The Arngrove Northern League, which for the past 11 eventful years I've had the great privilege of chairing, stretches from Alnwick up't top to Stokesley and Northallerton in the south and in the wild west to Penrith.

There were 43 clubs when last we counted and I visit each - it may not be called a state visit - at least once a season.

The problem's being a non-driver, and the particular problem Penrith. Distant memory suggests a long-gone daily bus service between Darlington and Penrith, run by a company called GNE, though whether it stood for Great North Eastern or George, Nellie and Ethel it's impossible to recall.

So it comes to Easter weekend, 42 of the 43 ticked off, like a dog-eared gricer with an Ian Allan Locospotter's Annual. What to do about Penrith? How to bridge the Cumberland gap?

The sign on the A66 says it's just 49 miles from Scotch Corner. No kicks on the A66, the snowy railway across Stainmore inconsiderately dismantled over 40 years ago. I turn to the GNER website, instead.

Asked how to get from Darlington to Penrith, the website advises changing at Warrington. Mr Paul Simon, memory further suggests, wrote the hauntingly lonesome song Homeward Bound while sitting on Warrington railway station. Perhaps he was awaiting the next train to Penrith.

Without offence to Warrington, the proposal seems a little - shall we say - elliptical. The alternative is a Settle and Carlisle line "round robin" ticket, £36. To make a 3pm kick-off at a ground 50-odd miles away means catching the 7.14am from Darlington to Leeds, exactly on time.

The pub on Leeds station offers "All-day breakfast" and, for £1 extra, "workman's breakfast." It means more toast and sausage, says the man. Since ordering a workman's breakfast would be what scholars call hypocritical and Geordies call brazzened - a bit like trying to get into the pictures for kids' price because you need the money for the pub - I investigate how long all-day will last.

From Leeds to Shipley, one of those wonderful wool-worsted towns spun out of an Alan Bennett play, there's a replacement bus service because of Easter engineering, then a train to Skipton and another across the Settle and Carlisle.

Leeds station has more buses than trains. "Eeeh," says a West Yorkshire railwayman to his mate, "it's rart dumplin' carry-on, is't yon."

The Settle and Carlisle itself is a transport not just of delight but of distraction, a permanently weighed pleasure dome yet further enhanced by a splendoured spring morning. Through heavenly Hellifield, across Ribblehead viaduct and not-quite-so Blea Moor, ever upward to Dent - England's highest railway station - and down to Kirkby Stephen, rapturously restored.

Into Carlisle and then another train, another ticket, to Penrith. All this and the match with Spennymoor Town yet to come.

Unopenable until Appleby, Saturday's papers report on the world marbles championship, rolled out in West Sussex since 1588.

There are teams like Miss Marbles Investigates and Black Dog Boozers and there are teams from Germany. The Germans take it seriously.

The dilemma is that the winners get a silver trophy and the runners-up a crate of beer. "You'd have to be mad to want to win," a lady from the British Marbles Board of Control tells The Guardian. "Mad or German."

It may not be said that Penrith is the promised land, but six hours after leaving home, it seems pretty damn close.

The ruined 15th century castle stands right behind the station, the sign on the platform proclaiming "North English Lakes." For quite a long time there was a picture of Penrith station on the Internet, something to do with a misspelt sign that transposed into something quite rude, only I've forgotten what it was.

In the 9th century, it's said, the town was capital of Cumberland. Until 1070 it was in Scotland. The town guide talks of wonderful communication by road and rail. Not from the east there isn't. Now it just seems like it's in Scotland.

There are pubs like the Grey Goat, the Board and Elbow and the Agricultural Arms, as opened by a farmer's wife after a hard shift on the combine. The football club, lovely people, have played since 1894 on the Southend Road ground in the town centre, town and ground dominated by Beacon Hill.

Now the ground's the World Group Stadium with a nod to a generous sponsor.

Several earlier trans-Pennine trips have been aborted because of winter's worst. Today Darlington, tomorrow the World.

For Spennymoor Town, the game's momentous. Should they win and Seaham Red Star lose at Crook, they'll be ANL second division champions.

They're managed by former Boro favourite Jamie Pollock, include former Hartlepool United man Jason Ainsley and Neil Crosby, whose dad - once at Sunderland - is now Boro's assistant manager.

