Honey Scunny

Contrast with Doncaster, at which junction it is necessary to change trains and turn left if headed for sunny Scunny. Though frequently foreshortened to Donny, none talks of bonny Donny. Why ever not?

We’re again on the Railroad to Wembley, 9.05 from Darlington, Bottesford Town v Billingham Town in the FA Vase third round.

Simply pronounced Botsford, it’s a suburb on Scunny’s southern skirts. Though the place seems wholly unexceptional, none – so far as diligently may be ascertained – talks of grotty Botty.

Some young ladies are in our reserved seats. Politely asked to remove themselves, they stare as if in incomprehension. Their headphones may not help.

The Gresley Observer, to which I subscribe, reproduces in its latest edition a letter to the Daily Telegraph on the subject of women on trains:

“The benevolent British Railways provide compartments for women only, presumably to protect them from the onslaughts of the male….It is the male who requires protection from women who flounce into compartments with flailing umbrellas and swinging portmanteau-like handbags. The male, after recovering from such onslaughts, is thereafter prevented from reading his paper by the inveterate rib-digging knitter, the inane chatterer and shrieking, giggling woman. Cannot there be compartments clearly marked ‘Men only’?”

It was written in 1954.

THE business part of the day begins in the Blue Bell, a Wetherspoons pub in Scunthorpe town centre. Mr Gary Brand, among the Railroad regulars, is unhappy that the pub chain no longer offers Christmas dinner.

Though festive fare includes stuff like grilled halloumi and sweet chilli wrap and brie and cranberry vegetarian burgers, Gary considers them an unacceptable substitute to a good pork and apple stuffing.

Wetherspoons’ Christmas menu begins on November 14 and ends on December 22, presumably so that staff may prepare themselves for the run-up to Easter (which begins on January 2).

Thereafter we head for the Berkeley Hotel, a gloriously idiosyncratic Sam Smith’s place with art deco ceilings and which makes Wetherspoons appear extortionate by comparison. A pint’s £1.90.

We’re joined as native guide by Lance Kidney, who did his teacher training at Bede College, Durham, in the company of the column’s old friend the late Billy Ayre.

Loveliest of men, Billy played for Crook Town and Bishop Auckland, left teaching to turn pro with Hartlepool United, made 143 appearances and went off on his travels, becoming not just a successful manager but a successful manager with a Joe Stalin moustache.

The players at Scarborough, circa 1994, stuck a Stalin image on his office door. “If I find out who it was I’ll kill him,” said Billy, but probably would have bought him a beer instead. He died, aged 49, in 2002.

Lance also recalls former Scunthorpe United favourite Vinny Grimes – not many footballers have names like Vinny Grimes any more, not even in sunny Scunny – publicly reckoned by I T Botham to have been the world’s third greatest footballer after Pele and Maradona and still captaining Appleby Frodingham Cricket Club’s second XI.

Lance ponders the claim’s sustainability. “Maybe the fourth best,” he says.

EVERYONE, of course, knows the identity of the three former Scunthorpe United players who went on to captain England. Other answers demanded during the course of the day – for such is the currency of these ever-enquiring occasions – range from the only Monopoly board property which is south of the Thames to what it is that the ladies of Vermont may not wear outside the house without their husband’s written permission. The answer to the latter is dentures; readers may like a few more throws of the dice before we return to the former.

BOTTESFORD play in the Northern Counties East League, that of Handsworth Parramore, Hemsworth Miners Welfare and Harrogate Railway Athletic. Until this stage of the supposedly national competition, the FA allows Ebac Northern League clubs to travel no further south, presumably lest they catch some sub-tropical disease.

Billy Town, the sole survivors from the ENL second division, began in the first qualifying round and have long been almost literally in the shadow of Billingham Synthonia, their neighbours over the road. Only the Dundee clubs may have such garden fence derbies.

The Bottesford programme talks of their visitors’ “massive” recent problems, of a nil budget and of a Christmas nightmare, four or five years ago, when the club came close to being wound up in a dispute, now amicably resolved, with Hartlepool United. Now there are real signs of revival, if not yet the town band behind them then at least the boom Town drummer.

The crowd’s bigger than normal, spectators urged on social media to come early to avoid the crush, but still just stands at 198.

Among them, quietly on his own, judiciously eyeing the pie and pea queue, is the man reckoned by the Squire of Ravensworth to have been the world’s third greatest footballer.

Sadly, Vinny politely declines the invitation to have his photograph taken. “It was a very long time ago,” he says. He’s 62.

ONE of the Billy boys is a Special Olympian. Matty Crossen was a 23-year-old Marske United player when, three years ago, he suffered a stroke. His recovery has been as resilient as it has remarkable.

Crossen’s calm and confident at the back. Up front, the diminutive Craig Hutchinson scores his 31st goal of the season – perhaps none more prettily on a plate – to give Billingham the lead after an hour or so.

The drummer ups the beat, travelling supporters grow yet more ecstatic on hearing that Synners are losing heavily in the league, positively beside themselves when Luke Hogan runs in the second from Hutchinson’s cross.

Bottesford’s added time effort is very much a consolation. Billingham are in the last 32 for the first time since Gorleston, when most of these lads still had buckets and spades.

Peter Martin, both chairman and secretary and, by virtue of living out the back of the ground, rarely away from the place, talks of his hopes for yet further progress but also for promotion. Would he have known that the only Monopoly property south of the river is twopence ha’penny Old Kent Road? In the excitement I forget to ask.

In the fourth round they’re at home to Cleethorpes Town, leaders of the NCEL top division. Anything’s possible, says the chairman. Silly Billy no longer.