SIR ALEX Ferguson once described this stage of the season as "squeaky bum time". At Axa FC most weeks is squeaky bum time, especially if striker Jon Roote has eaten a curry the night before a game, but there's no doubt that this is when the season really hots up.

All three divisions of The Northern Echo Darlington Sunday Invitation League are more interesting than the boring Premiership as we head into the final games.

In Division One, Pepper DSRM look favourites for the title but East End WMC are hot on their heels and Spraire RA are still in with an outside chance.

MN Allstars top Division Two, but Pizza Perfekt and Haughton WMC both have games to spare. Yet as the saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - which funnily enough is where Jon Roote usually goes after one of his curries.

It's only the third division that seems cut and dried, with Turks Head almost certain to win the league despite the best efforts of Fighting Cocks.

This week is also cup final weekend, the time for speciallytailored suits, awful cup final records - and more often than not in the professional game, awful cup finals. But Sunday's Division Three Cup final between Brown Trout and Mitek and Wheatsheaf Albion has the makings of a great game.

With Wembley unavailable, the showpiece will be played at Darlington RA's Brinkburn Road, but with its new floodlights and hotdog stand, the facilities there are probably better than they were at the old twin towers.

There almost wasn't a ground to play on at all when Axa played Mitek and Wheatsheaf two weeks ago. The Blues have played at the Rothmans pitch for several years - we initially secured it because one of our ex-players' dad used to own it - but were sensationally threatened with eviction before the game against Mitek.

Like Wimbledon and Middlesbrough in years gone by, we faced our gates being padlocked shut after the pitch's new owner decided to charge us £20 for the privilege of using its shabby dressing rooms and rarely-marked pitch.

Talk about moving the goalposts - which is actually what we have to do before every game to put them in the right place.

However, this off-the-pitch crisis failed to distract Axa and we produced an excellent display to defeat the in-form Mitek men 2-0, capped by a fantastic Nick Enfield goal and a majestic midfield performance from Paul Tills. His golden hair flapped in the wind each time he strode purposely into a challenge, like Patrick Vieira with a peroxide mullet.

Last weekend we followed that up with a 7-0 win over bottom side Darlington Cricket Club, Alan Percival grabbing five and being the culprit of several further misses to make it a real cricket score against the Cricket Club. It could have been even more, but manager Chris Johnson brought himself on with 25 minutes to go and we never score when he plays.

Perhaps the Cricket Club should have given a run-out to their young Wayne Rooney lookalike Andrew Peacock, who spent the game on the bench. Maybe he would have added a bit of Rooney's, ahem, aggression to their attack.

Published: 15/04/2005