Chester grace the big stage

Chester's parent club are near the bottom of the Albany Northern league first division, play at the end of a dirt track - a very nice dirt track, understand - and worry about Farmer Tiffin's cows, and how to keep them off the grass.

West Ham's parent club are near the top of the Nationwide first division, play in a multi-million pound stadium monumentally transformed and worry, manor born, about getting back into the Premiership.

Chester's chairman owns a small brewery (in which he can organise almost anything); West Ham's owns half of London, a bit of Southend and much of Lincolnshire, as well.

Then there was the weather. Up home, two top coats colder, the first of the long forecast snow had arrived about 5.30pm, fluttering to deceive. In the east end of London, seven degrees over, they reckoned that the returning team bus might get to Wetherby by 3am and then be unable to proceed.

"I hope the fish shop's still open," someone said.

Upstairs downstairs, the bus had travelled down the day previously, each of the lads issued with an itinerary that was almost a way of life.

Friday, stay off junk food and alcohol; Saturday, home by 9pm; Sunday, travel - "smart casual"; Monday . . .

Monday, in sporting terms at any rate, was the biggest day of their lives. Swim in the morning, boiled chicken and pasta at 3pm, the Boleyn Ground - "club shirt and tie" - so far in advance of the 7pm kick-off that West Ham laid on a grand, ever so grand, tour.

It was therefore somewhat unfortunate that the home team sheet had been left on the dressing room wall and that Stuart Sherwood, Chester's senior team manager, should have been caught cribbing it.

"There was hell on," said Stuart, unabashed.

In the Thames Ironworks bar, recalling the club's original name, long time Chester-le-Street fan Tom Cord had flown in specially from Germany, confident that youth would once more have its fling.

Joe Burlison, Chester's general manager, had bought the team enough fruit to bankroll a Bermondsey barrow boy - "they've had me running round like a fairy," he said - and, last minute substitute, had also been wired in as BBC Radio Newcastle's expert summariser.

"I get nothing, and that's twice as much as the players," he said.

Unfairly, no doubt, a fund raising sweep was proposed on the number of times in 90 minutes the BBC would have to deploy its unspeakably overworked bleeper.

"You can bugger off, an' all," said Joe.

In the four star dressing room, tense as Tyburn, youth team manager Andrew Muxworthy - a human resources manager with a Sunderland transport firm - was issuing last minute instructions, summed by the words "Enjoy yourselves".

A framed good luck message from Sir Bobby Robson stood on top of a cabinet. You, too . . . .

"It's not our cup final because that suggests we can't go any further," said Andrew Muxworthy. "Our attitude is positive; we'll only treat the final like a final.

"I'm a bit nervous, but to be honest I worry more about the finances than I do about the football."

Had his lads done as they were told, then? "From what I can gather, reasonably," added the manager, diplomatically.

It was only their third year in the national competition, eliminated in the first qualifying round in the first, contentiously beaten by Hartlepool in the first round proper in the second and this season victorious over three higher league teams in the qualifying rounds before wins over Hartlepool, Port Vale and, indelibly, against Derby County at Pride Park.

Those whom Joe Burlsion rang from the homeward coach, and there may be few in Co Durham whom he did not, testify to the excitement of a kid at Christmas. The FA Youth Cup has no prize pot; the Pride pot was full and overflowing.

West Ham was different - youth internationals, full time professionals, Upton class. This was the Academy of Football, and reminders of it everywhere. Beating the Hammers wouldn't just be teaching a highly improbable lesson, it would be bubble blowing akin to iconoclasm.

Chester's lads had to be at work, and school, next morning.

In the chairman's room, three times the size of Chester's clubhouse and (no offence, boys) a bit more expensively furnished, Terence Brown - a pin striped supremo with lapels the width of a motorway hard shoulder - had joined first team manager Alan Pardew and chief executive Peter Barnes among the guests.

Brown left school at 15, started sweeping a factory floor, picked up markedly. None could have been more hospitable nor more welcoming, none offered more vivid evidence of the occasional truth that football really is just one big family.

"Nee airs, nee graces, nee nowt," said Chester-le-Street committee man Keith Staines, succinctly.

Trevor Brooking, West Ham legend and now the FA's £300,000 a year development director, also ambled in, like an ex-pro looking for his boy. "I've only come to watch Chester-le-Street," he said, amiably.

The teams entered, anxiously. "Who are yer?" chorused a few hundred Hammers, familiarly. Chester's women folk, high in the directors' box, waved their hats like the Railway Children at the avuncular Old Gentleman.

