WOJTEK, like Yogi, was smarter than the average bear. Adopted as a cub by Polish soldiers in 1942, initially fed on condensed milk – admittedly from an empty vodka bottle – he later developed a taste for beer and tabs and was officially enlisted into the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.

The name’s Old Slavic and means “Smiling warrior.” It was probably the beer that did it.

Private Wojtek also had a pay book. Since there was a limit to what he could spend – he was only a bear, after all – they gave him double rations instead. He weighed 35 stones.

During the Battle of Monte Cassino, it’s reported, he was used to carry munitions, never dropping a crate. Some unverified accounts suggest that he even made corporal; certainly he made the company badge.

His unit was demobbed to Berwickshire, where Wojtek became a local favourite, ending up in Edinburgh Zoo where well-meaning visitors would feed him cigarettes. Since he couldn’t light them, he ate them, instead. He died, perhaps not having read the government health warnings, in 1963.

There are memorials in Ottawa, in Krakow, in London and in woods near Grimsby, where bears presumably do what they have to do. Edinburgh plans another. In 2011, Brian Blessed, himself fairly ursine, voiced a television documentary – “Wojtek, the Bear Who Went to War.”

“It’s got a Shakespearean epicness,” the director said.

Now there’s a strong beer called Wojtek, brewed in his memory and recent winner of a world championship award. It leads us, eventually, onto the Railroad to Wembley.

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Congleton are playing Whitley Bay, FA Vase second round. Congleton’s in Cheshire, known universally as Beartown because of a story that in the 17th century the town bear died unexpectedly just before Wakes Week.

Impoverished, the burghers sold the only thing that they had of value – the town Bible – in order to buy a replacement. It’s recalled in verse:

The Wakes coming on and the bear it took ill,

We tried him with potions, with brandy and pill,

He died in his sleep on the eve of the Wakes –

The cause, it was said, was strong ale and sweet cakes.

Three of us meet for Saturday morning breakfast in a nice little Greek café in Darlington, the column joined by Mr Peter Everett from Darlington Snooker Club – wearing his lucky fluorescent green socks – and by Mr Kit Pearson, life president of the Lost Boys’ Association.

Kit’s disorientations have become so popular hereabouts that folk write to ask when next he’ll find his way back into print.

In the café there’s also a chap in a cowboy hat and Wild West waistcoat who looks like he might have left his horse outside and another who’s come in for no other reason than to attempt to cadge a quid from everyone else.

No horse being available, he is advised to get on his bike.

We’re headed firstly to Manchester, not a single hen party in sight. It’s truly remarkable these days, like the dog that didn’t bark in the night.

The only problems with Trans-Pennine trains are that a) they’re usually absurdly overcrowded b) they’re overcrowded with football followers and c) there’s almost always an argument over reservations, the sort of thing that Native American Indians might have taken to a land tribunal.

At Huddersfield, the president of the Lost Boys’ Association believes we’re in Stalybridge. Only 20 miles out: it’s pretty good for Kit.

At Congleton we’re met by Mr Gary Brand, who’s arrived from London at 9 30am and survived the intervening three hours on a diet of meat and potato pies and Stella Artois, in approximately equal numbers. Gary’s a Spurs fan, an aberration which, happily, doesn’t always run in the family, His granddaughter’s called Holly, not because she was a Christmas baby but because Ian Holloway was Queens Park Rangers’ manager at the time.

Together we head for the Beartown Tap.

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It’s a glorious, wonderfully welcoming pub, fronted by a proper landlady called Julie Banks to whom Mr Brand proposes holy wedlock in about three minutes. This is a record. It’s usually less than 30 seconds.

As well as Wojtek, the Beartown Brewery makes splendid beers like Bear Ass, Bearly Literate and Ursa Minor and has monthly events to support the local air ambulance. On December 27 they hold the Maggot Olympics.

“It started just as a race but now we have obstacles and all sorts,” says Julie, who adds that she’s not sure how good the maggots will be over hurdles.

“What we need is a system,” says Kit, who’s a bit of a gambling man.

We buy four maggots, £1 apiece, without so much as checking their pedigree. Mine, for reasons that none will understand, will be called Leggy. The afternoon’s so convivial that we only just make kick-off. It’s impossible to remember if Julie accepted the proposal of marriage, but quite likely that she didn’t.

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Congleton’s about ten miles north of Stoke-on-Trent. We’ve been there before, January 2004, when the Bears – as inevitably they are known – beat Billingham Synthonia in the Vase last 32.

Had the town’s emblem been a gorilla, the column concluded, it could have been called King Congleton.

We’d also noted that the trophy cabinet in the Congleton boardroom held a tin of pears (in syrup) and another of peaches (sliced.) They’d been won by a seldom-fortunate committee member in the half-time draw at an away match, only when he got home that he realised the sell-by date had been 20 years earlier.

Whitley Bay, known as the Seahorses, are the most successful team in FA Vase history – winners in 2003 and for three successive seasons 2009-11 – but have recently hit leaner times, conceding 15 goals in the last three matches.

Only record scorer Paul Chow, whose 21st second goal in 2010 remains a record for the new Wembley, remains in the starting X1 from those heady days.

The crowd’s around 200, some of Congleton’s more gullible citizens doubtless enticed down the road by the lure of Premiership football at the Britannia Stadium. “Stoke are getting beat 2-0 by Birtley,” reports one of the Whitley Bay faithful, though it’s possible that he means Burnley.

The Seahorses themselves take the lead after half an hour, Peter Watling firing home from 12 yards. In the half-time hospitality room there’s sweet cake to follow rather a lot of strong ale. It’s to be hoped that history isn’t going to repeat itself.

The second half’s played beneath a chevron sky, the Bears twice rattling the metal work but Whitley holding out for a much-celebrated 1-0 win. The PA, magnanimously, plays Fog on the Tyne. Perhaps they’d hoped for Bear Necessities.

Pete Everett thereafter wins £30 on the clubhouse scratch card – probably the best result that Swindon Town have had in years. “It’s my lucky green socks,” he says. Generous as ever, he uses his winnings to upgrade our tickets for the return journey – a first class end to a first class day.

ends