THE avian population declines, the RSPB frets, the column’s customary enactment of the line about birds and stones continued last Thursday evening.

After 90 agreeable minutes with Cecil Irwin, we head back down to Ashington for an event to mark the tenth anniversary of the last match at Portland Park.

Opened in 1907, named after the grand old duke on whose land it stood, it was a pitmatic sort of a football ground – a proper football ground, the collier lads would insist – that also had hosted speedway, stock cars and dogs having their day.

On February 15 2008, last rites, they lost 3-2 to Seaham Red Star. The crowd was officially put at 1,954, so not to endanger the safety certificate, though unofficially it was getting on twice as many – so many that they’d to send out for extra ale, lest grown men cry into their Coca Cola.

“Fancy,” Seaham chairman Bryan Mayhew had said, “all those folk just to watch the Red Star.”

In the 1920s the Colliers had been in the Third Division (North), drew 11,800 for an FA Cup tie with Aston Villa. Now the town centre site’s an Asda store, the footballers decanted to a new ground near Wansbeck Hospital.

Former club chairman Jimmy Lang was back for the do. “It’s nice this ground but it has nee heart,” he said. “Portland Park had heart, I miss it every day. If it helps the club go forward then great, but the real aim is to make money and I’m not sure this will make enough.”

Portland Park’s problem was that it was dropping to bits, a predicament that seemed unresolved when Maggie the barmaid dropped through the floorboards of the new place.

They replaced the portable buildings with a handsome new stand, social club and dressing room complex said by The Times to be, seat for seat, the second most expensive new football stand in the country, after Arsenal’s.

These days the club chairman’s local MP and former NUM president Ian Lavery, who’s also chairman of the Labour Party and fears that he may be spending too much time in London.

“I’m getting Cockney turns in my accent,” he said, simultaneously suggesting why he’s unlikely to be taken for a southern softie.

The column had last heard Mr Lavery at last year’s the Durham Miners’ Gala when he spoke of the struggle. Last Thursday he spoke of it again. Ian Lavery, in truth, is the sort of politician who might talk of the struggle at the grandbairns’ birthday party.

Who says it naught availeth?

Back in 2008, club vice-chairman Mark Fitton had been among the cortege, lamenting the disappearance of the last of Ashington’s heritage. “The pitch was a turnip field but this place had something about it,” he said.

Last Thursday his mind had changed. “The new place,” he said, “is the best thing that ever happened.”

LAST year we wrote about the Bhoys-will-be-Bhoys Teesside branch of the Celtic Supporters Club. At Thornaby on Saturday we bumped into Celtic season ticket holder Tom Grant, headed the following day to the match with St Johnston. Usually it’s a 52-seat coach, last Sunday 31. “Good Catholics,” said Tom, “they must all be at Mass.”

THE relationship between Bishop Auckland and Manchester United continues to grow after an appeal to raise £1958 for 23 Munich memorial bricks in Bishops’ wall of fame was swiftly surpassed.

“A solicitors’ in Manchester gave £400, so we’ve already topped £2,000,” says Steve Newcomb, who’s organising the appeal.

Steve was Bishops’ chairman when legal action over a player injury threatened not just the club’s future but his own – “my house was on the line” – before United, remembering how the Northern League had helped after Munich, sent a team for a fund raising match.

The latest effort has won support both from the Old Trafford hierarchy and from fans’ organisations, a match between the two sets of supporters mooted for next season – by which time Steve may have recovered from a broken big toe. “I walked into the vacuum cleaner,” he laments.

NINE months ago we interviewed Gary Beswick, following his appointment as an assistant referee at the FA Cup final. On Sunday he’ll be back at Wembley, just like the glorious Gunners, for the Carabao Cup final.

Teesside lad, now in Newton Aycliffe, Gary’s also a Fifa official and one of 27 full-time assistant refs who line up in the Premier League.

Times change. When he started there was a referee and two linesmen. On Sunday there’ll be a referee, two assistant refs, fourth official, reserve assistant ref, video referee and assistant video ref. The magnificent seven, no doubt.

...AND finally, the five Premier League clubs who played in the last season of the Third Division (South) – last week’s column – were Bournemouth, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Southampton and Watford. Malcolm Dunstone, perhaps the only Watford fan in Darlington, was first with the answer.

Michael Rudd in Bishop Auckland not only supplies a question but asks us to mention the pool tournament at the Kings Head in memory of his friend Alan Musgrave. Geoff Eubanks won, Kevin Mallen a “rather tipsy” second.

Question: who’s the only footballer to score in Glasgow, Manchester and Merseyside derbies? An answer, and a proper outing on the Railroad to Wembley, next week.