It's a long, long way from Hampden Park to the King George V playing field and graffiti paradise in Sunderland, but David Speedie makes the journey with no indication that he's seen the writing on the wall.

"I just love my football. I'd far sooner be playing it than watching it," says the 5ft 6in Scot, famed for an attitude most kindly described as competitive but as other things as well.

He's to be on Pitch C, Over 40s League division four, making his debut for Darlington Railway against the Willow Pond - a street corner pub in Sunderland - and word's whistling round the little huddle of huts that serve as dressing rooms.

"When he gets sent off," says a fellow Scot in a faded red tracksuit, "tell him he can play for us on Pitch B, an' all."

In a colourful career which brought ten Scottish caps, cult status at Chelsea and Coventry City and spells at Liverpool, Blackburn, Southampton, Barnsley and Darlington, none of his previous sendings off is more vividly recalled than an earlier appearance in Sunderland.

It was the 1988 League Cup quarter-final at Roker Park, Sunderland folk hero Gary Bennett impaling Speedie to a Clock Stand paddock advertising hoarding as surely as Catherine to her wheel, whilst indelibly reminding his opponent of the error of his ways - an exercise in which any spectator within striking distance is said enthusiastically to have participated.

Both were sent off, though they'd seen red much earlier. "I just hope no one round here still remembers it," says Speedie, now 44.

Some hope.

Cheek to cheek, Darlington Railway change in a room smaller than the average Premiership ego.

"I've seen worse," says Andy Scullion, team manager, captain and goalkeeper.

"So have I," says Speedie, "the first time I played for Darlington at Hartlepool."

Scully, 42-year-old owner of a contract cleaning company, tells them he has 14 good players and has had to pick the 11 starters he thinks best suited to the occasion. He himself is to be in goal.

"I thought you said the best 11," chorus 13 voices in unison..

He's Speedie's mate, persuaded him to play - "nagged me," says the Scot - has bought him a new pair of football boots because his own are in storage while moving house.

He lives near Doncaster, sells property on the Costa del Sol, coaches a team of under nines, appears regularly in charity matches and after 30 years over the border no longer swears in Scottish, but in unredeemed Anglo-Saxon.

Scully, no expense, has also bought him a new pair of socks which barely cover his calf muscles - "******* Jimmy Clitheroe socks," says Speedie, recognised by one of the home side as he heads down the graffiti run and past the playground to the kindergarten slopes of Pitch C.

"David Speedie," says the reed from the Willow Pond, "why there's nee bloody caal for that."

Several other players emerge with mobile phones clamped to their ears, as if collectively having realised that they've forgotten to switch off the gas.

The pitch slopes from side to side, the posts are piebald, one set so far out of true that they might be suffering from Munchausen's syndrome. There's a dog, but no man.

The Railway, relegated last season, include Gary Aitchison who played for Elgin City and other good sides in Scotland and have 55-year-old Harry Armstrong on the bench. Chris McMaster, four Hartlepool United appearances as a 17-year-old, is injured and hides on the line beneath an umbrella half the size of the Jodrell Bank reflector.

"It's a terrific league this," he says.

Team-mates quickly call the new man Speedo, though with a canny few miles on the clock. The photographer from When Saturday Comes magazine is getting confused because fellow striker Mark Lawrence bears a terrible twin resemblance - short and squat and skinhead.

"Can they not get Speedie to wear an 'at?" he mutters.

It's quickly clear that his name and nature game has decelerated somewhat, and that Railway may have to reconsider the slightly questionable tactic of playing high balls to a 5ft 6in striker.

Willow Pond, known thereabouts as the Willer, score after 15 minutes through Dave Dixon's 35 yard up and under, Scully essaying a passable impression of the Fulwell windmill as the ball sails over his reach.

Speedo's getting a bit agitated, firing a five yard cross straight at a defender - "Lucky bastard," he says - and seeing a team mate's intended pass easily intercepted.

"******* too ******* late," he yells, adding "Unlucky" by way of belated amelioration.

At half-time they're still a goal down. "We're never going to score unless we get the ball in the box," says the manager, not unreasonably.

"Just kick their ******* *****," says the little feller in the Jimmy Clitheroe socks.

The weather turns nasty soon afterwards - lashing, freezing, North Sea rain torrentially underlining all that he says about better to play than to watch.

Amid it, 68 minutes, he equalises. "The ball's played down the left, the winger's done well, I've slid between two defenders and hit the net," he explains afterwards in the Willer for the benefit of a jobbing journalist who can see little at the best of times and nothing in a downpour.

Mark Lawrence, known as Loz, hits the winner a minute later. Speedo has time to berate the referee that an offside decision was five yards level - "How can you be five yards level?" retorts the ref, inarguably - and retires with a hamstring tweak shortly before the end.

"You can still see his little turns, his little dinks, his eye for a ball," says Andy Scullion. "Footballers might lose thir pace, but they never lose their class."

Drying out in the pub, the entirely affable Speedie says he's thoroughly enjoyed it, promises to fortify the Over 40s again - "It won't be every week, I have to have some time on the Costa del Sol" - but stops only for one pint.

"I keep on looking over my shoulder," he says. "I'm still a bit worried about Gary Bennett.