The FA Cup Final Escape Committee (and Scotch Pie Fest) held its annual meeting on Saturday at Arthurlie v Cumnock Juniors, Mr Harvey Harris, Mr Martin Haworth and Mr Peter Sixsmith also in attendance.

Arthurlie play in the Stagecoach Super League, home also to Shotts Bon Accord, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, Lugar Boswell Thistle and - as rather dramatically we shall shortly hear - of Auchinleck Talbot.

The crowd was in fine voice. "We're going to Airdrie, we're going to Airdrie. You're not, you're not..."

Escape committee or no, we had ineluctably been joined on the train from Darlington to Edinburgh by a scrum of Richmond Rugby Club members dressed to a man as French onion sellers, complete with stick-on moustaches and 8am bottles of wine, copiously consumed.

Sixer, who knows his onions sellers, observed that the wine was Australian. "Charlatans," he said, with no sign of entente and precious little of cordiale.

Though entirely good natured, they proved so noisy a corps Franglais that by Berwick-upon-Tweed the column found itself intoning a litany from the 1662 Prayer Book: "Give peace in our time, oh Lord...."

At Newcastle we were also joined by the players of West Allotment Celtic, champions of the Albany Northern League second division, headed for Glasgow to rediscover their green and white roots.

Mr Haworth, a Bury lad and thus of quieter disposition, was asked how his home town team became known as the Shakers and supposed it to be something to do with the 1903 FA Cup final when in beating Derby County 6-0 they really shook 'em, up. It still seemed implausible.

Glasgow was reached by 11.30am, Auld's acquaintance - it's a pie shop - made five minutes later. Sustenance was wholly timely, for in trying to find Blackfriars bar, Sixer became so helplessly misplaced that we feared being condemned to wander Glasgow for all eternity - a Sisyphus on Sauchiehall Street.

Sixer is by every account an inspired history teacher; geography may be less of a strong point.

We ended in the Horseshoe Bar, which by 12.30pm had six customers and four televisions, each showing the League Two play-off between Lincoln City and Macclesfield. In downtown Glasgow, it had all the appeal of Larn Yersel' Swahili.

Arthurlie play at Barrhead, seven miles to the south, accent as thick as a Clydeside kiss. Sixer decided he need a Kit-Kat, a flapjack and a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich - "they're very good for you, tune and sweetcorn sandwiches" - before facing the journey.

On the "Barrhead Wall of Sporting Fame" at the Brig Inn, he was also delighted to discover a picture in front of the Roker End of John Hannigan, local lad, who made 33 Sunderland appearances between 1955-58 and once scored a hat-trick in an 8-1 win over Charlton.

Another picture showed Rocky Marciano knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott, the Barrhead connection rather less discernible.

Mr Harris, formerly a detective chief inspector in charge of Darlington CID, said that he'd investigated Barrhead and found nothing untoward. He'd not counted with the stuff of Arthurlian legend.

Immediately inside the gate, spectators were given a leaflet denouncing that week's five year ban and £3,000 fine on home player Mark Ross. Worse, some say, the club has been docked 12 points from the start of next season.

What on earth had happened? The mind Googled.

Mr Ross - known thereabouts as Bubba, presumably as in silly Bubba - is said to have head butted the referee after a match at Auchinleck in February. The ref picked him out at a website identity parade six weeks later.

Though there were no witnesses, for dropping the nut the Scottish Junior FA threw the book; Ross now in danger of becoming the biggest Scottish martyr since Queen Mary.

The Barrhead News ("UK's fastest growing weekly") launches a campaign tomorrow to clear the club's name; supporters hold a protest meeting on Thursday; websites talk of "ruthlessness" and of the biggest crisis in Arthurlian history.

Such things temporarily forgotten, we had another pie and enjoyed the sunshine. In the Welsh capital it was throwing down. We're going to Airdire, we're going to Airdire. You're not, you're not.

Arthurlie, second in the league, scored after 25 minutes - exultation, exhortation and imprecation all equally impenetrable. It was a bit like sitting O-level German - translate any three of the following - and remembering you'd studied French for five years.

