Hearts unbroken leaving Gretna green with envy

These annual excursions began in 1999, a northwards migration from the land of hype and glory to what the Scots still call "junior" football.

Hitherto they had been characterised by extensive reference to Oor Wullie, by mass consumption of mutton pies and by the ability of the average Scottish football follower to swear with quite breathtaking insouciance.

Will ye no' come back again? They couldn't keep us away.

Saturday was different. Gretna, not so long since playing Northern League football against the likes of Willington, Whickham and West Auckland, faced Hearts in the Tennent's Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park.

Brooks Mileson, the raggy arsed entrepreneur from a council estate in Sunderland, was their unlikely benefactor, their Rob Roy of the Rovers.

The Arngrove Northern League, which Brooks sponsors in perpetuity, bought 110 tickets, sold the lot and laid on two buses, or executive coaches as these days they are known. An executive coach is a bus with a netty. It was the day of the lowland fling.

All went well, save for the apparent non-appearance of Mr Lee Stewart, secretary of Esh Winning FC, at one of the departure points. As others stood around waiting, Mr Stewart was found asleep on the back seat.

"I wondered why we hadn't gone," he said.

Mr Peter Sixsmith, an Escape Committee regular, was on the other bus. Several people had brought him food parcels, lest he waste away to 20 stones. A Tesco van followed, in case of emergency before Motherwell.

At the Welcome Break services at Gretna, the only banner proclaimed that KFC - Kilmarnock, presumably - would be coming there soon. There was also a bit of bridal party, one of 27 Gretna weddings that day, though it seemed oddly irrelevant. A far greater romance was afoot.

The M74, in turn, was littered like second hand confetti with the discarded puns - the love stories, the honeymoon periods, the going hammer and tongs - of shotgun marriage with the incredulous world media.

Hearts bypassed, the spotlight had been all Gretna's.

Brooks was on the radio, interviewed while feeding his porkers. It meant he had to find clean jeans for the big occasion. "The others are covered in pig muck," he explained.

The queues began five miles out, a lone polliss waving his arms ineffectually at the traffic. "I bet this never happened in Taggart," someone said.

It wouldn't have happened in Oor Wullie, either. They'd have sent for PC Murdoch.

Finally in orbit, the coach circumnavigated Hampden like a lunar probe looking for a picnic spot, the sat-nav gibbering ineffably, like Houston in meltdown.

It was never like this when they played Ferryhill Athletic.

The scotch pies are horrible. A Geordie would say they were kizzened; a Scotsman, invective inventive, would call them very much worse.

The Hampden snack bars also sell macaroni pies, 30p extra, and Mars bars at £1 apiece. Whether they are deep-fried Mars Bars isn't made clear, but is the Pope a Celtic supporter?

Gretna's female supporters are wearing cotton wool haloes, perhaps we're up in the gods and perhaps because this season they seem to have been on the side of the angels.

Some of the lads wear flapping white coats with a rosette on the front and "Deuchar 9" on the back. Kenny Deuchar, Gretna's star striker, is a doctor. The lads look more like cattle class judges at a minor North country agricultural show.

Pre-match, the music is all heavy metal, or Ir'n Bru, or some such. No pipes, no skirl talk, no Scotia the Brave.

Though Gretna manager Rowan Alexander marches out in Highlander's full fig, there are many in bonny blue blazers, yet more in black and white wigs. The game is becoming homogenised. It's why it desperately needs men like Brooks Mileson.

He's been asked in the programme if he'll sit in the posh seats. "Will I hell," he says, and takes his customary place among Gretna's faithful and in the queue for a noonday fish supper.

The stadium's non-smoking, he's inadvertently left his Crafeaways - the simulation ciggies he used at the semi-final - back at Raydale Park. Brooks, perversely, looks fag ashen. Though his side has adopted the slogan "Living the Dream", Marlboro man's own nights tend to be sleepless.

Gretna are only the second side from Scotland's third tier to reach the cup final, Hearts are second in the Premier League. The Tow Law contingent gets 8-1 against the underdogs.

Gretna start like men possessed, Rambos v Jambos. Though Hearts swiftly seize supremacy. It's still 38 minutes before the favourites score, rich pickings from a long throw-in.

The Gretna end falls weirdly silent, as if the referee has asked if anyone knows just cause or impediment and they're hoping to hell that someone can come up with something quick.

Mr George Brown, West Auckland and England, has a mobile phone to his ear and announces amid the hush the score from the Millennium Stadium. Since no one gives a shortbread, he is advised to desist or to be put on the next train home.

The second half's wholly different Gretna, perhaps re-energised by the Lucozade on which the munificent Mr Mileson is himself said to be sustained.

