Chris Tofalos provided sports coverage for The Guardian throughout the north of England for three years. It was a stimulating experience to work alongside Denis Thorpe, a Guardian staffer and one of the world's great photographers. In this pre-digital period when the demand was for high quality and imaginative black and white images, it was a challenge to capture pictures which met the standards of that national newspaper. Click on the thumbnails below for larger pictures; we are proud of them.