Laughing matter

Fury, now 32, is a Hebburn lad who supported Sunderland, studied journalism at the city’s university and wrote – as many do – a dissertation on non-league football.

It swayed him. “Instead of writing boyish fan mail to Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips I was engaging in email correspondence with Mike Amos, the chairman of the Northern League,” he writes in My Cup Quest, now out as an ebook.

Soon it will be available as a hard copy and the basis of a show of the same name which he hopes will tour all the clubs he visited from extra-preliminary round to Gunners glorious final.

He had, he concedes, become bored with the Premier League and the corporate bandwagon which accompanies it. He didn’t think much of the Bovril, either.

So he and his mate Mark Tearney began the 2013-14 journey at Tow Law v West Auckland, the aim to follow the winning team in each round and ultimately to blag a couple of tickets for the final.

Though it was mid-August, Tow Law was (of course) wet and windy, prompting Andy to wonder how the little turbine on the ground hadn’t generated enough income to drive the Lawyers themselves to the Premier League.

He loved the stand (“a work of art”) and the near-legendary Mary Hail, probably in equal measure.

West won. That he’s still with them in chapter eight is partly because there are an awful lot of qualifying rounds and partly because there were an awful lot of drawn games.

They next went to Harrogate RA, won the replay, drew again at Whitby Town but back in Co Durham won 5-0. By then the two travellers were punching the air. “I’d turned from a surly neutral to an ardent West supporter without even realising,” Andy writes.

“It was the happiest I’d been for a long time watching football. West Auckland were playing with Whitby in the same way that a cat plays with a dead mouse in its mouth.”

At the next stage they drew Skelmersdale at home, the only problem that Fury had a 3pm gig in Middlesbrough. After much agonising, he pulled out of it.

They next played at Hednesford, leaders of the Conference North, drew 2-2 thanks to a last minute goal which Mark and Andy didn’t even see because they were headed for the way out. Contentiously, they lost an ill-tempered replay on penalties; the post-match events weren’t very edifying, either.

“It was like watching your parents fight as two clubs we’d taken a shine to decided that they hated each other and there was no way around it.”

The pair then travelled to Stamford, and beyond. Backtrack didn’t rejoin that particular trail until Arsenal in the final, for which Andy not only got his tickets but wore his West Auckland shirt.

The account’s greatly entertaining, never exhausting, the guy’s turn of phrase strongly suggesting that journalism’s loss may have been stand-up comedy’s gain. He’s never been back to the Stadium of Light.

*My Cup Upset is available from Amazon, Kobo and www.cuprunnings.com

The ebook is available for £2 99 and dates for the stand-up show will be announced soon on www.andyfury.co.uk

Perhaps only Martin Birtle, who watches with sub-titles, could find laughing matter in English cricket’s latest debacle in New Zealand. At the end of it all, the text announced that it was goodbye from Wendy Willington. “She seems a nice girl,” says Martin.

ends

Bishop Auckland Cricket Club is organising a “social” competition, to be played in memory of former player Doug George and sponsored by S G Petch.

“Just bar lads, no Saturday players and no wrong uns,” insists club chairman Keith Hopper.

Sadly it recalls a similar cup competition organised in the 1970s by the late Bill Moore at Coundon Cricket Club. The Northern Echo team may chiefly have been cack-handed clueless but included, under what might best be supposed a pen name, Tim Wellock, then opening the bowling for Darlington in the NYSD.

All went well until a miscued shot came his way. “Catch it Tim,” we chorused and, inexplicably, were disqualified shortly afterwards.

Bishop’s competition will be played on Wednesday evenings. Details, rights and wrong uns, from Keith on 01325 366944.

It’s coincidental that, following last week’s report on Dulwich Hamlet v the Metropolitan Police, Bishop Auckland FC’s programme should seriously claim that the Met’s ground is in Letsby Avenue. Number 999, presumably. False alarm, good intent, fellers.

… and finally, the only Premiership club never to have appeared in the FA Cup final (Backtrack, February 26) is Swansea City. Peter Britcliffe from Hartlepool was first among several readers with that one.

“Just 13 years ago come April I saw Swansea lose 7=1 to the Pools at the Vic and 4-0 the season afterwards,” Peter recalls.

More finals thoughts, one of the papers ahead of last Sunday’s Wembley match recorded that in the past 20 years Chelsea had appeared in 16 major finals, ahead of Manchester United (nine), Liverpool (12) and Arsenal’s ten.

Who, though, has the fifth highest number of final appearances in the past two decades? The surprising answer next week.