Thirty five other clubs were represented, never more scouts in the east end since the crest of a wave night that Sir Ralph Reader brought the Gang Show to Golders Green Empire.

West Ham keeper Matt Reid, in front of the respectful Bobby Moore stand, saved well from Robbie Houghton; Liam Collett, watchful at the other end, did even better for Chester.

The Hammers included 16-year-old Chris Cohen, who'd made his first team debut against Sunderland in November, and two others with first team experience already. Chester included the speedy Andrew Bulford.

"Like shit off a stick, as Joe Burlison would say," said club chairman John Tomlinson and, remembering where he was, amended his observation.

"He would if he wasn't on Radio Newcastle, anyway."

Tony Carr, West Ham's youth team manager, patrolled the technical area - up and at 'em, Hammers and tongs; Andrew Muxworthy remained in the office, or at least the dug-out, as befits an HR professional.

Only the bus driver stayed in the Thames Ironworks bar, to watch Coronation Street - "I have to keep my legs warm," he said, enigmatically - though the Boleyn Ground still seemed as empty and as echoing as one of old Henry's marriage proposals, just a million times more passionate.

Half time goalless, not much in it, Chester-le-Street seemingly as at home as if they, too, had stopped by the fire to watch television. Stevie Richardson was outstanding for the visitors, 15-year-old left winger Kyle Reid for West Ham.

Peter Barnes, also an FA Council member, recalled over the coffee an Isthmian League cup game earlier that season this had ended 27-26 on penalties and was asked what hapened at the death.

"I don't know," said Peter, "I had to get myself to bed."

Below us at half time there'd been a pitched battle in the tunnel, one of the Chester-le-Street lads taking exception not to the word "northern" but to the monosyllable which followed it.

By no means innocents abroad, Chester also gave as good as they got on the pitch. After 52 minutes, however, just seconds after Nick Barnes had told Radio Newcastle listeners that Reid could make the difference, Reid did.

Poor clearance, astute lob back over the 'keeper, 1-0. Joe Burlison kept his summary to himself.

"Bollocks," he mouthed, expertly.

"West Ham are going to shut up shop now," said Nick but they bossed it, never lost it, and in the 80th minute went two up through Darren Blewitt.

Andrew Muxworthy thought his team hadn't played as well as they could have done - "We didn't follow the plan; to be fair they didn't let us" - Terence Brown said they'd not played a more difficult side all season.

No heavy weather, anyway.

Upstairs on the homeward journey, the team slept, dreaming impossibly, stopping at 1.30am for an all night breakfast at Ferrybridge. Downstairs, Kay Burlison offered tangerines and turkey sandwiches - "Harrod's turkey sandwiches, mind" - and was proud, as were we all.

"They gave us the hospitality that the kids deserved," said Joe, who - cuss and tell - had never once made anyone bleep.

A world and 300 miles away, the youth team's next game is at New Hartley, Cramlington. They go to it heads high.

The boys hadn't just done good, they were absolutely magnificent.

West Ham owe their nickname not to the club's location but to its heavy metal roots, in the hammer and tongs Thames shipyards.

The stadium isn't in West Ham, anyway, but in Upton Park with which it has become synonymous. Officially it's the Boleyn Ground, after a 16th century house which stood on part of the site - the rest is said to have been a potato field.

The first competitive game there was played almost 100 years ago - a 3-0 Southern League win over Millwall on September 2 1904.

Thames Ironworks FC had been formed in 1895 by shipyard boss Arnold Hills - "a typical Victorian capitalist who appreciated the efficacy of physical recreation for the welfare of his workforce," writes football historian Simon Inglis.

Hills and his founding fellows - barge builder, coppersmith, timber converter - are remembered in the transformed stadium next to Moore, Hurst and Peters and in the club history books alongside former Middlesbrough manager Malcolm Allison, whose pioneering vision drove the Hammers' youth policy and who every Tuesday and Thursday evening would coach the kids on the car park out the front.

They still talk of him in Cassettan's Cafe, too, the nearby eating house where with pepper pot players Big Mal would hold court for all within his fief.

The present under 19 team might even win the FA Youth Cup themselves. "They must be a pretty good side," said Andrew Muxworthy, "if they've beaten this one of mine."

And finally...

Former Newcastle United hero Ron McGarry signed from Bolton and was transferred to Barrow. (Backtrack, January 27).

Today back to West Ham, who in 1953 became the second Football League tea, to play under floodlights. Readers are invited to name the club which first switched on the lights.

With memories of when West Ham played Sunderland on October 19 1968, the column comes back in from the cold on Tuesday.

Published: 30/01/2004