ON a blast-bitter day like last Saturday, it may be considered an English eccentricity – perversion, perhaps – to sit in a seafront ice cream parlour scoffing a sundae. It hadn’t been the plan.

The plan, Railroad to Wembley, was to watch Newton Aycliffe at Camberley – Surrey – in the last 16 of the FA Vase. Camberley play at Krooner Park, named not after Bing Crosby but after a horse of that name which won at Kempton a century ago. The winnings built the ground.

Just think of the punning possibilities: music to the ears of an incorrigible column like this one.

Chiefly because of engineering work on the main line, we went instead to Sunderland RCA v Bristol Manor Farm, also last 16. RCA play at Ryhope – their Vase run considered by club general manager Colin Wilson to be the most exciting thing to happen in that oversized village since the fish shop caught fire.

The journey meant changing at Thornaby, the trains thronged. Thornaby station may never have seen so many folk since the last Tabernacle trip.

Thence to Seaham and to Lickety Split, a rock and roll-themed place with ice creams like Cherry Lee Lewis and Chantilly Glace. Ryhope’s four miles along the wind-blown prom.

RCA subsist in a sort of Stadium of Lightshade. For the last round, Sunderland also at home, the crowd was just 109 – though the neighbours still called the polliss about the parking.

“Ryhope police turned out in force, both of them,” said Mr Wilson.

Saturday’s crowd was about 400, cuddled against the wind. Our boys lost 3-2, word arriving from Krooner Park that Aycliffe had gone down 5-0. A discordant day.

STILL entrained, the column two weeks ago urged caution over the term “Parkway” – as in Bristol Parkway – coquettishly used by the railways to suggest proximity to the town in question.

Feversham Cricket League secretary Charles Allenby notes that 23 stations now bear that suffix, though Alfreton and Mansfield – eight miles from Mansfield – is no longer among them. The distance record may now be held by Tiverton Parkway, six miles from the Devon town.

So which unsuffixed station is furthest from the community which nominally it serves? Charles overrules Heighington, on the Bishop Auckland to Darlington line, instead nominating Dent on the Settle and Carlisle – a breathless four miles from the village. Others may distance themselves yet further.

BILLINGHAM Town’s ground has railway lines fore and aft, a welcome diversion. “There’s a Grand Central due,” someone said, probably the most exciting thing about last Tuesday’s match.

Talk turned inexplicably to Never Say Die, the only record on which I ever sang. It was a Hartlepool United song, issued on United Artists in February 1972 as part of Save Hartlepool Week and sung by the team and sundry monkey hangers-on.

You must remember it. “Eleven braw lads from the far off north, you’ve noticed we’re still bottom of the fourth….”

Though played periodically by the late Ed Stewart, the record – with a flip side called Who Put Sugar In My Tea – reached no higher than 413th in the charts.

With improbably changed lyrics – “Flying high” replaced “Never say die” – it was re-released by the Monkeys Hanger (formerly the Passion Killers) in 2005 and did much better. Number eight in the indie charts, they reckon.

Times change, of course. Pools may edge ever closer towards the bottom, but it’s the fourth division no longer.

ROSS County’s Scottish League Cup semi-final win over the mighty Celtic on Sunday will also have been celebrated on Teesside. Billingham boy Andrew Davies is club captain.

They’ll also have raised a glass in Crook, where there’s a branch of the Ross County Supporters’ Club – run, memory suggests, by a large gentleman known as Tree.

Though also a promising cricketer – his brother, Mark, played for Durham and is now with Kent – Andrew signed for Middlesbrough when he was 13, played a prominent part in the 2005-06 UEFA Cup final campaign, but was frequently injured, on loan or suspended. He won one England Under-21 cap.

He signed for the Scots from Bradford City last summer. Happily, there’s still a Railroad to Dingwall. Watch this space.

A LAST reminder that six-times world snooker champion Steve Davis plays an exhibition evening at Darlington Snooker Club tomorrow from 7pm. Tickets, including pie and peas, are £20 – and there’ll be eight real ales, too. The club’s on the corner of Northgate and Corporation Road: admission at the door or call 01325 241388.

….and finally, last week’s column somewhat warily sought the identity of the former Northern League footballer who’d managed in the 1986 World Cup. Partly based on his Wikipedia page, which claims that he played for Bishop Auckland in 1957-58, the answer was Canada manager and ex-Blackpool and England goalkeeper Tony Waiters.

Was he really a Bishop? “I’m certain not,” says former England amateur international Mike Greenwood, at Kingsway at the relevant time and a fellow student at Loughborough.

Chris Orton, in Ferryhill, who fathomed the likely answer, maintains the theme: who was the former Middlesbrough manager who played in the 1978 World Cup?

Global demand, the column returns next week.