolded.

Inside their tent while rain pounded down outside, the pair were making a meal. Apparently drawn by the smell of food, a grizzly bear came near.

Treadwell is thought to have pressed record on a videotape to capture the attack, though the audio it recorded was considered too harrowing to ever be made public.

Alaska state troopers who listened to the tape said Treadwell could be heard shouting, “get out of here, I’m getting killed.”

His terrified girlfriend pleaded with him to play dead, then begged him to fight back. Shortly afterwards, Amie herself came under attack.

“You can hear him screaming,” state trooper Chris Hill later stated. “She’s screaming, ‘Is the bear still there?’ He says something to the effect that he’s dying. We really didn’t hear the bear at all.”

The recording was later described as so distressing that acclaimed director Werner Herzog, who featured Treadwell’s footage in his widely praised 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, refused to use a single second of it.

“You must never listen to this,” Herzog told Treadwell’s former partner and close friend Jewel Palovak after hearing part of the tape. She ultimately destroyed it, smashing it with a hammer and cutting it up with a knife.

“It felt freeing,” she said. “Very freeing.”

When rangers finally arrived at the campsite the following day, they were met with a truly horrific scene. The pair’s tents had been torn to shreds, with shoes still sitting by the entrance.

Nearby lay a mound of mud, grass and human limbs.

Investigators discovered what remained of Treadwell’s head, still attached to his spine, alongside several severed limbs.

Four bin bags of human remains were subsequently recovered from the stomach of a 28-year-old male grizzly weighing close to 1,000lb.

The bear, elderly and struggling to feed due to broken teeth, was shot dead after charging at officers.

Investigators concluded that Treadwell’s habitual practice of pitching camp in prime feeding grounds and allowing bears to come within touching distance most likely played a significant role in the fatal mauling.

Palovak, who co-founded the grassroots organisation Grizzly People alongside Treadwell, said “He didn’t have a death wish. He wasn’t stupid. He knew the dangers. He didn’t want to die.”

A former drug addict, Treadwell attributed his turnaround in life to the bears, crediting them with steering him towards sobriety.

He was completely dedicated to living amongst the animals, carefully recording their behaviour, speaking to schoolchildren about the remarkable creatures and seeing himself as a guardian of the bears he wholeheartedly believed were under threat from hunters and humans.

“His goal was to show people the secret life of grizzly bears,” Palovak said, “to inspire children to fight for what they believe in, no matter how big the challenge.

“He always told me, ‘If I die, make a kick-ass movie.’ I was like, ‘Oh sure, I’ll do that’.

“But that’s actually what ended up happening … I think [ Grizzly Man ] would have been the kick-ass movie that he wanted.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrates turning 80 on Sunday with a showstopping birthday spectacle that once would have seemed unfathomable: a cage-fighting show on the storied South Lawn of the White House.

This week, the hard realities of the office have threatened to overshadow the ostentatious UFC mixed martial arts extravaganza, where combatants sealed inside a wire-mesh octagon try to punch, kick, chop and pummel each other into submission.

Trump has found himself boxed into an unpopular and costly war he helped start in Iran. An agreement to end the conflict could be close, but the crucial details are still to be negotiated. Meanwhile, about a mile from Trump’s birthday bash, crews pried the president’s name off the Kennedy Center after a judge ruled naming it after Trump had gone too far.

Regardless, the president will walk out of the White House and be surrounded by Cabinet leaders, top administration officials, Republican lawmakers and 4,000-plus spectators screaming themselves hoarse in a temporary arena under “ The Claw,” a spaceship-like metal arch fitted with lighting, sound equipment and large screens. Thousands more will be watching on big screens from the nearby Ellipse.

“This event is a one of one event, incredible event. I love it,” said UFC chief Dana White, a close friend of the president, during a Friday night hype session at the Lincoln Memorial where pairs of fighters shoved and scuffled for the cameras under the stoic gaze of Honest Abe’s marble likeness.

The president has sought to tie Sunday’s event — which features seven fights running past midnight — to larger, months-long celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But it is much more geared toward feting himself, so much so that the G7 summit for leaders of industrialized nations pushed back their get-together so that the president could attend his cage-match party and then fly straight to France for the meetings.

