Time was when Bishop Auckland fans would walk to matches, the road to Shildon - or Crook, or wherever - said veritably to be wick with folk as kick-off drew near.

Once they'd draw 100,000 to Wembley, fill 20 trains with supporters ever more, flat capitalise the historic old Kingsway ground as the blessed Bishops became the world's most celebrated amateur football club.

Times change. Five years ago they left Kingsway and still haven't a home to go to. On Sunday, 20-odd people took part in a 24-mile sponsored marathon to raise money for the new stadium fund, and other causes. Just three of the 20-odd were from Bishop Auckland.

Among the walkers was Terry Jackson, the club's magnificent chairman, who works in London, lives contentedly in Milton Keynes and has had two hip replacement operations, same side. "This one seems to be working," he said.

The group also included Steve Manifold and his family who support Crook Town - "I believe Northern League clubs should stick together," he said - four workers from the Redworth Road, Shildon, branch of the Co-op and big Andy McCallum, who lives in Hexham but is a Bishops' supporter on his maternal grandmother's side.

The walk began at Durham City FC in Belmont, Sunday strolling to half a dozen other grounds and scheduled to be back in Bishop eleven and a half hours later. "We start slowly and get slower," said John Cowey, the organiser.

The column, amateurishly in attendance, was thus utterly dismayed to discover that, some time last week, Stanley United's Little House on the Prairie - a Backtrack icon almost since these things began - had been destroyed, gutted utterly, by fire.

It marred an otherwise richly enjoyable day, now retraced step-by-step.

Durham City, 8.30am. John Cowey lives in Durham but runs the Bishops' Independent Supporters' Club, his route so meticulously mapped that only about four of the 24 miles are along roads or pavements.

A mile in, we pass Kepier Haughs, where Durham City played in the Football League from 1921-23 - record gate 7,886 for a cup-tie against Darlington - and where there are still pitches today. They'd probably not pass a ground inspection.

A little beyond is Holliday Park, where City's big league adventure continued until 1928 and Ferens Park, where they played until 1994.

Now it's a posh housing estate of the same name, the sort of place where Footballers' Wives might be racily resident, but probably not those from Bishop Auckland.

The river bank's so overgrown you almost expect a beaming David Bellamy to emerge, the Cathedral bells vainly call the Bishops to things yet higher. It's a lovely morning.

On Oaks Bank, up to Nevilles Cross, there's a new road called Bell's Folly. Who was Bell, the company wonders, and what his immortalised undoing?

By way of some leafy but sometimes surprisingly steep old railway tracks - "If they were railway lines, they must have had a bloody good winding engine," someone says - we reach Brandon United at 10.30am, our old friend B J Heijmanns at work on the make-hay pitch.

BJ's Dutch, former Ajax player, now Brandon team manager and principal inspiration. The ramblers' return is explained to him. "Ah," says BJ, "so you're crazy, too."

11am. Off towards Esh Winning, terrain described in John's hugely informative walk guide as "steep and difficult" but more familiarly termed clarty.

Mostly, however, it's along the track of the Deerness Valley Railway, where that humble little line ended at a single platform terminus at Waterhouses. Reduced to one service a day, passenger traffic ceased in 1951 - except for Durham Big Meeting day, when wagons rolled once again.

Terry Jackson, wearing his 1950s replica shirt and still going like a train, is asked the prospects for the long-awaited new stadium at Tindale Crescent, near Bishop Auckland, admits "curious positiveness" but accepts that the ball is now in others' courts.

John Cowey and his group, he says, will any day soon have £10,000 in the fund - though many other resources are being explored. "I'm in absolute awe of John and his people, they've been a real new broom around here, especially in terms of keeping the club on the map," he adds.

It's not that folk are flagging or nowt but towards Waterhouses - where Esh Winning play - someone recalls a film starring John Mills and Sylvia Sims in which the couple are struggling desperately across a desert.

"I don't think they made it, either," he says.

Terry Jackson has popped into Esh Winning to get a pie from the Co-op. "I bet," says Bishops' manager Peter Mulcaster - who's joined for six miles - "that he's tapped the manager for an advert in the programme."

2.30pm. Waterhouses marks half way, one of the lads struggling even to get up out of his chair. "How am I supposed to make Bishop Auckland," he pleads, "if I can't even reach the netty?"

Another old railway track leads to Stanley Hill Top, Andy McCallum recalling a pre-season friendly in which Stanley had played Barrow. "It was a lovely July day evening down in Crook," he says. "By the time we got to Stanley we were perished."

Andy's wearing a T-shirt commemorating Bishops; last game at Kingsway, April 20 2002. That was against Barrow, too. "We got beaten 4-0," he says.

Few of the lads can recall the Amateur Cup glory days of the 1950s, though they know that Bishop Auckland in 2000 were still able to provide four Football League recruits, that Peter Hinds was the best player they ever saw in two blues - "three martial arts black belts, too" - and that they beat Sutton United in the FA Trophy in the same season that Sutton beat Coventry City in the Cup.

Stanley United have had their moments, too - three Northern league championships, three League Challenge Cups - all against the higgledy-piggledy background of the Little House, coal fired and curious, beloved of football people everywhere.

The club had left the Northern league in 1974, folding a a few years back. The grass on the pitch is two feet high, a single hoarding a reminder that once British Coal sold the ground to the club for just £1. The Little House remained, and probably knew something about it.

The fire had begun late last Monday night, apparently an electrical fault. The fire brigade had to watch it burn, says one of the neighbours, because someone had laid tarmac over the fire hydrant.

Andy McCallum goes missing, reckoned for all his 6ft 6ins to be lost in the long grass. "If he stays there much longer, we'll claim squatters' rights," someone says. "We'll have somewhere to play next season after all."

4pm. Downhill to Crook, little Joseph Cowey and his cousin Sam Brown - who've walked most of the way - still leaping about and killing the unsuspecting with sticks.

It's explained that once you're dead it's impossible to be killed again, especially for the 49th time. "In that case you're tranquilised for 17 million years," says Joseph, a fate doubtless to be preferred.

John Cowey is talking about the Independent Supporters Club. "It's not just about fund raising, it's about giving a community edge to the club, keeping it in the public eye, reminding people that we're still there.

"In stadium terms, £10,000 isn't more than a token gesture, but it's a reminder of the supporters' contribution. It gives us a little bit of ownership."

5pm. From Crook we head towards Willington, the conversation muted, the mileage murderous. Terry's getting calls from his wife about Wimbledon, which is disappointing. "She's half-Swiss," he pleads in mitigation.

Willington's clubhouse is lined with pictures of their triumphs, not least the 1950 Amateur Cup final victory over the Bishops themselves, of the day they played Blackburn Rovers in the Cup and of when both Malcolm Allison and Alan Durban were, long story, manager.

Willington are now in the Wearside League. "There's a lot here to think about," says Terry.

It's another four miles along the old railway to Bishop, former polliss Peter Rippon - who lives in Hebburn and gave up his Feyenoord season ticket to buy one for Bishop Auckland, instead - struggling worse than most.

"I've never felt this bad for years," he says but makes it, valiantly, nonetheless. For all of us, in truth, Bishop Auckland may never more greatly have resembled the Promised Land not that egregious DSS tower block the Star of Bethlehem.

We're in the pub by 8pm, the supporters fund and several charities a bit better off, the walkers generally jiggered. Terry Jackson will be back up from Milton Keynes on Friday for the annual meeting.

"Most of the time it's a pleasure," he says, 24 miles on, "someone has to do it, haven't they?"

The Backtrack column hopes to have raised a few quid for the supporters' fund and would greatly welcome any donations, usual address, to the cause.