Consett head south and prove they can swim with the Dolphins

Consett played there on Saturday, FA Vase fourth round. Any thoughts of big fish and little Poole may thus be jettisoned forthwith.

Nor may the Co Durham club, near the top of the Arngrove Northern League, have been supposed the minnows. Poole, known as the Dolphins, were top of the equivalent Wessex League - home of Moneyfields, Bournemouth Poppies and the wondrously named Bemerton Heath Harlequins.

When the draw was made, it was the third time in this season's competition that Consett had faced league leaders.

Similarities may end there.

Poole, said in the programme to be on the English Riviera, has the world's second biggest natural harbour - Sydney, since you ask - is home to one of the country's biggest luxury yacht builders and safe haven for thousands of yachts.

In Poole, it's like every day's a berth day. The town also boasts the UK headquarters of the Bank of New York, the campus of the University of Bournemouth and an enclave called Sandbanks, reckoned - foot by square foot - to be the world's most expensive real estate. Houses fetch envious glances, and up to £10m.

Poole has four railway stations and ferries to Cherbourg and St Malo. "Never before has the town been in such a stable and prosperous position," notes its selfsatisifed website.

Consett has buses to Durham and Stanley - maybe one a week to Tow Law, too - and a fragile economy still recovering from the closure of the steel works nearly 30 years ago.

Far from the English Riviera, it is also widely believed to be the coldest place on earth.

Poole Town FC was formed in 1890, peaked in 1926-27 when they played at Everton in the third round of the FA Cup, plummeted in 1995-96 when from 42 games they recorded just one point.

Now they were in the last 32 of the FA Vase, the first nationally contested round, for the first time.

It's a wonderful competition, culminating at Wembley on Sunday May 11. The column headed south, too.

DARKEST hour, we're on the 6.30am to London, the first long journey since National Express won the cage fighting contest for the East Coast main line. Because of engineering work to the north, the train starts at Darlington.

At 6.28 they announce that those not travelling should hop off sharpish.

Four minutes later, the train having gone nowhere - sharpish or sluggish - they report a mechanical problem.

At 6.50 it's announced that the train's a "total failure". The website can't be checked because it's down; the early doors station staff can't help because their PCs aren't up, either. The phrase about "total failure" may yet haunt National Express.

The next train to London is at 7.30am. There's not just the problem of getting quart into pint pot but a bristle of unshaven Sunderland fans who seem to have cannibalised a cannery and are heading the same way.

Four minutes before it's due to leave, we spot the 7.14 Virgin departure to Bournemouth, which is six miles from Poole. We've advance purchase tickets, apparently only valid on a specific train run by a specific company.

The Virgin train manager's called Ed, doesn't think he can help, then glances up and recognises the guy to whom he's speaking - not as some cackhanded columnist but a fellow member of non-league football's faithful fraternity.

"I'm a Blyth Spartans fan," he says and at once makes our paths straight - standard gauge.

It's a bit like an American Express card, a "That'll do nicely"

moment, and we catch it by a Whicker.

Spartans themselves are at Tamworth, Staffordshire, through which the train will pass without stopping. Ed resists the temptation to leap off. "I wouldn't care," he says, cheerfully, "you can even see the floodlights."

Throughout an entirely punctual journey, he displays the same courtesy, common sense and charisma to all Virgin's customers.

The only problem's that it's tipping down and southern England seems already to be under water.

We may yet be swimming with the Dolphins.

CONSETT have travelled the previous afternoon, club chairman John Hurst sending the original coach back whence it came on the grounds that a team of centipedes might have enjoyed greater leg room.

Thus the party books into its hotel at five to midnight, a witching hour greeted with mixed feelings by team manager Kenny Lindoe. The bar closes at midnight. "Not even this lot can get hammered in five minutes,"

someone says.

Something on the clubhouse wall recalls how, in 1981, they'd played Manchester United - the Man United of Robson and Birtles, of McIlroy and Moran - but only after United's trip to Sudan had been cancelled. Perhaps they were sailing from Poole.

Also in attendance are Martin and Denise Haworth, who run the Northern League Club, and Les Scott, secretary of Morpeth Town - Consett's scheduled opponents the following week.

"It's a scouting mission," says Les, who's also had a dander round Sandbanks - "not bad, but there's bigger back gardens in Morpeth" - and come across the luxury yacht builder.

"It's just like a massive car showroom," he says, "only overflowing with yachts."

Martin Haworth has been to Sandbanks, too, found the peninsular a bit breezy. "It's an awful lot of money to get blown away,"

he says. "You could do that at Consett for nothing."

In Poole's vibrant shopping centre, he's also found a book shop selling off copies of Cracked It! - the biography of former Darlington FC chairman George Reynolds - for just £2.

Safe bet? "It was still robbery,"

says Martin, and keeps his two quid in his pocket for a pie.

The football club had for 61 years shared with Poole speedway team. Now they play on a former school field, the real education that - despite what FA ground rules stipulate - it's possible on all four sides to watch the match from outside the ground.

The fence, in truth, wouldn't stop an adventurous four-yearold from playing hooky. Expensive tastes notwithstanding, several cheapskates watch proceedings from outside or, worse, from the skylight of their homes behind the bottom goal.

A lone polliss approaches, hopefully to lock them up for parsimony.

The polliss watches over the fence, too.

The proper Poole people, in truth, aren't snotty yotties at all.

They're as friendly, as hospitable and as sportsmanlike as nonleague folk throughout the land.

It's only when Steve Brown's exquisite free kick gives Consett a 44th-minute lead that we realise one of the out-of-bounders, pint in hand, is himself a Consett supporter.

Poole equalise ten minutes into the second half, through Mark Patterson's unfortunate own goal. It runs into extra-time, Consett wholly unable to spring an offside trap so effective that it may have been set by Rentokil's employee of the month.

Poole are thus obliged to make the long reverse journey this weekend. Consett's a brilliant club and a great town but is, you might say, very northern. Wherever Poole might suppose themselves to be this Saturday, it won't be on their fathers' yacht.

...AND FINALLY

FRIDAY'S column sought the identity of the two players who scored in Manchester and Merseyside derbies in the same calendar year.

They were Nicolas Anelka - for Liverpool and Man City in 2002 - and Andrei Kanchelskis, for Manchester United and Everton in 2005.

David Wilson in Grenoble - via Etherley - today invites readers to suggest what Malcolm Macdonald's career at Newcastle United and Fabrizio Ravenelli's at Middlesbrough had in common.

Common touch, the column returns on Friday.