The weather, though, could put a major damper on things. Strong thunderstorms and heavy lightning disrupted Friday’s Lincoln Memorial event, and the forecast for Sunday evening also looks threatening.

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about the weather,” White declared on Friday, before conceding that he’ll prefer to hold future UFC events inside arenas only.

A dramatic departure from how the last president marked his 80th

When Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, turned 80 in November 2022, he celebrated with a private family brunch at the White House, laying bare just how much and how quickly things have changed.

Asked about the contrast, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said that the fight “will be one of the most entertaining nights in American history” and said that the timing was appropriate. “Having this spectacle take place at the people’s house on Flag Day during our nations’ semiquincentennial anniversary is a fitting tribute,” Schuster said in a statement.

When he turned 80, Biden was the oldest president in U.S. history, and was months away from launching a reelection bid that he would ultimately abandon after a disastrous debate against Trump and mutiny among Democrats concerned he was too old to handle a second term.

Trump has now supplanted Biden as the oldest person to be elected U.S. president. He’s constitutionally barred from running again, yet constantly toys with the notion publicly. That’s despite polls showing rising public skepticism about Trump’s mental and physical health — recalling concerns Biden faced as he turned 80.

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.

The White House countered with a lengthy statement from Trump’s former White House physician, Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, saying Trump’s “stamina, focus, and strength are exceptional and on display every day. Claims to the contrary are pure fiction.” Jackson added that polling concerns were “being propagated by the same biased, liberal, Trump-hating press that completely ignored the absolute cognitive and physical disaster that was President Biden.”

Trump has nonetheless undergone four publicly announced physical examinations this term alone, with White House physician Dr. Sean Barbabella recently declaring him in “excellent health.”

‘Bread and circuses’ — Trump-style

The UFC event is an apt metaphor for Trump’s pugilistic political style. He is as big a fan of cage-match-style politics as he is of cage-fighting itself.

But Trump has also long been a master of political misdirection, purposely presenting people with something other than his presidency to focus on when things aren’t going well.

With the war in Iran grinding on despite weeks of assurances from Trump that its end is nigh, gas prices staying high, renewed concerns about inflation and plummeting job approval ratings for Trump — a White House birthday party unlike anything America has ever seen is definitely a diversion.

“This is all distraction,” said Mike Fontaine, a classics professor at Cornell University, who likened it to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome, when combatants brutalized each other for public entertainment meant to bolster rulers’ popularity and quell potential unrest.

“This is a classic strategy,” Fontaine said. “In ancient Rome, the phrase would be, ‘bread and circuses.’”

Trump says the UFC is paying for the event and while its full costs haven’t been divulged, the National Park Service said in a court filing that $60-plus million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have gone into it, while seven government agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”

UFC also announced on Friday that it was adding as an official partner for the event World Liberty Financial to create a special $250,000 athlete bonus pool for Sunday night’s winners. The cryptocurrency company is co-owned by the Trump family, founded with the president’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff and run by his son, Zach. The arrangement further blurs lines between the Trump family’s financial interests and the events and construction projects the president has prioritized and used government resources to pull off.

Still, Fontaine said that when it comes to a personal flair for pageantry, the president’s second-term tendency to lean into “hardcore masculinity and brute fighting” is marrying the UFC’s blood sport with Trump’s trademark humor and enduring sense of showmanship.

“President Trump has a once-in-a-generation talent for this stuff,” he said.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Jalen Brunson and the Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they’re the Champion Knicks.

For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.

The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories. The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.

“I have no words,” Brunson, the NBA Finals MVP, said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”

Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.

“It’s surreal,” Knicks coach Mike Brown, who was hired a year ago — making him the franchise’s 24th coach since the franchise’s last championship in 1973. “I still can’t believe it’s happened.”

Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — the other two parts of the “Nova Knicks” trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same — combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.

“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”

Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, who got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.

“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,” Wembanyama said. “I can’t tell exactly what the lesson is, but we’re learning.”

The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn’t feel like the road, though — not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.

