THE name Threapleton has been synonymous with sporting success in these parts for many years but normally with scoring a century or taking five or six wickets - not for bowling a maiden over.

Suddenly though the name Threapleton has become the focus of the national press.

Searching for the identity of the man Oscar- nominated 'Titanic' actress Kate Winslet declared as her true love, the hacks from the nationals chased young mister Threapleton all over London whilst also cutting off his home village of Grewelthorpe near Ripon.

Jim Threapleton was suddenly the name on everyone's lips after the 22-year-old actress revealed that her love was a real Yorkshire tyke.

Shrugging off the attention, Jim's grandfather - who had had his share of speculative calls from the press - took his usual seat in the stand to watch Guiseley AFC's match against Hyde United on Saturday.

Non-plussed by the whole affair, it was business as usual for Norman Threapleton who has long connections with both Guiseley AFC and the neighbouring cricket club. He settled down in his usual seat at the back of the stand to watch his side draw 1-1 with UniBond rivals Hyde United.

Jim, 24, one of the eight granchildren of Norman and his wife Jean, was cast into the limelight and, as his grandad said: "I never expected one of my grandsons to appear on page three of the Sun!"

The tabloid divulged details of young Jim's relationship with the flavour-of-the-moment actress alongside its page three beauty.

While the nationals chased all avenues trying to reveal all about the former Read School pupil, his grandparents sat back in their Guiseley home in Thorpe Lane quietly bemused by it all. Norman, 79, said they had not met the actress who got to know his grandson, an assistant film director, whilst both were working on the film Hideous Kinky in Morocco last year.

He graduated with an arts degree from Manchester University and has been involved in a number of film projects for television and cinema. He has worked on a number of episodes of London's Burning.

James, as his family like him to be called, is now set to accompany Kate to the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles next Monday with the actress hoping to pick up an Oscar.

Kate said of him: "He is a Yorkshireman, very together, very cool about stuff. He is so dashing and I love him. It's that serious."

He is the son of Group Captain Edward Threapleton, the second eldest of Norman and Jean Threapleton's four sons. Edward and brothers John, Martin and Adrian followed their father into the Guiseley Cricket Club sides.

Edward, an RAF pilot who served in the Falklands and the Gulf War, has missed all the fuss having been in Turkey for six months as Commander of the British Forces at a US air base on the border with Iraq.

The 47-year-old former Aireborough Grammar School pupil is shortly to be installed as Comnmander at RAF Cranwell.

Edward's younger son Robin, a 2nd Lieutenant, graduated from Sandhurst last August and is going for the Army Air Corps.

The family home is in Grewelthorpe near Ripon and Edward's wife Louise works for a Harrogate recruitment agency.

Norman told the Wharfedale Observer: "We were surprised by all the attention. We have known since before Christmas about who his girlfriend was but none of the family has met her yet."

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