Shildon's FA Vase hopes prove to be pie in the sky

Now his company bakes 180,000 pies each day, employs 265 people, sponsors everything from the stand at Oldham Athletic to the England Supporters' Club band.

Having earned a not inconsiderable crust, Mr Storer is in the Sunday Times Rich List, his puff pastry fortune put at £35m. The real thing, or what?

We mention it partly because Pukka Pies - "Don't compromise" - are proud to be the official pie supplier to Retford United FC, it says as much in the programme, and partly because everyone insisted that Retford was famous for nothing whatsoever.

It's not true, anyway. Derek Randall, eternally Arkle, was born there, the chap who played Chief Insp Japp in Poirot was born there and Sunderland and Ireland footballer Liam Lawrence was born there, though when Mr Keane gets hold of him after the revelations of Sunderland players' extra-mural activities in last week's Sun, it may be better for him that he'd never been born at all.

Then there was Robert Retford, wasn't there?

What chiefly makes Retfordians proud, however, is the two-ton cannon outside St Swithun's church, rescued from the Battle of Sepastopol in 1855, repatriated thanks to generous townsfolk and hidden away during World War II when the government wanted to melt it down for munitions.

Even the football ground's called Cannon Park, and it was there we headed on Saturday for the third round FA Vase tie between Retford, known as the Badgers, and Shildon, forever the Railwaymen.

Since a return from Darlington to Retford is £38.50, the Railwaymen sensibly went by bus, two coachloads of adherents eagerly following them down the A1.

Retford's on the East Coast Main Line, in east Nottinghamshire, the much swollen River Idle racing restlessly through its midst. The Chesterfield Canal flows that way, too, the town's coat of arms adorned by two rampant choughs, pronounced chuffs.

It's not often, says one of the websites, that you see two rampant choughs.

Retford had been drawn at home in every round, Shildon always away. Problems compounded, they'd striker Wayne Gredziak in hospital with a poorly tummy, diminutive but highly effective skipper Kevin Shoulder suspended and could muster just 13 fit players for the journey.

Unlucky for some? "I notice they didn't tell me until we were halfway down the road," said club chairman Brian Burn.

"If they had, I'd have gone home for me boots."

They started well, nonetheless, the speedy Adam Emson - whose dad made 60 Darlington appearances between 1988-90 - ever outpacing the home defence.

Retford, in turn, included much-travelled Middlesbrough lad Peter Duffield, 37, whose wagon had halted at York and Darlington during a lengthy Football League career.

The Retford Times had forecast a "bumper" crowd. It was 409, about two-thirds silenced when Simon Ord gave Shildon a 21st minute lead. One of the other third, the one who's Arngrove Northern League chairman, nearly fell over a Pukka Pies sign in his excitement.

Two goals just before half-time, Emson's the second of them, made it 2-1 to Shildon. Pie and peas were £1.90, and not what you might call red-hot Pukka.

Having taken the game to their hosts in the first half, Shildon chose inexplicably to defend in the second. That they became increasingly anxious was chiefly due to the introduction of Barbadian international Neil Harvey, who's been with Chelsea, West Ham and Fulham and now, said the programme, is "adapting to life in Retford."

Harvey, mesmerising, enthused a cold December afternoon. Some of those who'd come with Shildon - the word "supporters" may under no circumstances be considered appropriate - abused the Barbadian in the most regrettable manner.

A scuffle broke out, nine police cars and a once-black Maria arrived, two Shildon lads had themselves locked up, if not tied up, in Notts.

It ended 4-3 to Retford, the constabulary returning to the clubhouse to order the great majority of Shildon's peaceable people to finish their drinks an hour earlier than planned and be escorted out of town.

Unlike the pies, the incident left a very nasty taste. Not pukka, and not wanted, at all.

Researching last Friday's piece on Dr Graeme Forster, we came across a 1989 paragraph on a mysterious but otherwise useless bunch called the Mujahideen Guerillas, a five-a-side football team playing out of Shildon Leisure Centre. Since diligent enquiry had failed to reveal their identity, we'd assumed the motivation to be either Peter Sixsmith or the Tillotson brothers. The sedulous Sixer was at Retford, more specifically in the Rum Runner, and denied all knowledge. Must have been the Tillotsons, then.

Once described hereabouts as "a charismatic Dutchman with a chestful of coaching qualifications and Ruud Gullit English", Bert-Jan Heijmans crops up on a chord-touching website called giveusbackourfootball.co.uk

BJ was Brandon United's manager last season and at 43 remains the club's youth coach and occasional, reluctant, goalkeeper. He also coaches for Sunderland FC and for Durham City Council.

The website's about giving the game back to the bairns. "Football for children is now very different from earlier generations when the only adult involvement was a call from your mum to say that your tea was ready," it says. "Football's no longer beautiful for the kids, it's ugly."

BJ identifies problems like parents and coaches screaming from the sidelines, the same kids not getting a game or being left on the bench and putting winning before fun and development.

Bobby Charlton said something similar. "The 1966 World Cup wasn't won on the playing fields of England, it was won on the streets."

BJ has developed a "Let the children play" campaign and is promoting a four against four game so that everyone's involved.

The watchword's perceptive. "A touch is a touch, even a bad one."

Brooks Mileson, he who tells a new book that "Mike Amos is a tighta**e" - last Friday's column - rings in great good humour, nonetheless.

Not only is the Sunderland-born entrepreneur at last recovering after a serious illness - "I really can feel my strength coming back," he says - but his beloved Gretna were named Scotland's "Professional team of the year" at a posh do last Thursday evening.

The two others on the shortlist were the Scottish national team, who've started winning again, and the national under-19 side which reached the final of the European youth tournament.

"I honestly thought we were just there to make up the numbers," says Brooks. "When they announced that we'd won, the whole place just erupted. You expect Celtic and Rangers to win awards like that, not Gretna."

Northern League members just 14 years ago, Gretna reached last season's Scottish Cup final, won the second division and now lead the first.

Not even the news that we're thinking of suing over the parsimony allegation could dent the lad's good humour. "You're at the back of a very long queue," he says.

The Arngrove Northern League magazine reports that former Darlington midfielder John Alexander has smashed (as it were) Marske United's record for broken window panes in the greenhouse behind the bottom goal.

Alexander's five panes with a single shot shattered the record of three held by Craig Gibbin - "a man who's broken more greenhouse windows than anyone in the club's history," says John Hodgson, the chairman.

Though good at greenhouses, Alexander never once hit the net. Subsequently, we hear, he's been released.

Abd finally...

the eight Sunderland players who became either manager or caretaker manager of the club (Backtrack, December 8) are Bill Murray, Billy Elliott, Mick Docherty, Pop Robson, Len Ashurst, Terry Butcher, and, most recently, Kevin Ball and Niall Quinn.

A splendid question today from Bill Moore, perchance encountered in Coundon Conservative Club on Sunday evening (and much more about Coundon Conservative Club next time.)

Bill invites readers to name nine footballers, chosen for England squads in the final stages of post-war World Cups, who went on to manager either Newcastle, Middlesbrough or Sunderland.

The finals straw? The column's back on Friday.