FORGET next month's FA Cup final and erase from your memory Manchester United's Carling Cup triumph in February. Now try to imagine the excitement building up to tomorrow's Football League Trophy final.

Difficult? Probably. But for fans hailing from both Carlisle and Swansea, tomorrow's adventure to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium will mean just as much, especially if they are successful.

For Paul Arnison, the Cumbrians' right-back who was discarded by Newcastle United six years ago then deemed unwanted by Hartlepool 43 months later, it will be the biggest day of his career.

Wherever he has gone he has been highly thought of but struggled to command a run in the team, and now the faith shown in him by Carlisle manager Paul Simpson has been rewarded with a run of fine form in their push for League Two supremacy.

Clearly enjoying life after spending many years worrying about where he would be playing the following year, Arnison has revelled in the pressure of being a regular, something he feared may never arrive.

Yet in his younger days few would have expected anything else. The predictions being made about him as a schoolboy and scholar were that he was destined for the top.

On February 20, 1992, the teenager was on the morning train to Southampton, sent by super scout Jack Hixon, the man who unearthed many talents including those of Alan Shearer and Michael Bridges.

The journey to the south coast was a gruelling one without his parents but Hixon, just a day after Shearer had scored on his England debut against France at Wembley, made it one to remember.

"Jack Hixon is a lovely, lovely man," said Arnison. "There was me and another lad called Gary Lloyd (a former Sunderland YTS) who had gone down with Jack and we were understandably really nervous about the whole thing.

"We were going down to Southampton, where I was too young really to realise just how good their reputation for bringing through kids was, and the day sort of passed us by.

"But what sticks in the memory is the way Jack, just a day after the France game, called Alan Shearer over to us both and told him that we were from the North-East.

"At the time I remember thinking 'bloody hell, that's Alan Shearer'. He wished us both good luck and it's little things like that which stick with you."

That first visit was spent sleeping in a nearby army barracks and after a second trial he was invited down for a third. It was at that point Everton came calling.

At 14 he recalls being big news in the Hartlepool Mail.

"It was fantastic," said Arnison. "I was pictured signing schoolboy forms for Everton at school and it was a special feeling. Everyone knew I had signed for a professional club and I was pleased because it was closer to home than Southampton."

In those days, before the Academy system was introduced, signing for a professional club was pretty rare. Nowadays there are hundreds of youngsters coached by clubs from as young as seven.

And, after penning the deal with the Toffees, he used to travel down to Merseyside and spend much of his school holidays training with Everton, where he forged a close friendship with Aston Villa's former Sunderland midfielder Gavin McCann.

Nevertheless, despite enjoying his time there, he was tracked by Newcastle United while he was playing for Cleveland Juniors in the Teesside Junior Alliance.

When his schoolboy contract expired at Everton he signed a two-year YTS and one-year professional deal with Newcastle, plus a signing on arrangement that was worth around £20,000. "These days that deal would probably have been seen as illegal," joked Arnison.

As an extra incentive, along with the cash windfall, there was also the prospect of training just a 30-minute drive from his hometown Hartlepool every day.

"The fact Kevin Keegan was the manager also helped," he said. "Things were taking off at Newcastle and to think I could be a part of that was incredible.

"I remember going up to St James' on the day Newcastle celebrated winning the league title by thumping Leicester 7-1. I was there with my mam, Irene, and dad, Keith. I then met Kevin Keegan, his wife and Sir John Hall.

"Keegan had me in his office and showed me round the ground, I was totally in awe of everything that was going on, even more so when I was introduced to Andy Cole, Lee Clark and everyone else."

In hindsight the switch of clubs possibly had a detrimental effect on his long-term career.

The multi-mllion pound spending patterns on Tyneside always meant he was going to struggle to work his way into the first-team squad.

The only occasion he did was, ironically, for an away trip to Southampton, during Ruud Gullit's days in charge. "My name was on the blackboard before training then it had been rubbed off after training, I don't even think I was that bad," he said.

"It was more the fact Kieron Dyer had been added to the list because the manager had decided to allow him to play with a cast on his arm."

Being teed up by Ian Rush and scoring from the edge of the penalty area at the Gallowgate end in front of 15,000 supporters out to witness the Welshman and John Barnes' debuts in the reserves was as memorable as it got for Arnison at St James' Park.

After spending the best part of a year as reserve-team skipper, he realised his time at Newcastle was coming to an end when he was shipped out on loan to Hartlepool in March 2000, a deal that soon turned into a permanent transfer.

During three years at Victoria Park he made only 53 league starts, mainly through former manager Chris Turner persisting with captain Michael Barron at right-back.

There were still many highs for his hometown club, though - two unsuccessful play-off campaigns and a celebratory open-top bus ride around his hometown after Mike Newell guided Pool to promotion in 2003.

When Newell left and Neale Cooper took over, Arnison was offloaded to Carlisle in the October. "That still hurts me now, more than anything I have experienced in football," said the defender, who has also had to deal with the loss of both his parents over the past eight years.

"I don't feel I was ever given a fair crack of the whip at Hartlepool and I would like to think that now I'm being given one at Carlisle I am proving myself, even if I'm not a kid anymore."

In fact Brunton Park seems to be a great ground for players from the North-East rebuilding their careers.

Former Sunderland and Newcastle striker Bridges - who is cup-tied for tomorrow's date but 'occasionally does things that are out of this world' - has hit 12 goals in Carlisle's rise to the top of the League Two table since his arrival in November.

Similarly Chris Lumsdon, the former Sunderland midfielder, is regarded as one of the finest midfielders in the division.

"They are both great lads, although some of their banter is not the best," said Arnison. "As players they have become massive for us.

"Since Bridgey came we have seen exactly why he earned such a lucrative move from Sunderland to Leeds (for £5m in July 1999). At times we are all just left drawing breath; he does things that are unbelievable both in training and in games.

"The worry for us is that he will get the move that he has often spoken about. He said a few times at the start of his days with us that Carlisle was a stepping stone to get his career back on track. If he keeps going like he is then that move will probably come."

All three meet up and travel across the A69 to training every day. Yesterday they trained in the North-West before making an altogether different journey down the M6 to south Wales, where the whole squad are staying at the Vale of Glamorgan. And when the team coach does the return trip tomorrow night they will be hoping one seat is taken up by the Football League Trophy.

For Arnison it can't come a moment too soon.