Crook Town amateur team’s international football first
If sports fans were asked which was the first English football team to tour India, most people would guess Manchester United or Liverpool.
So it comes as a surprise that the honour fell to a small, amateur league club called Crook Town from the Northern League back in 1976.
Inside Out finds out how an amateur team from County Durham ended up playing in front of 500,000 adoring fans in India with a World Cup referee in charge of their games.
Manager Gordon Jones, players Terry Turnbull and Eric Young, and referee Pat Partridge share their memories of experiencing huge crowds in India.
Inside Out North East & Cumbria is broadcast on BBC One on Monday 21, October at 19:30 GMT and nationwide on the iPlayer for seven days thereafter.
Credit: Archive footage is copyright and courtesy of Dr Arun Banerjee.
21 Oct 2013
- From the section England