There's also a lad called Tom Jones. Word on the terraces is that, should they clinch promotion, the travelling fans are going to throw knickers at him. (Jokes about it not being unusual may be inserted here.)

Penrith had four days earlier qualified for the final of the ANL second division cup, by virtue of losing to Guisborough Town. Something to do with rights and wrong 'uns. Last year Penrith won the trophy in similar circumstances, after losing to Washington.

The fans sing "Un-it-ed" - the recent history of football at the Brewery Field is a bit complicated - and, compounding the felony, "One Tracey Barlow."

They've also bought a bottle of something for the man of the match, another for the first scorer and a third should Ben Escritt, the goalie, keep a clean sheet. Jonathan le Poidevin, the Spennymoor secretary, sees a flaw in the plan. "What if we get beat 1-0?" he says.

It's goalless until the 88th minute when, offside suspected, the Jones boy scores the winner but remains knickerless, nonetheless.

Good news travelling rather faster than once it did from Aix to Ghent, word arrives moments later that Crook have won 3-1. Spennymoor overflows. There being half an hour before the train, I fall gratefully into the Agricultural Arms.

Penrith having been achieved the long way round, the homeward train's at 5.43 pm, changing at Carlisle and Newcastle.

It's 9.14 before the GNER arrives into Darlington, a 100-mile round trip by road transmuted into 320 by rail. It doesn't matter a bit. On a great day for Spennymoor Town, the 43-piece jigsaw is once again complete.

BACKTRACK BRIEFS...

Late kick-off on Good Friday at the Durham Challenge Cup final - Consett are locked in the dressing room.

"When they tried to get out for the start of the match, the door handle came off in someone's hand," explains Durham FA chief executive John Topping. "We had to find someone with a screwdriver and other tools."

The match, at Sunderland Nissan's ground, began seven minutes late. Caught cold, perhaps, Consett fall behind after three minutes to a pretty bizarre own goal but finally beat Chester-le-Street 3-2.

Chester-le-Street are handicapped by injury to 18-year-old striker Shaun Sager, who's been on trial with Stockport County but broke his collar bone a few days earlier after falling off his motorbike. Chester secretary Bill Gardiner's unsympathetic. "I told him not to take the stabilisers off," he says.

Among the Nissan crowd is banjo-playing Dutchman Hans de Roon, who in the 1990s became one of Sunderland's best known - and most publicised - fans.

Smitten since the club played a friendly at Sparta Rotterdam when he was just 12 - he liked the name, apparently - the retired council clerk crossed the North Sea to live in a bed-sit a kick in the pants from the Fulwell End at Roker Park.

We'd last seen him 12 years ago, towards the end of Mick Buxton's uncomfortable reign. The Dutch treat was beginning to wear a little thin. "People tell me there were bad seasons when Allan Brown was manager, but it is my belief it has never been so poor," he said at the time

Eventually he went home, returning for an annual visit - embracing the game against Wolves and yesterday's trip to Southampton. For the de Roon Army there's now a double incentive, however. "They've closed the Marks and Spencer's in Rotterdam. I come to Sunderland to buy my clothes."

Yesterday to West Auckland v Shildon, West's World Cup still - as we reported a couple of months back - on its way round the world. It's in the keeping of Darlington-based Lottery millionaire and West Auckland sponsor Ken Wynne, who's on a three-and-a-half month cruise. "He's even given lectures on it in the first-class lounge," says general manager Stewart Alderson. "We haven't heard the last of this at all."

AND FINALLY

The only footballer to have played in every professional division in both England and Scotland (Backtrack April 6) is Colin Cramb, presently at Stirling Albion - though former Sunderland man Warren Hawke must, as a reader suggests, come pretty close.

Cramb's c.v. embraces Hamilton, Southampton, Falkirk, Hearts, Doncaster, Bristol City, Walsall, Crewe, Notts County, Bury, Fortuna Sittard, Shrewsbury, Grimsby and Stenhousmuir.

Don Clarke in South Shields today invites readers to name eight present Premiership or Football League managers who served at Manchester United under Alex Ferguson.

Also serving, the column returns on Friday.