OVER here, Paul Edwards is fighting to rescue Darlington RA from the Ebac Northern League second division relegation zone. In Europe, he’s been living the dream.

Curtis, his 24-year-old son, was in the Ostersunds side which has risen from fourth to first tier of Swedish football, qualified for the Europa League and, sensationally, won two weeks ago at The Emirates.

“I’ve followed him to Galatasaray, Bilbao, Luxembourg, all over, but never seen anything like the Arsenal match,” says Paul. “Ostersunds probably gave them too much respect in the first leg, in the second I was just hoping that they might somehow score a goal.

“When they went two up in 25 minutes my heart was thumping, I could hardly catch my breath, I had deliberately to calm myself down.”

Curtis, from Middlesbrough, was on Boro’s books from 11-19, £1,000 a week as a young pro, played thereafter for Darlington, Spennymoor Town and Thornaby before trying his luck in Sweden.

Ostersunds is inside the Arctic Circle. “This time of year it can be anything from minus two to minus 20 but it’s not the same biting cold as it is in the Boro,” says Paul. “If you wrap up, you’re fine.”

The versatile Curtis, who has a Swedish girlfriend, is weighing up a four-year contract extension offer. His dad has concerns closer to home: the RA haven’t won a point since he became manager.

“There’s nothing like that on my CV, I’ve always had decent sides,” he says. “Hopefully we can put a few results together and then see what happens. Nothing’s impossible, just look what happened at Ostersunds.”

THE RA, like everyone else, have been in the middle of the worst winter for years. A bit ironic that club secretary Alan Hamilton should discover ahead of a weekend wedding reception that the clubhouse ice machine was bust. He bought a fiver’s worth from Booker’s – “so much I could hardly lift the box” – and considers it good value. The price, says Alan, must have been frozen, too,

THE column missed, the blog didn’t, our old friend Stewart Regan’s departure as Scottish FA chief executive. It was announced on February 1, Stewart commenting that he “recognised the need for change”

He’s a Crook lad, son of the police sergeant formerly in charge of Durham Constabulary’s dog section at Harperley Hall, had been managing director of the Football League championship and chief executive of Yorkshire Cricket Club.

Particularly we recall a dreich November day in 2012 when the two of us were joined for lunch at Hampden Park by Ralph Ord, another son of Crook, who was chief operating officer of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

They reminisced for 90 minutes, recalling amid much else the much missed Cow Tail pub, a mile or two above the town. “My dad used to take the handlers with their dogs,” said Stewart. “Only shandy for the dogs, of course.”

Now the SFA is considering switching its international base to Murrayfield, when the Hampden lease expires in 2020.

The tartan press has been largely sympathetic. “It’s hard to remember a Scottish FA chief executive who has been popular with the masses,” said The Scotsman. “In the passionate and rancorous world of Scottish football, it’s a feat which is nigh on impossible.”

A PS to last week’s Railroad to Wembley piece on Marske United’s FA Vase win at Bracknell. Though the Berkshire side had reached the quarter-finals, and still have a chance of the Hellenic League title, the joint managers were sacked next day. By email.

A RARE visitor of late, former England amateur international George Brown pitched up the other night at the Crook Town v Tow Law derby.

George played for both clubs, hit eight in a match for Crook – “one in the first half, seven in the second, should have been about 15” – and was in the Tow Law side which 50 years ago walloped Mansfield Town 5-1 in the FA Cup.

Now 74, keeping canny, he recalled a training session at Crook when a committee member told him that “expenses” were being cut by 50 per cent because of financial difficulty.

George said that he’d be there on Saturday as usual – “which half do you want me to play in, the first or the second?” He got his money.

UNCONTROLLABLY quoting Oscar Wilde, last week’s column supposed that to lose two husbands looked like carelessness. It should, of course, have been two parents.

Reporting from Sedgefield Races, we also said that George Courtney had been a Wold Cup referee – a literal spotted by Brian Dixon who clearly knows his East Yorkshire geography. “You mean that of Nunburnholme, Kirby Underdale, Wharram Percy, Uncleby, Duggleby and the wonderful Kirby Grindalythe?” he asks.

Carelessness in the extreme.

VENIAL in its meddling, the FA is to trial sin bins – for dissent – at Northern League level. It was all the post-match talk at West Auckland the other night and, no matter what’s said about sin and first stone, voices were dissenting, too.

How’s it going to be administered? Haven’t assistant refs enough to do already? Will they have to build new dugouts? Why don’t referees just enforce the existing laws of the game?

The views may be summed by a West side cynic. “They’ll have the game done away with.”

….AND finally, the cricketer to have scored most test runs without making a double century (Backtrack, March 1) is Alec Stewart, top score 190.

Chris Orton today invites readers to name the footballer whose first three Premier League appearances were all for different clubs.

A little less nomadic, the column returns next week.