They lost at home to Matlock Town 5-2 in the 1976-77 season and finished as Third Division champions In 1967 they had lost away to Tow Law Town 5-1 – Bob Allen, StaffordANSWERS PLEASEQ. Who was the first sportsman or sportswoman to test positive for drugs? – T Leary, GlastonburyQ. Under which captain has the England cricket team enjoyed the best record? – Mark Bowland, CologneQ. What is the first recorded instance, in any sport, of two teams wearing coloured strips? – Jane Bond, InvernessIf you know the answers to any of these questions or have a sporting question of your own, write to Q&A, Sports Desk, Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL.Fax: 0171-293 2894. Helen Bentley cooked for 14 on Christmas Day. They sat down for lunch somewhere in the south Pacific Ocean and had a high old time. It was a sunny afternoon and most of the guests wore shorts and T-shirts.

The meal was traditional and they wore paper hats and played party games. If it was slightly cramped in the galley of the yacht it did not diminish the seasonal spirit

“It was an outstanding Christmas,” Helen said. “Two of us largely did the lunch of turkey with all the trimmings. I suppose I was the main chef but that task was eased because a lot of the meal was pre-prepared. After we ate one of the games we played was to guess what various small parts of the yacht that we’d wrapped up were. It was a really happy day.”
All that was missing was Helen’s husband Ronald. She and the other 13 seafaring revellers are the crew of Nuclear Electric, one of the 14 craft of equal design and dimensions taking part in the BT Global Challenge.

Each has a professional skipper; the rest are all volunteers who had to pay pounds 18,750 for the privilege of sailing round the world and spending Christmas thousands of miles from loved ones.”Of course I missed Ronald, but no more than usual,” the hospital ward sister said from the yacht last week “It’s an ongoing thing. I miss him all the time, every single day but I know it won’t be long now before I see him again. That’s what I look forward to.”The reunion, albeit temporary, will take place in Wellington, New Zealand towards the end of January. That is the next port of call for the Challenge competitors, finishing point of the second of the race’s six stages some time in the next few days. They embark from there for Sydney on 9 February and then go to Cape Town and Boston before returning to Southampton in July.There is a long, long way to sail but with some 11,500 miles behind them they have already confronted many of the perils and inconveniences the sea has to offer. Another of the bright spots of Christmas was that the harsh weather relented.For days, if not weeks before then, as Helen Bentley related it, the crews and their surroundings were perpetually damp. Clothes have been changed rarely, showers have been sparse as water makers have come under strain.