And back home, on the streets of the Big Apple, celebrations broke out everywhere. Fireworks lit up the night sky, people honked horns on jampacked streets and firefighters — from their trucks — slapped high-fives with delirious fans.

“HISTORY,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on social media, then added that the Knicks’ championship parade will be Thursday.

New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or playoffs.

By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy. And San Antonio had to shuffle off into the offseason, listening to Knicks fans celebrating in their building.

“We weren’t ready to win an NBA championship,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “The better team won. We did a lot of good things, and we didn’t finish the job. That’s what it is.”

The game followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second quarter.

The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996-97 season, to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.

The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio’s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second.

Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.

A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, before Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break.

And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective. The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era.

Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova — both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.

A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.

“It’s why I came to New York,” Brunson said.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA

Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Russia–Ukraine conflict will “determine the future of Europe” ahead of the anticipated G7 summit next week.

In a post online, the Ukrainian president said his country is making “the greatest sacrifices for Europe” as it fights for its independence.

He wrote: “We are not simply carrying out internal reforms, nor are we simply going through a transformation. We are fighting for our state, for our independence, and for our right to choose our own path and to be Europe.

“That is why the fate of Europe is being decided here – it is being decided in Ukraine, in this war, and in how this war ends – and whether Russia will still have the strength and the desire after this war to threaten the existence of Ukraine and its other neighbors, and the entirety of Europe.”

It comes as Ukraine has used AI-powered “terminator” drones to kill Russian soldiers without human oversight for the first time, a senior military general has claimed.

Alexander Kokhanovskyy, a senior figure in Ukraine’s defence industry, said that AI-controlled drones were used on the frontline in a one-off test.

It has not yet been implemented more widely after the test took place two years ago, he told the New Scientist.

A number of travellers have moved into Locke Park, on Corporation Road in Redcar, this afternoon (Saturday, June 13).

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said it is currently monitoring and assessing the situation and is now “working on an appropriate solution”. 

As a result, some of the gates to the park, which is home to a boating lake, tennis courts, children’s play area, have been locked. The main gates remain open.

Access to the park will be available only at this entrance until further notice. 

A full statement from the council said: “The council is aware that travellers have moved into Locke Park, Redcar, this afternoon.

“We are currently monitoring and assessing the situation and working on an appropriate solution.

“For security reasons, and until further notice, all park gates will be locked except for the main entrance on Corporation Road. 

“Access to the park will remain available via this entrance.

“We appreciate your patience and understanding while we manage this situation and will provide further updates as appropriate.”

He said you should check the terms and conditions closely

Martin Lewis has offered advice on managing your bank account and potentially earning many hundreds of pounds. The consumer champion provided general guidance that applies to customers of major banks, including Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax and Santander.

He issued the words of wisdom after a query on his BBC podcast regarding switching bank accounts. A listener contacted the programme explaining she currently banks with Lloyds but was interested in current account switching incentives from rival banks. Several banks are providing one-off bonuses if you transfer to them. These include Nationwide Building Society offering £175, Barclays providing £200 payments, Santander offering £180 and NatWest paying £200.

HSBC is also providing payments of £500 and First Direct is offering a £200 incentive. However, in this instance the listener said she was reluctant to leave Lloyds as she benefits from additional perks with her account, including cinema ticket vouchers.

Extra account perks

Club Lloyds customers can select from a range of Lifestyle Benefits. Additional perks available to customers include a Disney+ subscription, coffee and dining offers and vouchers for cinemas such as ODEON and Vue.

Her enquiry was whether she could create a secondary account simply by switching a handful of direct debits and fulfilling the other requirements, thereby claiming a switching incentive, while maintaining her Lloyds account as her primary bank account. In response, Mr Lewis had some encouraging news for the prospective switcher.

He said: “Everything you say is absolutely possible and is the textbook way for savvy money savers to do this.” However, he noted it requires “a little bit of planning” to take advantage of multiple switching incentives.

‘Make thousands of pounds’

Mr Lewis outlined that this strategy involves having a “mule account” or a “burner account” which you transfer between different providers to capitalise on these switching bonuses, potentially earning you many hundreds of pounds.

