Taken from northern League Web site:
The Northern League announces with much sadness the death of Gordon Nicholson, its secretary from 1966-90, on Saturday January 30. He was 83.
For much of his tenure, Gordon was the man most closely associated with the League, though until his election - at an annual meeting he didn't even attend - he had had no involvement with it.
Gordon's punctilious administration and attention to detail - he even fined himself on the one occasion he was known to make a mistake - came before the widespread introduction of computers and mobile telephones. The League's correspondence was conducted on an elderly Remington typewriter, which he continued to use.
Despite his dedication to the secretary and treasurer's job, however - and in those days there were no registrations' and referees' secretaries - he always insisted that the unpaid post was merely a way of filling in time between cricket seasons. He played for many years for Bishop Auckland CC, was delighted when Durham County achieved first class status and when the two sports clashed had no doubts where his loyalty lay.
After standing down in 1990, Gordon returned to official NL involvement several years later as an assiduous chairman of Evenwood Town. He was also a League vice-president and regularly attended games until recent weeks.
A man of whom it may many times have been said that he didn't suffer fools gladly - or those he perceived to be fools, either - Gordon was a stickler for the rules but was on many occasions shown to act with common sense, care and compassion. He was also a man of scrupulous honesty and a enviable administrator. The word "legend" is overused but Gordon truly was just that in North-East England. A widower, he leaves a son, Stuart.