Cumnock Juniors' 6ft 4in centre half, badly at fault, appeared to be called Wee Man. Truth to tell, everyone appeared to be called Wee Man. Only the Anglo-Saxon, the f-for-familiar-word, could so easily be deciphered.

The crowd was around 150; the English Cup could have been a million miles away.

Though Cumnock equalised with a penalty, it was apparent that Arthurlie were better, fitter and more direct. That one of the Juniors was sent to bed early after what the Scots describe as a streuthie (or some such) can hardly have helped matters.

Arthurlie won 4-1, some good football, the FA Cup still an hour from its distinctive denouement and an age from the collective mind. You could still hear them singing as we headed back to the station. "Walking in a Barrhead wonderland...."

By way of concelebration, we had another pie.

The Greenock Telegraph, meanwhile, reports that Sunderland forward Warren Hawke - substitute in the 1992 FA Cup final against Liverpool - has played his last game after nine seasons at Morton.

"He achieved a kind of cult status," says the Telegraph.

Durham-born Hawke, 34, started just eight League games on Wearside and was a sub in 18 more. "A stylish player with a decent touch but perhaps not quite good enough to succeed at the top level," says All the Lads.

Long over the border, though he stayed this side when player/manager at Berwick, Hawke will become an education project manager for the Scottish PFA.

A gerontological PS to Friday's note on former Darlington and Hartlepool goalkeeper Phil Owers, a five times trophy winner - at 50 - in Shildon Railway FC's glistering golden jubilee season.

They gave him a pipe and slippers at the presentation night.

Properly anxious that the younger lads get due credit for the remarkable achievement, club secretary Alan Morland admits that Phil's always been first to report for training. Though the presentation could have been a suggestion of putting his feet up a bit, the hint is unlikely to be taken.

"I've a sneaking feeling that he may have another challenge in the pipeline," says Alan. "We'll save a fortune on the WD40 to get him functional before matches."

Friday's column also meditated upon the plaintive story of former Whitburn Cricket Club captain Russell Muse, who - returning to the third team after eight years out of cricket - was stumped by a 6ft 6in one legged wicket keeper, bowled by a 39-year-old mother-of-four in his first match and in the second dislocated his finger in two places.

David Martin, another once familiar North-East player now discovering that cricket is lovelier the thirds time around, batted with St John Usher - one legged wicket keeper, aforesaid - for Boldon in the same game.

"He got 49 at one end while I got two at the other. He was denied a 50 because he refused to run when the ball plugged in the outfield, about six inches from the boundary."

Keith Nicholson from West Boldon reckons that Muse's secret weapon is his lofted donkey drops. "He must be the world's slowest bowler. If he wasn't 18 stones, he could field in the slips off his own bowling."

In second team action several years ago, recalls Keith, Muse had bagged three in an over and watched while the new batsman asked the umpire for guard.

"Be very, very careful," replied the umpire, with no guar dedness whatever.

Last word from David Martin: the 6ft 6in one legged wicket keeper is a very canny squash player, an' all.

Yet more is unravelling about Sgt Frank Twine, Middlesbrough's right back in the record breaking 1926-27 second division promotion season.

John Sowerby in Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough, recalls that Twine made his debut in the 4-1 win at Darlington on October 30 1926, 17,625 packing into Feethams. Mark Hooper scored the Quakers' goal.

Having already won two amateur international caps that season, Twine turned professional in March 1927, thereafter an ever-present in the side which scored 122 goals in 42 games.

That they conceded 62 should, perhaps, have been a warning. The following season, Twine a right back regular, they conceded more than two a game, finished bottom of the first division and were relegated.

This was Middlesbrough, after all.

...and finally

The Duke of Norfolk had to leave the 1962-63 MCC tour of Australia (Backtrack, May 20) because he was also in charge of the arrangements for Winston Churchill's funeral and ministers wanted a top secret, night time rehearsal.

Richard Thurston in Stockton supposed it to have been a "royal" rehearsal for which the Duke returned. So, no doubt, did Winnie.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to name the first side from the "old" third division to win a Wembley final.

More winners on Friday.

Published: 24/05/2005