Crest of a wave

Thus last weekend, once again on the final leg of the Railroad to Wembley, the first thing that catches the eye is a Times column excoriatingly critical of Sir Harold Evans, a legendary former editor hereabouts.

Sir Harold, who’ll be 90 next year, has written a style guide called Do I Make Myself Clear? The Times columnist supposes it to be “dire”, “balderdash”, “incompetent” and much else that’s uncomplimentary.

The book, he concludes, is “a chaotic jeremiad marked by overwrought metaphor, unsubstantiated assertions and top-tier bungling.”

Reading backwards, The Times also carries the story of the elderly Darlington chap with a tree problem, advised by the council to put a plastic owl amongst the boughs to frighten off the natives.

The gentlemen is described as “wheelchair bound” – an outdated, inelegant and usually inaccurate term that many newspapers outlawed long since. The great Harry Evans is also a former editor of The Times. It wouldn’t have happened on his watch.

The FA Vase final, South Shields v Cleethorpes Town, kicks off at 12.15pn on Sunday, the ninth successive season that the Railroad has reached its still-sought destination.

From Kings Cross we take the Tube to London Bridge, then head eastwards on the Thames Path through Bermondsey and Rotherhithe to Greenwich.

Bermondsey was supposed by Charles Dickens to be the “filthiest, strangest and most extraordinary of all the many localities that are hidden in London” – the place where Bill Sykes fell to his death in a sea of mud – but is remembered by most only as the birthplace of sixties singerTommy Steele.

Rotherhithe has an Amos Estate, named after an early 20th century vicar and philanthropist. We appear not to be related.

It’s all much more pleasant now. There’s a pub called the Mayflower, where the Pilgrim Fathers are reputed to have got their pipes, another called the Blacksmiths Arms where Nelson may have had a grog shandy before setting sail. We’re staying with the younger bairn.

It’s no offence to his hospitality that Sunday breakfast is to be taken at the Ledger Book, the Wetherspoons on Canary Wharf.

There we meet Gary Brand, good lad for a Spurs fan, who the previous day has watched the 25th National Christian Cup final, at The Valley.

Good game? “Not what you’d call walking on water stuff,” says Gary.

The final was between Battle Baptist Church and Bridge Street Chapel, from Liverpool. Other entrants have included Sunderland Samba, Consett St Patrick’s, Manna Sports, Cardiff Covenanters and FC Cornerstone.

The programme records that Newcastle St Wilfrid’s won it in 2008 but the competition appears rather to have been hiding its light under a bushel.

Like the church, Wetherspoons is almost universal, though it’s only in the barbaric north that black pudding is offered for an additional 75p.

The sun’s bright shining. On so splendid a Sabbath morning, we almost forget to ask Gary the score from The Valley: strife o’er, Battle won.

The previous12 Vase finals involving Northern League clubs have all been during my 20-year tenure as league chairman, grateful for the FA’s ever-excellent hospitality and seated within forelock-tugging distance of the royal box.

Since royalty has never been present, it was necessary to do obeisance to the chairman of the FA Vase committee, instead.

The only problem with the royal box is that, perhaps of necessity, it’s on high. Much further up and we’d have hit level 5, said on the back of the ticket to be potentially difficult for those suffering vertigo and damn-near impossible for those, like me, who panic if standing on a stool.

Freed from office, we’re now in the Bobby Moore Suite, many-a-mile below, required by the steward to wear a wristband. “It so we know where you belong,” she says.

I tell; her that I belong Shildon. She effects not to understand.

The dress code’s smart/casual. The bairn considers wearing his best Arsenal shirt, decides against, would still have been the second smartest man in the place. Some even wear shorts. How smart/casual can you be?

The Bobby Moore Suite is also for guests, the only evidence of the great man’s memory seemingly in the gent’s. Its great advantage, however, is that the seats are described as “Level One (lower.)”

It’s the very antithesis of the parable of the wedding feast in which, it may be recalled, the guest with the thrift shop suit and the Poundland present is bidden to go higher. It’s with a huge sense of relief that I go Level One (lower).

The FA now promotes itself beneath the slogan “For All”, the sort of wonderfully simple thing – like Every Little Helps, or all that Vorspringing durch Technik –that you wish you’d thought of first (and then copyrighted sharpish.)

The programme’s a clever little Janus job – half for the Vase final, half for the York City v Macclesfield FA Trophy final which follows at 4 15.

Greg Clarke, the FA chairman, writes that he visits many of the world’s great stadiums but is never happier than when standing with a cup of tea amid the grass roots. There’s also a piece examining the Northern League’s phenomenal FA Vase success. “What on earth do they put in the water up north?” asks the header.

Whatever it is up here, in the author’s case it appears to have been several slugs of scotch.

He talks of successful Northern League clubs like Newcastle Blue Star and Whickham, both of whom were in the Wearside League when they lifted the Vase, but also of teams like Stamford (which is in Lincolnshire) and Halesowen – “a rare Midlands club plying their trade in the Northern League.”

Halesowen’s near Birmingham. Not even the FA’s repeated restructuring attempts have put Birmingham in the North-East. Not yet, anyway.

South Shields’ transformation has been remarkable. Homeless just two years ago, said euphemistically in the programme to have a “complicated” history, they were followed by a faithful fifty down the A19 to a temporary base in Peterlee.

Rescued by the vision and enthusiasm of wealthy utilities company boss Geoff Thompson – no doubt a few bob from his back pocket, too – they’d already won the Northern League double, lifted the Durham Challenge Cup and were hoping for a unique quadruple.

Cleethorpes, nicknamed the Owls and double winners in the Northern Counties East League, start the day at 5-1. South Shields, otherwise the Mariners, are 2-5. It’s 10-3 the draw.

Around 13,000 are said to be down from South Tyneside, including a new sailor boy mascot named Sandy – as in Sand Dancer, no doubt – named after a poll among fans.

What, rather surprisingly, they don’t have is a nautical club song based on something like Rule Britannia (or even Captain Pugwash.) Instead they sing Everywhere We Go, now as ubiquitous as it is meaningless.

Shields dominate, lead through Carl Finnigan’s 40th minute penalty, Owl foul on the whirling dervish Cogdon. Higton, the Cleethorpes goalie, has saved nine of ten spot kicks this season but heads in the diametrically wrong direction for this one.

It’s the 80th minute before Morse, said in the tongue-in-cheek player profiles to be not the brightest, rises head and shoulders over the rest to power home the second. Foley, fleet, adds two late clinchers.

Victors and vanquished head up the 107 steps – “legendary steps”, the PA man calls them – to the royal box, find the royals all at that silly wedding but exult, in Shields’ case, anyway.

It’s the eighth time in those nine seasons that a Northern League side has lifted the national trophy. The Railroad, with luck, will roll again next season.