Charged with supplying 250 words at the final whistle, the Sunday Express man wrote his intro - or hoped he had - before the match kicked off.

"They were dancing in the streets of Billy Elliott country last night...."

Billy Elliott country is Easington Colliery on the Durham coast, setting for the fast fabled film about the budding ballet star. Up a path across the park, it's also home to an Albany Northern League football club, who on Saturday entertained Chester City in the last qualifying round of the FA Cup.

"Colliery won't settle for a tu-tu draw," said the Sun, on its toes as usual.

The scarred old place hadn't seen so many pressmen or pollisses since 1984, when a melting pot of the miners' strike. Now the pit is gone, the Black Diamond appropriately boarded, the Ex-Servicemen's Club has lost its final battle for survival. Even the bank rolls no longer.

Almost a quarter of the population is on sick benefit, many more unemployed. In Easington's long terraces, there is new meaning to the term "black economy."

Chester, relegated last season from the Football League, remain full time in the Conference. Easington's only hope, locals reckoned, was to pray for rain; the heavens duly opened.

"What's that umbrella for?" asked the Sky TV reporter, wading round in the back of the van.

"To protect the cables," said the engineer.

"Sod the cables," said the reporter.

The Tyne Tees Telly crew, dressed as if to film Hans and Lottie Haas, not Easington v Chester, was consigned to the dressing room roof; the little clubhouse alongside turned into a sort of media refugee station.

Tom Goodrum, Easington's chairman, had spent much of the week in Paris, helping chaperone a group of Beaver scouts. "Even then I had 12 calls on my mobile," he said.

"I ended up talking to the press while sitting on a toilet in Notre Dame."

Alan Purvis, the club secretary, had become PR man, too. A man who believes in a balanced diet, he can often be seen with a pint of lager in each hand. "I've hardly had time for a beer all week," he insisted.

Hospitable as ever, Easington offered visiting fans the relative comfort of a humble stand. The rest stood segregated outside, as if submerged beneath a waterfall. "You can't even light a tab," someone complained.

The crowd, all ticket, struggled to a rain-affected 478. It included a gaggle of ground-hoppers but not Hartlepool postman John Dawson, watching his 101st match of the season elsewhere.

"Easington never have enough pies when there's only 40 in," he reputedly observed. "What chance have I with 400?"

Down at the deep end, City scored after seven minutes. That the broadcast media (including Sky TV) spent much of the afternoon claiming that the score was 1-0 to Easington served, like Arthur Scargill, only to build false hopes.

Terry Smith, Chester's American owner, took sombre shelter in a doorway - a ledger wedged beneath his armpit in the way that Muslim militaries hold the Koran whilst administering a million and one lashes.

Mr Smith has put the club on the market. Though at half-time it remained 1-0, Easington seemed only to be flogging a dead horse.

A little lad reported that his mum had been interviewed by Sky - "they asked her if she took the ferrets for a walk on a lead" - the refugee post resembled something from a foreign field. Third world, fourth estate.

The rain stopped, the wind got up. Old hands who reckon that on a fine day you can see down the coast to Skinningrove were pushed to see the far corner flag.

City scored again in the 83rd minute, shortly after Easington's only corner. "I wonder," someone said, "if the BBC will now say it's one's each."

It ended 2-0 - "despite passionate home support" said the Observer, whose reporter must have been listening to the wireless. The Sunday Express man reverted to Plan B, an opening gambit about the young Ian Rush scoring against Newcastle United when last Chester played an FA Cup tie in the North-East.

Chester play Plymouth Argyle in the next round, Easington Colliery play Brandon United tonight. In the shuttered streets of Billy Elliott country, they were heading hurriedly back to the barre.

Easington's only FA Cup first round appearance remains November 19 1955 - Tranmere Rovers the visitors, Easington Silver Prize Band in attendance, programme threepence. Rovers' nut Gil Upton from Southport has kindly faxed the programme, though the quality precludes reproduction. Easington's team was Taylor, Davison, Rose, Langley, Akerson, Stubbs, Waterston, Gillespie, Feenan, Bennett, Alcroft. They lost 2-0.

Another Archie Brown study. The centre forward who went from Shildon to Sunderland for £650 (Backtrack October 20) finished his career as it began - banging them in for Witton Park Institute.

Then 39, Archie - who'd scored against Manchester United on his Sunderland debut - was allowed to renew his Institute membership as a "permit" player at the end of 1935-36. A sheaf of cuttings kindly sent by a gentleman in Bishop Auckland reveals that he scored 20 goals in three weeks, helping the Institute retain the Stanley (Crook) League championship and win the Auckland Nursing Cup, over Evenwood Crusaders, for the first time.

"Brown's experience is most helpful," wrote Nomad in the Evening Gazette, and may have been understating it a little.

Those were the days when Saturday football flourished, of the Auckland Park League and the Ferryhill League, of teams like Hunwick Rooks and Kelloe St Helen's, of Leasingthorne Village and Stanley Pit Rovers.

Knowing the column's little weakness, our friend also sends details of Shildon's 2-0 Durham Benevolent Bowl final win against Hartlepool Reserves in April 1936 - Hope, Nicholson and Wild inevitably the first three on the team sheet, 3,038 spectators paying £79 9s 9d to watch the final at Bishop Auckland.

The most appealing scion amid all these cuttings, however, is of Sunnybrow's 6-0 defeat at Witton Park - Whitton 3, Brown 2, Williams. "The young set of lads who represented Sunnybrow cycled to Witton Park, were stripped ready for play an hour before kick-off and even a pigeon was brought to convey the half-time score," it was reported.

The half-time score was 1-0. Does anyone live to re-tell that lovely tale?

Graham Kelly, all but over a stroke he suffered in June, addressed Marske United's gentlemen's evening, ate barely enough to feed a spuggie. The diet's deemed necessary.

"People used to think of me as that big fat miserable b*****d, now they think of me as that big thin miserable..." the former FA chief executive - now a director of perilously placed Luton Town - told his audience.

Mickey Gunn, long on the comedy circuit, proved interesting, too - lives in Hartlepool, real name Harry James, played for Preston North End and was on Celtic's books when apprentices had to learn a trade.

They sent him to the Singer sewing machine company. "I came home able to fix a sewing machine but hating English beer," said Mickey. "I'm not sure the swap was fair."

l Graham Kelly also speaks at Tow Law FC's dinner at the Three Tuns Hotel, Durham, on Friday. Ticket information from John Flynn on 01207 502532 (office) or 01388 730525 (home).

Seven front row faces, six names, that team picture of Hartlepool United (Backtrack, October 20) omitted to mention former English youth international Bobby Smith - not to be confused (though, of course, he always was) with Rob Smith, who was standing behind him.

It was about the time, recalls Arthur Pickering (who knows these things) that United had a late season resurgence under Len Ashurst, took 7,000 fans for an Easter weekend game at Darlington and won 2-1. The club's history records nine wins in 14 games at the end of 1971-72. By the start of the following season, 16 goals in 17 games, poor old Pool had reverted to form.

THE first team to win three FA Cup finals at Wembley (Backtrack, October 20) was Bolton Wanderers - in 1923, 1926 and 1929. Bill Moore: Jon Lewis of Durham and Peter Bowler of Somerset, who scored centuries in the same Riverside match last season, share another cricketing claim to fame.

Ideas? We return, for starters, on Friday.