Mr Lewis said: “You’ve got to check the terms and conditions each time, but there are lots of people who do this and who make thousands of pounds.”

He continued by saying that many members of his Money Saving Expert team have “made decent money” by taking advantage of these promotions.

He recommended starting by opening a basic current account without any additional features or benefits, so you can transfer it easily when you want to claim a switching reward.

These switching deals typically require moving across two direct debits, so you’ll need to have these arranged in your burner account ready for transfer.

You may also need to pay in a minimum amount as part of your switch to be eligible for the incentive.

The United States and Iran appear close to a deal to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Friday the U.S. and Iran agreed to wording of an agreement aimed at ending their war in the Middle East and that mediators were working with both sides to finalize a deal.

However, Tehran has cast doubt over the timing of the signing. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, speaking before Trump’s post, had cautioned against commenting on the timing of the signing but was quoted by state media saying, “It will not be tomorrow,” but could happen “in the coming days”.

Previous declarations of an imminent breakthrough failed to materialize.

The apparent breakthrough in negotiations comes after Iran exchanged fire with the U.S. and Israel over three days this week, threatening to push the region into a full-scale war. U.S. Central Command late Friday said in a social media post that it intercepted several Iranian attack drones that were targeting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28 has rattled the Middle East and virtually shut down oil and natural gas shipments from the Persian Gulf. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since April 7.

Here’s what to know:

Iran’s nuclear program terms to be finalized within 60 days of agreement

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday the terms of dealing with Iran’s nuclear program would be finalized in the 60 days after the initial agreement is signed and that the parties could decide to extend that period.

Iran’s nuclear program has been a key point of division. The U.S. and Israel fear it could lead to an atomic weapon — a main reason their leaders cited for going to war. Tehran has insisted its nuclear efforts are for peaceful purposes.

A senior U.S. administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said Friday that the emerging agreement would begin the process of destroying or removing Tehran’s highly enriched uranium.

The official said the 60-day period after both sides sign the deal would be used to work out technical details for removing Iran’s enriched uranium. The official did not detail who the U.S. envisions taking charge of removing the uranium, believed to be entombed under three nuclear sites that were battered by American strikes last year.

Deal to include conditions to reopen Strait of Hormuz, official says

The U.S. official said the emerging agreement includes provisions for reopening the strait.

Araghchi said Iran wants a deal that allows Tehran to charge ships “for services rendered” when they transit the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has imposed a toll system during the war, which the U.S. and other nations say violates international law.

Transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for oil and natural gas, has been disrupted and crimped global energy supplies, driven up fuel prices and made food and other basics more expensive well beyond the region.

The agreement is set to include Iranian sanctions relief

Three regional officials said the emerging deal is also expected to include the phased lifting of sanctions on Iran and the release of frozen Iranian assets. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

They said they expect a signing ceremony for the agreement in the coming days after officials in Washington and Tehran approve it.

In The Mixer’s World Cup special

Everything you need to know about the World Cup – England updates, the games to watch and stories you missed – in five minutes, at 1pm, every day.

The exhibition tells the story of Arthur Wharton, who came to Darlington in 1882 as a Methodist student but left seven years later as the fastest man on the planet and a box office sportsman – he was one of the first stars of the railway age, using trains to travel the country to play matches and win prizes.

The exhibition, therefore, is in the Carriage Works at the Hopetown railway attraction in Darlington and runs until the end of August.

The opening of the Arthur Wharton exhibition, from left: England’s first black cricketer Roland Butcher, former Darlington footballer Lloyd Maitland, Shaun Campbell of the Arthur Wharton Foundation, Darlington mayor Cllr Helen Crumbie and Jason Lee of the Professional Footballers’ Association (Image: Stuart Boulton)

The eclectic guestlist, like the exhibition, was pulled together by Shaun Campbell, who runs the foundation dedicated to promoting Wharton’s legacy. The town mayor, Cllr Helen Crumbie, introduced Shaun as “one of Darlington’s most tireless characters”, and looking at the guestlist, Dorothy Compai, Arthur’s great-grand-daughter said: “My mum always said Shaun will get where Castor oil can’t get.”

