Buoyant Mariners

The train from Darlington to Birmingham, that being the penultimate stage of this season’s Railroad to Wembley, has lots of notices about respecting other passengers and keeping the volume down. It’s an injunction that may not apply to the guard.

The guard’s one of those who believes that every passing moment should be filled with his dulcet observations. “This train comprises five coaches. At the front we have Coach A, which is followed by Coach B, then we have Coach C….”

You get the scenario, and probably the sequence, anyway. There’s an equally unnecessary garrulousness on the BBC, a two-minute Radio 4 bulletin last week not only feeling it necessary to report that folk were coming from all over Britain but that Britain included Scotland, Wales, Norwich and Plymouth.

Has no one considered the effect on global warming of all that hot air?

It’s Coleshill Town v South Shields, Colemen v Mariners, FA Vase semi-final first leg and necessary to change trains at Birmingham New Street before a 15-minute onward journey to Coleshill Parkway.

With a senior railcard, the return fare’s £61. Mr Gary Brand, who’s travelled from London and joins us at Birmingham, has paid £12 there, £6 return and doesn’t even qualify for a card. Rail fares from the North-East are a scandal: little wonder we’re the Northern Poorhouse.

Readers may also recall that the late Dr David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, swore on his 80th birthday never again to drive more than ten miles or to make a train journey which meant changing at New Street.

Since then the place has had a £550m makeover, chiefly creating a huge retail concourse up above. It’s reminiscent of that fabled advert for the Victoria and Albert in London – “Ace caff with quite a nice museum attached.”

It’s still not the sort of place, however, to which Dr Jenkins is likely to have taken a Sunday School trip.

IN the moments between the guard’s grandstanding, it’s possible to catch up with last Saturday’s papers.

The Times has an interview with Fabrizio Ravanelli, the excitable Italian who in all competitions in 1996-97 scored 31 goals for Middlesbrough – four more, it’s rather unkindly recalled, than the Boro have thus far managed all season.

Ravanelli, the man with the shirt over his head, is back in Italy, boning up on his English – never his strong point – and eyeing a management job in Blighty.

“I study English every morning, because it is important the players understand me. I am sure that by July, I am able to speak very well. Middlesbrough is still my dream.”

You read it here second.

THE Echo has a piece on Fleetwood, second in League One after six promotions in ten years and an 18-game unbeaten run. It’s a reminder of an earlier FA Vase excursion.

It was September 2000, preliminary round, Fleetwood Freeport (as then they were known) at home to Washington Ikeda Hoover, though the posters around the town supposed them Washington Ikea instead.

Then as now, Fleetwood played at Highbury. Admission was £3, hot Vimto 40p and the stand second-hand from Cove FC. “It looked,” the column observed, “like it had been washed in on the tide and put together by the remedial class of a pre-school playgroup.”

There was a notice about not leaving bikes in the clubhouse, pre-match entertainment by a curly haired little girl singing Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush while sitting on the bar counter eating cheese and onion crisps.

Since then, of course, Fleetwood’s fortunes have flowed remarkably, steered by a chairman who’s millionaire boss of a utilities company – exactly what the relaunched South Shields have now. Fleetwood lose on Saturday, though.

THE suffix “Parkway” is a railway industry term meaning “At least a good day’s march from the place whose name precedes it.” Thus at Coleshill, a Warwickshire town of 6,000 souls.

Harvey Harris, another of the travelling party, has one of those pedometer gizmos which, though worn on the wrist, are reckoned accurately to measure the number of daily paces taken by the wearer.

They also, apparently, take note of how many times a restless sleeper tosses and turns in the night. Smart readers may be able to explain how the thing knows.

Halfway between station and ground, the gizmo tells Harvey by means of a little beep that he’s completed the medically recommended 10,000 paces for the day. De luxe versions probably play Congratulations, an’ all, or offer a cup of mint tea.

The hike passes through an industrial estate, on which a shed sale is advertised. “That’s an anagram of headless,” says Nigel Brierley, another of the number, solemnly and immediately adding that “Feel very low” is an anagram of yellow fever.

It’s the company we keep.

In the Red Lion, an eastern European barman with little English is in animated discussion with a Geordie who may himself not have mastered the Queen’s.

“There’s nee heed,” he protests, pointing at his pint, and probably misses the kick-off.

COLESHILL seems quite excited. Shops have little displays promoting the game, the town hall has bunting (though it’s possible that that may be for a brass band concert.)

“The biggest event to hit Coleshill in recent times,” says the Coleshill Post, unequivocally. The programme says nothing of last year’s competition, home to Northern League side Dunston UTS, when Coleshill had three men sent off in extra-time and consequently lost 3-1.

The average crowd’s fewer than 100, Saturday’s all-ticket attendance is 1,755 of whom, officially at any rate, just 300 are from south Tyneside.

An ambulance service vehicle is there to provide emergency relief, though many relieve themselves in the hedge.

“You’re just a small town in Scotland,” sing the home fans, given to a sort of West Midlands elision which almost makes Coleshill rhyme with Mosul.

They’re second in the Midland League, that of Lye Town, Sporting Khalsa and Coventry Sphinx; South Shields are second in the Ebac Northern League, that – to the exclusion of all other – of North Shields, the adversary over the water.

A great day for the Mariners, of course, but particularly for the 30 or 40 who kept faith for two years when, homeless, they were marooned and close to the rocks at Peterlee.

It’s a 3G pitch and, in the first half, little sign of artificial intelligence. The Colemen deliver in added time, as they had threatened to, their fans heading happily to a marquee with perhaps the world’s most succinct slogan. “Beer here,” it says.

Shields are better after the break, encouraged by the prompting of former Middlesbrough and Sunderland favourite Julio Arca, if not quite an ancient Mariner than at 36 no Tom the cabin boy, either.

David Foley equalises from close range after an hour or so, Andrew Stephenson – a scorer in two previous Vase semi-finals with Spennymoor Town – hits a last minute winner.

The second leg, Colemen to Newcastle near enough, is at South Shields on Saturday. For the eighth successive season, the Railroad to Wembley may happily be nearing journey’s end.