WORCESTERSHIRE FA officials ordered that a county junior cup match, in which Bromsgrove team Chadstone had beaten Grimley 7-6, should be replayed because the pitch oat Catshill Junior School was too short. A sharp-eyed Grimley fan had spotted one side was three yards short of the minimum 100 yards, the other a yard.

THE Messenger noted it was the 75th anniversary of the death of the famous one time American consul in Britain, Elihu Burritt. As a travel writer he visited Bromsgrove in 1846 and had been appalled at the conditions endured, especially by one nailing family whose young son worked barefoot alongside his father at the nailblock.

Burritt's account of the family's plight had touched the hearts of Americans back home who raised enough cash to educate the boy and give his father 2/6 (12.5p) a week in lieu of his wages. Later the boy emigrated to the States to work on Burritt's farm.

MR J TUCKER, a master at Hunters Hill Open Air School in Blackwell, set off on the first phase of an expedition to climb the as yet unconquered Mount Kanchenjunga, at 28,000ft one of the two highest peaks in the Himalayas. He was no stranger to the fearsome task ahead, as he had already been part of an Everest expedition.