Shaun Campbell of the Arthur Wharton Foundation with Arthur Wharton’s great- granddaughter Dorothy Compai at the opening of the Arthur Wharton exhibition at Hopetown in Darlington. 10/6/2026. Photograph: Stuart Boulton/The Northern Echo (Image: Stuart Boulton)

Dorothy had come from Rotherham, where the football club had given Arthur the first professional contract for a black player in 1889.

She had brought with her items from a suitcase of family treasures. These include Arthur’s own bible and a picture of his father, the Reverend Henry Wharton, which now appear in the exhibition.

The Reverend Henry Wharton, probably in 1863 in London. He was the father of Arthur (Image: Hopetown, Darlington)

Henry was of mixed race, born in Grenada in the Caribbean to a Grenadian woman and a Scottish sea captain. He spent six years being educated in Glasgow and then became a Methodist missionary in Ghana in west Africa.

There he met and married Annie, who was the daughter of a member of the Fante royal family and a Scottish sea trader.

This explains how Arthur came to be in Darlington: his father put great store in his son receiving a religious education in the British motherland.

(Image: Supplied)

However, Arthur had a determined streak, and became estranged from his family as single-mindedly pursued his sporting career. Playing for the Quakers, he became the finest goalkeeper in the north; wearing a Darlington shirt, he became the first person to run 100 yards in exactly 10 seconds. He set cycling records, he played cricket professionally, he could throw a cricket ball so far he won prizes.

Roland Butcher, the first black cricketer to play for England said as he looked at Arthur’s bible: “The level that he attained in so many sports is truly an inspiration to everybody, not just the black race, but to everybody who aspires to do anything in sport.”

Railways were a major part of Arthur’s career. Alison Grange, the collections engagement manager at Hopetown, said: “Railways helped professionalise sport. They helped teams travel across the country, and they helped spectators attend the matches. The idea of the cup final became a thing because of the railways, and Arthur Wharton is involved in that.”

In 1887, when Arthur starred in the Durham Cup final for Darlington against their town rivals St Augustine’s, the North Eastern Railway laid on two special excursion trains so the crowd of 6,000 could see the match in Middlesbrough.

In the same year, Arthur signed to play in the FA Cup for Preston North End, who were the Manchester City of the day. The third round took them to play Renton, then a leading Scottish club near Glasgow. Preston took the train, and onboard Arthur played cricket in the corridor, using a footwarmer as a wicket. He was said to be “cat-like” taking catches at short leg as the train rocked along.

Chef Ahmed Abdalla with the ceramic football, now in the exhibition, that he used to create a dish inspired by Arthur Wharton on the Great British Menu (Image: Chris Lloyd)

All this inspired Ahmed Abdalla, chef at the Grand Hotel in York (an NER railway hotel, designed by the same architect as Bank Top station) when he appeared on the Great British Menu a couple of years ago.

“We were asked to make a course with the title ‘Great Britons’,” he said.

“I found myself surrounded by different figures from history, by people from Yorkshire: George Hudson (the railway king, from York), Anne Lister (the lesbian diarist known as Gentleman Jack, from Halifax) and the chocolatiers from York, but Arthur brings my two passions of football and food together.”

Following Arthur’s Caribbean roots, he produced a jerk-spiced monkfish in a callaloo sauce (a Caribbean plant) with a Scotch bonnet emulsion and pickled okra, all served in an old-fashioned lace-up football that had dry ice pouring out of it.

“We smoked the monkfish for a bit, and people like to see a show to go with the story, and it all came out well,” he said. It was the highest scoring fish dish on the show, and he has placed his ceramic football in the exhibition.

Jason Lee, the former Nottingham Forest striker who is now an equality officer with the Professional Footballers’ Association, said: “Arthur is one of the trailblazers. When I was a kid, Pele, John Barnes and Viv Anderson were my idols, and he is up there with them. I think it is important to hear the history, and, especially if you are from Darlington, this is a very big story.”

(Image: Supplied)

• Arthur Wharton: He Changed the World from Here is free at Hopetown until August 31