Fed not so special as Trawler Boys sink Dunston’s Vase hopes

8:56am Tuesday 12th February 2008

LOWESTOFT'S in Suffolk, Britain's most easterly town and 280 miles from Dunston Fed, whom they entertained in the FA Carlsberg Vase fifth round on Saturday.

It was thus barely a cockstride compared to the 926- mile round-trip which Whitley Bay, the Fed's Arngrove Northern League colleagues, faced in getting to their tie at Truro.

Truro's in Cornwall, the western extreme. They were the holders, the rampant favourites, boast a multi-millionaire chairman, a full-time manager and players said to be on up to £800 a week.

Whitley Bay, as the FA were happy to point out, is closer to both Stavanger and Amsterdam than it is to Truro and, by road, a longer journey than London to Frankfurt. It would be quicker, they helpfully added, to fly from Heathrow to New York.

Truro wasn't so much a potential banana skin as an occident waiting to happen.

Not having half a week to spare, the column caught the 7.30 train to Lowestoft - change at Peterborough and Norwich - everything for once going so perfectly to time that by 1pm we were eating rock eel and chips, a taste of the orient, on the sunblessed seafront.

The Fed, named after the former brewery just up the road, had travelled the previous day, stayed in Great Yarmouth, decided against training on the beach because Great Yarmouth sands has more pebbledashing than Vera Duckworth's front elevation.

Though the players still kept theirselves right, as they say in northern parts, one of the fans won the karaoke in the Shrimpers Arms.

Out on a limb, Lowestoft had just three times previously met North-East opposition - the first in the 1900 FA Amateur Cup final at Leicester, when Bishop Auckland whipped them 5-1 with three Marshall brothers from Darlington in the forward line and Ticer Thomas, one of a football dynasty, at centre-half.

The second was Tow Law's visit on a winter's day in 1947, the Lawyers travelling via the capital. "They'd never been to London and it puzzled them greatly," recalls long-serving former Tow law secretary Bernard Fairbairn. "They couldn't find the door handles on the Tube trains." Still disorientated, Lawyers lost 1-0.

The Trawler Boys, as apparently Lowestoft are now known, had tried further to strengthen their squad by signing 39-year-old former Manchester United man Dion Dublin, now with Norwich City.

The Lowestoft Journal called it an audacious swoop. It was so audacious that Dublin turned them down flat.

Dunston, conversely, had high hopes of Fergal Harkin, a former Bohemians player who now works for Nike in the North-East and who was picked up when the Fed assistant manager went to do a bit of painting and decorating at the Nike offices.

Since then, it's said, all manner of clubs have unsuccessfully put in the requisite seven days notice of approach for the Boh boy.

Dunston have had more seven days than the Gregorian calendar.

As almost always is the case in the Vase, a lovely competition, the natives were hugely friendly. Geoff Price, the Lowestoft chairman, signs himself Bungle, which apparently has something to do with a children's television programme called Rainbow.

"I even got my picture in the Rainbow magazine," he said, affably.

For most Dunston fans, however, the afternoon was off to a disappointing start with news of the Magpies' early doors defeat at Aston Villa. The Fed are contemplating an attempt to move up the leagues; the way things are going, they may pass their neighbours coming down.

It may even have been ominous for the Fed that they played in their black and white change colours, because Lowestoft went ahead after just five minutes, directly from a corner.

When reasonably they might have been expected to essay a chorus of Sailing, or some such, the Trawler Boys' supporters broke genially into "Go home, you bums." It still seemed a bit anti-social.

The Fed are a great club, however, and they were determined to be good ambassadors, too. Club secretary Bill Monatgue's advice to referee Shaw that the decision to book one of the Dunston players was "nonsense" may have been euphemistic; in truth it was much worse than that.

Lowestoft scored again after 20 minutes, again following a set piece, again a suspicion that goalkeeper Andy Clark may have had the sun in his eyes. It's what the world's coming to, a Geordie without a cap.

It remained 2-0 at half-time, the Fed never once having threatened in the first 45 minutes. The brewery was best known for Fed Best; this was Fed Exceedingly Ordinary.

Happier word arrived that Whitley Bay were holding the holders and that Consett, the ANL's third team in the last 16, were winning in Surrey. For those of us who still marvel at technology, who can almost remember how they brought the good news from Aix to Ghent, it remains all rather mind-blowing.

After 75 minutes, Bungle could be seen circumnavigating the ground, thanking the crowd - all 922 of them - for coming and generally being hospitable.

After 78 minutes, Steve Preen reduced the deficit from eight yards following Harkin's astute through ball. "Bungle," said the home chairman, or words to that effect.

Dunston chairman Malcolm James is known for being, shall we say, stentorian. Back on Tyneside, they probably heard of the fightback without need of Radio Newcastle.

Sadly, they weren't able to find a second, news of Whitley Bay's magnificent 3-0 win over Truro providing considerable compensation. For one Arngrove Northern league side there was real Cornish cream, for the other - alas - Fed bitter.

HIGHS AND LOWESTOFT

TEN things you may never have known about England's most easterly extremity

*Lowestoft's historic rivalry with Great Yarmouth goes back to the Civil War, when Lowestoft was Royalist and Yarmouth Roundhead.

Lowestoft's defences comprised a rope across the high street and a single, unmanned, unworkable, cannon.

*Two old women in Lowestoft were hanged in 1662 for "malevolent witchcraft."

*In World War II, Lowestoft was the most bombed town per head of population in Britain.

* Completed in December 2005, a 262ft-high wind turbine stands near the sea. A local newspaper competition decided that the most printable thing it could be called was Gulliver.

* Waveney district council, which covers Lowestoft, got no stars for its planning department and has just had another howking (as probably they say in Dunston) from the Audit Commission.

* The new relief road is called Tom Crisp Way. Lowestoft folk swear they've no idea who Tom Crisp is, was or might ever have been.

* The composer Benjamin Britten, ex-Sunderland boss Terry Butcher, Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Olympic archer David Anear are all Lowestoft lads.

* Lowestoft's beach village is said to have been the inspiration for David Copperfield, after a visit by Charles Dickens.

* The route map in the programme estimated the journey time from Dunston at six hours 27 minutes - five hours 27 minutes to reach Lowestoft and another hour to get through the town centre.

* Lowestoft Town are sponsored by the Gary Bennett Driving School. This may or may not be the former Sunderland defender and Darlington manager and, on balance, probably isn't.

...AND FINALLY

THE only 20th century footballer to have captained three FA Cup winning sides at Wembley (Backtrack, February 9) was Chester-le-Street lad Bryan Robson.

Still down that way, Brian Shaw in Shildon invites the identity of the team which won most trophies at the "old"

Wembley.

Still dreaming of it - Whitley Bay away to Greenwich Borough or Hungerford in the Vase quarter-final - the column returns on Friday.

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