After 67 minutes David Graham, a substitute, Gay Gordons through the defence, side steps the goalkeeper but is denied, beta blocked, by Hearts. Eight minutes later, Gretna get a penalty.

Ryan McGuffie's shandy-strength kick is parried back to him. He looks up, sees his bride approaching, consummates the moment and runs, ecstatic, towards the corner flag.

Nine team mates flop one on top of another on him like white coats at a kiddies' Christmas party; five television cameras seek out the scorer, a dozen follow the man in the clean jeans.

He's waving his arms like Fulwell Windmill but, curiously, his hands appear invisible. Probably he's eaten them.

It goes to extra-time and then to penalties. The atmosphere's extraordinary, the occasion epic, the match magnificent. Hearts are the wearier team at the end, Gretna the better one.

Hearts lead 3-2 on penalties when Derek Townsley, who'd scored for Gretna in the FA Cup at Bolton Wanderers 13 years earlier, strolls towards the spot as casually as a man taking his dog for a Sunday afternoon stroll. The goalie could have saved it with a poop scoop.

Gavin Skelton's fourth kick for Gretna clips the bar - skelps it, as the Scots would suppose - and ricochets off into history.

Hearts sing; Brooks bonds. It is the ultimate penalty, but truly the great Escape.

ESCAPE COMMITTEE EXCURSIONS - BEST OF THE FEST

Dunbar v Whitburn

1999 First footing, Newcastle at Wembley. It's not the Whitburn from the Wearside League but since the Wearside already reaches to the Irish Sea how long before they invade Scotland, an' all? Dunbar's remembered for a 14th century countess, known unflatteringly as Black Aggie, who for five months hurled rocks and unladylike language at the encroaching English. Admission's £1, programme 50p, swearing synchronised. The Dunnie manager appears to be yelling "Fish supper" at his boys. "Unlike Wembley, Countess Park is a proper football ground," notes the column. "That is to say there's a railway line behind the bottom goal." 1-2.

Annan Athletic v Whitehill

2000 Welfare, westward - Annan along the Scotswood Road - from Newcastle and drookit (as they say in Oor Wullie). Hartlepool postman John Dawson's 277th game of a record wrecking season. Ken Shaw from Sunderland, who doesn't so much surf the Net as plodge up to his oxters in it, has divined that Annan has lots of natterjack toads but been stymied by 73 million hits for Kofi of that ilk. Mr Shaw produces waterproofs from a rucksack as David Nixon might have conjured silks from a sow's ear. "The effect is of a Metropolitan police frogman, sent down to find the crown jewels and coming up with a Waitrose trolley." 1-1.

Musselburgh (known, inexplicably, as the Honest Town) v Linlithgow Rose.

2003 Swearing in an accent like Jimmy Logan with laryngitis. It's home to a golf course where James IV hacked about in 1504 and to the Institute of Seaweed Research. Two months after his heart bypass, John Dawson restricts himself to two Scotch pies and an apple. "Balanced diet," he says. Sixer, having greeded a sausage roll from a nice lady on the train, balances his diet with several stones of Tunnocks' milk chocolate marshmallows. Dunbar have a played known as Basher, as in Basher McTurk. Basher McTurk's in Oor Wullie. 3-1.

Linlithgow Rose v Hill of Beath (where stands a statue to Jinky Jimmy Smith, joy of Sunderland.)

2004 That nowt much happens in Linlithgow is suggested by a story across six columns of the local front page about a rabbit, thought stolen, found five yards from its hutch. There's a leader, too; bunny business altogether. Fourteen months after his by-pass, John Dawson's only seen 182 matches this season. "I have to take it steady," he explains. The title's at stake, the swearing's for Scotland. "These games should really be adults only," says the column, "or after the 9pm watershed or with a note for the crowd from its mam." 2-0.

Arthurlie v Cumnock Juniors

2005 Joined on the northward train by a corps Franglais from Richmond Rugby Club, dressed as French onion sellers but drinking Australian wine. "Charlatans," says Sixer - cross, cultured. Arthurlie are still seething about a player known as Bubba, as in silly Bubba, banned for five years for planting a Glasgow kiss on the referee's forehead. The crowd sings "We're going to Airdrie, you're not, you're not", other imprecations aurally indecipherable. "It's like sitting O-level German - translate any three of the following - and suddenly remembering you've been studying French for the past five years." Sixer has another pie; 4-1.

...and finally

The nine players sent off on England duty (Backtrack, May 12) have been Alan Mullery, Alan Ball, Trevor Cherry, Ray Wilkins, Paul Ince, David Beckham (twice), Paul Scholes, David Batty and Alan Smith.

Today back to the Scottish Cup, dominated - as John Briggs in Darlington points out - by Rangers and Celtic. But who, asks John, has the third highest number of wins?

More border-line cases on Friday,

Published: 16/05/2006