Notes from Banjo Island

Southbound trains start at Darlington, the Railroad to Wembley resuming on the 7.13 to Bristol.

The tea lady asks on the public address that the aisles be kept free of luggage, so that her trolley may refresh all parts. Her progress is unlikely to be impeded; the passenger complement is seven.

One of six STL Northern League teams in the last 32 of the FA Vase, Spennymoor Town are at Cadbury Heath, known to their friends as the Heathens.

Contrary to popular supposition, this is not some dairy-herd grassland in a bucolic Birmingham backwater but next to an “infamous” housing estate known locally as Banjo Island, six miles from Bristol city centre.

None can satisfactorily explain the nickname, the most popular theory that a nearby traffic hub from which several roads emanate in banjo-shaped.

This may most kindly be described as apocryphal.

Apocryphal is a long word, meaning that there are etymological strings attached.

The journey to the southwest goes well, sustained by regularly replenished coffee and by delicious shortbread biscuits from Duchy Originals, the Prince of Wales’s lot.

It would be even better if HRH could do something about the steam heating, or whatever it is that warms trains these days.

Ideally, of course, we’d have been headed for Newport (Isle of Wight) against Shildon, had not both teams rather inconsiderately been beaten in the previous round.

A self-satisfied letter in that morning’s Guardian underlines the point by claiming that irises are already out in Shanklin.

They sure aren’t in Shildon.

The younger bairn and Matthew Towell, a friend from Richmond days, are simultaneously headed from London. Though Matt seems a perfectly serviceable forename, the bairn knows him as Towelly, which seems a bit polysyllabic The train arrives at 11.38, exactly to time. There’s only one problem: I think I’m becoming addicted to Duchy Originals shortbread.

THERE’S a Wetherspoon’s pub, the Knights Templar, not two minutes from Bristol’s architecturally acclaimed railway station.

Already it’s full of Spennymoor fans, Bristol rovers, though they answer to Moors.

Like Matthew Towell, “Moors” is polysyllabic.

Wholly appropriately, Moors rhymes with brewers.

More than 50 have flown down with Easyjet that morning, 40 minutes from Newcastle, £29.78 return and enough change to book in at Mint, a four-star city centre hotel. Another party is down by coach, anxious to credit Bradley Groves, the club’s magnanimous chairman, for subsidising the fares.

“The only problem about Easyjet was the bacon sandwiches,” says Spennymoor director Billy Beasley. “We’d just ordered them when they told us to prepare for descent.”

By way of dessert, the pub’s promoting strawberry jelly and ice cream for £1.60 though, as they say in Spennymoor, there appears not to be much call.

There seem an awful lot of pollisses outside. If they’re acting on intelligence it’s Cstream stuff. There’s not a ha’porth of trouble, not a jelly spoonful. “I’ll go and sign their pocket books, they’ll be all right after that,” says Town vicechairman Alan Courtney, a retired detective sergeant.

The Bristol Evening Post appears rather less enthusiastic, not a word about the match though there’s a story headed “Learning about lichen.”

Perhaps it’s lichen from Cadbury Heath.

Thereafter we take a taxi to Banjo Island. The driver’s passed a catering vehicle called Jason’s Doner Van.

He’s thrilled to bits.

The Lamb, an estate pub, is inexplicably decked with Chelsea flags and memorabilia. “It’s in the blood,” says one scarf and it’s to be hoped, as the Islanders warily spy strangers, that the message is not to be taken literally.

Not Lamb to the slaughter, anyway.

CADBURY Heath reached the Vase quarter-final in 1974-75, the competition’s first season, an occasion affectionately recalled by Terry Mitchell, the club’s delightful president.

“We had no mains electricity, ropes round the pitch to keep the cows off and my wife served refreshments from a garden shed,” he says.

Terry’s son-in-law is Blackpool manager Ian Holloway, Ollie in those parts, who’d ride his bike up and down outside the 14- year-old Kim Mitchell’s house on Banjo Island until finally she emerged.

Ollie has written a piece for the Cadbury Heath programme, nice photograph of him and the lady wife, but regrets that he can’t be there. “I have another northern side to sort out,” he says.

Blackpool are at home to Sunderland.

Though facilities have improved, they’re still pretty basic. The ground has no seats, save for half-a-dozen plastic chairs, a slither of mud on the two sides where there’s no hard standing.

“It’s like Jubilee Park,”

says one of the Spennymoor lads, but at least Jubilee Park has swings.

It’s not so much that the pitch slopes, either, rather that it’s contoured like Anne Widdecombe.

Cadbury Heath – Western League – they of Keynsham Town, Shepton Mallett and the splendidly named Oldland Abbotonians – have inexplicably failed to name star striker William de Wet, who might have been at home in such conditions.

There are no pollisses, no need. Canary coloured for the conditions, the stewards wear yellow jackets and green wellies. The Spennymoor fans break off their favourite song – it’s about chip butties – to compose a new one: “Being in the trenches, it’s just like being in the trenches….”

It doesn’t matter. Terry Mitchell is such a thoroughly nice man, his people so hospitable, that you almost – almost – want Cadbury’s to get the cream.

THE home team are a level below Spennymoor in the non-league Pyramid, Town – Northern League champions – 2-1 on to win after 90 minutes.

The Co Durham side may also have a few bob more by way of disposable income, though Cadbury Heath have just put their first player on a contract.

How much? “£10 a week,”

says Terry.

For the first half hour, however, Spennymoor play like someone’s put bromide in their Bovril. It’s no surprise when the hosts take the lead, Heathens’ fans rapturous, like there’s not just a God after all but that he speaks with a west country accent.

It’s precisely what our boys need, parity restored through Steve Capper’s inarguable penalty and overtaken when Craig Ruddy heads a second within a minute.

One of the travelling fans has just nipped out for a pee and misses both. “I have rather mixed feelings about this situation,” he says, or words very slightly to that effect.

The black-and-white army is joined by Richard Reid, John Brass and Nigel Scott – Spennymoor exiles all now in the west country – but not by Tigger the mascot who, unluckily, has been left ion the bus.

“You know Jimmy Brass the butcher? He’s my dad,”

says John.

“Can you get The Northern Echo at W H Smith’s in Bristol” says Richard.

Word’s arriving at halftime that most of our other sides are doing well, too.

The dream of an all- Northern League final is stirred with the Brooke Bond.

Libido restored, the second half belongs wholly to Spennymoor. The fans essay a few more verses of the chip butty anthem before tunelessly asserting that there’s only one Mike Amos. Happily, this appears to be true.

Gavin Cogdon’s chip over the gallant goalie makes it 5-1, a mud-in-your eye supporter going arm-overtibia in his joy.

Three more of the STL Six join them in the last 16, Moors drawn at Poole where they may not quite be quite such big fish.

Back on Cadbury Heath, the Easyjetters are preparing for a night of four-star celebration.

Whether Sunday morning will find them in Mint condition is, of course, anther matter altogether.