HAWKESBURY Ronaldo is a bull, some might say a load of bull. He’s 5ft tall, weighs around a ton and the papers have been full of him.

Ronaldo is Hereford FC’s mascot; other teams have little kids in oversized shorts. Having survived every rigorous risk assessment required of big beasts in football stadiums, he is on parade before Sunday’s FA Vase final against Morpeth Town, of the Ebac Northern League.

Inevitably it recalls the 1998 final when titchy Tow Law Town wanted to use 10-year-old Sam Gordon as a mascot – a role he’d fulfilled in every other match that season – and were rebuffed because rules were rules and they forbade mascots at Wembley.

Only the personal intervention of FA chief executive Graham Kelly (and of the Northern League chairman) ensured that finally the mascot got lucky.

Sam’s now a goalkeeper, a big lad, though not quite the size of Ronaldo.

The Times reports that an animal rights group has in turn protested to the FA that the bull would “endure stress and misery” during the pre-match parade; the following day’s Observer quotes Hereford manager Peter Beale. “He’s a big boy,” he says, self-evidently.

Not even cattle class, the Railroad to Wembley has reached its destination once again.

WE’RE on the noon train from Darlington, Saturday lunchtime. The Vase final is due to kick off at 12.15pm the following day and the FA Trophy final four hours later.

Many other North-East fans have headed for the Morpeth Arms, a pub on Millbank and directly across the Thames from the headquarters of MI6.

Though the London A-Z diffidently describes the building as “government offices”, its real purpose is so open a secret that they might as well put a neon sign on the roof or attract a few sponsors while they’re about it.

The Morpeth’s website claims that it’s one of the few surviving traditional London pubs and that its basement was used as holding cells for convicts about to be transported to Australia – hence, it supposes, the term “Prisoner of Millbank” or, more familiarly, Pom.

Dictionaries doubt it. Chambers says unequivocally that “Pom” is from pomegranate without suggesting why it should be. The Oxford adduces no evidence for the theory, but is unable to propose a credible alternative.

Prisoner of Mother England may almost certainly be discarded. Pom and circumstance, readers may have ideas of their own.

WHY Morpeth are nicknamed the Highwaymen is also a bit of a mystery. The team plays in black and amber, the crowded pub colonised from mid-morning like a South Northumberland beehive.

Word is, however, that the FA referees’ department is worried that the shirts have too much black and not enough amber, thus inviting confusion with the referee.

A blackboard outside welcomes all Morpeth Town fans. A bright brewery bod has rebadged London Pride as Morpeth Pride; they’ve run dry three times before 8pm.

Ken Beattie, Morpeth’s magnificent chairman, seems cheerfully to be buying drinks for four-fifths of the pub and may even be subsidising MI6 expenses.

Their answer to the big beast, he says, is a mascot dressed as Dick Turpin, though the FA has declined permission for a pistol – even a replica – lest Ronaldo become a bit restless.

Ken’s contemplating a Tommy the Toreador. “We’ve got our mascot a sword,” he says. “Cut the bugger’s head off, instead.”

WEMBLEY Way’s still decked for the previous day’s FA Cup final. At 10.30am it seems Sunday morning quiet, though perhaps they know differently in Wetherspoons.

Brent Council have done a good job in cleaning up after the evening before. Wembley staff may not have had much shut-eye, either, though there’s a lengthy queue outside the posh end, as if they still haven’t finished the hoovering.

Forty-five minutes before kick-off, a senior FA man is led by his wife to the royal box. “She wants to see the blooming bull,” he sighs.

It’s not quite the same as in previous years, of course, poor man’s VIPs no longer able to strut around like Little Lord Muck, but the FA greatly hospitable, nonetheless.

Seven years ago, the Bulls were playing Leicester City in League One. The club folded, bust, in 2014, a new one formed – still playing on the old Edgar Street ground – in February 2015. This season they’ve claimed the Midland Football Alliance by the length of the River Avon, have won their last 22 games, are short-odds favourites to win the Vase at the first attempt.

“Oh aye,” says Morpeth joint manager Nick Gray, “but they haven’t yet played a Northern League side, have they?”

Five years ago Morpeth were bottom of the Northern League second division, four wins from 38 games and a goal difference of minus 98, would have been relegated had anyone been eligible to take their place, appointed Nick Gray.

This weather-beaten season they kicked off the Vase campaign in the first qualifying round on September 5, didn’t play a league game for three months, began the second half of their fixture list on March 21, completed 17 games in 40 muddy days, were unable to sustain a title challenge but kept their eyes on Wembley.

In the Bobby Moore suite, the bookies are offering 9-2 against a Northern League win after 90 minutes. The top six on offer for the first goalscorer are all Hereford players.

Hereford have brought 20,000 fans, Morpeth about 4,000. You can tell the Wembley virgins: they’re the ones in the top coats. The sun always shines on Wembley.

HEREFORD score almost before the lass has finished singing the National Anthem, the bovine headline “Taurus apart” bounding briefly and incorrigibly to mind. I even contemplate an FA protest on the grounds that Hereford is, or was, or might reasonably be said to have been, in Wales.

Then after 33 minutes of fairly steady pressure at his own end, central defender Chris Swailes equalises from about a foot-and-a-half, the ball bouncing hesitantly from his chest before taking a turn for the better.

Once with Ipswich Town, Swailes is 45, known to team-mates as Uncle Albert but to the media as The Bionic Man because of the amount of medical plumbing which holds together sundry bits of his anatomy.

At half-time, though it’s 1-1, odds against a Morpeth win have been extended to 7-1. Some of us are still leaving the tea hut, or its more opulent equivalent, when Luke Carr gives them the lead.

Word is that the ball has taken so long to cross the line, we might as well have stopped for another cup.

Thereafter the Highwaymen seize control. Curiously, despite FA reservations, no one passes to the linesman. Sean Taylor makes it three, Shaun Bell adds a fourth near the end.

As ever in the FA Vase, the losing fans prove greatly sporting, though goodness knows the stress and misery which poor Hawkesbury Ronaldo must be enduring.

It’s a seventh Vase win in eight seasons for Northern League clubs, the 12th time in my 20 years as league chairman that at least one of our teams has reached the final. Northern League clubs, says the Wembley programme, have lit up the Vase.

The tenure ends, voluntarily, on June 4. After two decades in the royal box, it’s back to the bob end – but truly a great way to go.