Hail and farewell?

By dawn the storm had little abated, the Vale of York white clad as the 7.30 again headed south. Easter's traditional lambs appeared to have renegotiated their birthright, and stopped in where it was warm.

Again it was the railroad to Wembley, a journey much mined by unexpected sidings.

This was the FA Vase semi-final first leg, Lowestoft v Whitley Bay. A story in that day's paper was headed "Free eggs on Easter trains," sadly not a reference to National Express but to the Tanfield Railway in north Durham, which doesn't usually get as far as Suffolk.

In my 12 years as Northern League chairman we've had 11 Vase semi-finalists, but only four teams in the final - the last occasion when Whitley Bay themselves won it, at Villa Park in 2002.

As with some other of the good things in life, the first time had been memorable - Whitby Town's 3-0 win over North Ferriby at Wembley in 1997 - not least because of the disorientated Northern League management committee member chanting "Tee-Tee- Teessiders" while wave upon wave swelled "Sea-Sea- Seasiders" all around.

Most unforgettable of all, however, may have been when Tow Law Town from the Heights of Improbability reached the final the following year and the late and lovely Harry Dixon strode Wembley Way in 75 degrees and three cardigans.

Just as indelibly engraved is the Lawyers' semi-final second leg win over Taunton Town at the Ironworks, a departing fan brandishing over his head the toilet brush inscribed TLTFC which, with permission, he had abstracted from the gentlemen's.

This time, surely, the Arngrove Northern League would be at Wembley once again. Whitley Bay, otherwise the Seahorses, were second in the league, had conceded just one goal in five rounds of the Vase, thrashed competition favourites Truro 3-0 on their own Cornish pasture and in shaven headed 20-year-old Lee Kerr had a goal scorer of prodigious ability.

A website spinner noted that Truro was the Vase's most westerly club, Lowestoft the most easterly - indeed, the most easterly place in Britain - and that Whitley had beaten Ashington, an' all. They were, he concluded, feared the length and breadth of the land.

Lowestoft, conversely, were about 13th in the Ridgeons Eastern Counties League - the programme didn't print the table; embarrassment probably - had lost their last home match 4-0 and seemed as reliant on psychology as skill.

The Eastern Daily Press match preview used the word "underdogs" six times, the phrase "massive underdogs"

twice and, as if to underline the mongrel pedigree, "Massive, massive underdogs" as well.

Lowestoft are known as the Trawler Boys. They'd not caught the Seahorses on a good day.

THE train from Peterborough to Norwich is cancelled, trees blown onto the track near Ely. Instead we detour to Ipswich, via March, where breezes blow loud and shrill and the signalling system's got the wind up, too.

It's better, at any rate, than the poor chap on the website who, having been to Truro and to Hungerford in the previous two rounds, complains that the domestic budget simply won't stretch to Lowestoft.

He'd tried selling the kids, but found there was a law against it. He blamed Brussels, probably rightly.

At Ipswich, there's an hour and a half wait for a train to Lowestoft. The journey itself will take another 90 minutes.

Railway companies these days like to give their routes nancy names, like the Tarka Line or the Hyacinth Line. Since the alternative would be the Flat and Featureless, this one's simply the East Suffolk.

There's a further delay because of level crossing problems, or because the driver's getting his pipe, the train finally docking at Lowestoft 20 minutes before kick-off. Happily, I know where the ground is. They'd beaten Dunston Fed two rounds earlier.

In the bit of Britain they like to call the Sunrise Coast, it's hailing heavens high. It won't, it's most fervently to be hoped, be hail and farewell.

Immediately inside the ground, crowd 2,102, there's a chap selling Lowestoft Journal goody bags for a quid. You can tell it's a semi-final because there are Vera Duckworth wigs and a deadbeat with a drum.

Mr Ken Shaw from Sunderland, is wearing his Sherpa Tensing outfit.

Ken's been in Lowestoft since Thursday - "advance guard" - wraps his anorak hood even more tightly around his head.

"Weather-wise, this is the best it's been," he says.

Derek Breakwell, Whitley Bay's secretary, is looking as ambiguous as a man might when his 60th birthday's the following day. "I'm never confident," he insists.

LOWESTOFT, wind assisted, take the lead after four minutes - the exact moment that they had against the Fed and the first goal Whitley Bay have conceded since Hebburn in the second round. For the supporters behind the goal, it's a cue for uncontrolled elation.

Are you Dunston in disguise?" they chorus, and other things much ruder.

Perhaps these are foul weather fans.

Barely ten minutes later, Whitley Bay defender Brian Rowe is sent off, straight red, for an alleged elbow so greatly beneath the gaze of the observant assistant referee that he could almost have broken that gentleman's nose in the same illegitimate action.

Seahorses manager Ian Chandler, scorer of the wining goal in the 2002 final and eligible just two days earlier to play in the Over 40s League, is looking anxious already.

These days he rarely plays, though he'd come on as an 83rd minute sub against Billingham Town and, five minutes later, returned whence he came after a second yellow.

After 35 minutes, Lowestoft score again - penalty, foul by the keeper. "Who are yer?"

chant the Trawler Boys, an enquiry which the home team might reasonably have put to 95 per cent of them.

Just before half-time it's three, not so much as a hailstorm as a deluge. A chap in a hugger-mugger hat, greatly resembling a Russian spy in a Just William book, throws his Lowestoft Journal goody bag so high into the air that a spectator three yards away is damn near decapitated by a wayward packet of jelly beans.

The local MP, club patron and match sponsor is looking pretty happy, too. Wondrously aptly named, he is Mr Bob Blizzard.

THE second half's a bit more even, marred by a freak injury to the Lowestoft goalie - no one near him, rarely was - and by a last minute fourth for the home side, Seahorses trapped ineluctably in the Trawler Boys' net.

Derek Breakwell considers it a pretty miserable birthday present but tries hard to look forward to this Saturday's second leg. Ken Shaw remembers when Sunderland lost an FA Youth Cup final first leg 3-0 to West Brom, or someone, and won the second leg 6-0.

When was that then, Ken?

"About 1962," he says. It is necessary to remind them of the scripture written for such moments, Suffolk unto the day is the evil thereof.

Though the homeward trains are on time, save for a diversionary dalliance with Leeds, the last service from Peterborough is a slam-door scrap can with Timothy Hackworth heating.

It's midnight when I sneak home, the first of the snow again falling, turned into a pumpkin. She's asleep with the double glazed window open.

It's been a bitter Easter.

...AND FINALLY

THE denominator common to Kirsty Wark, J M Barrie and Dads Army actor John Laurie (Backtrack, March 21) is that all were born or educated in Dumfries - the town which has much been occupying our attention of late.

Mr Davey Munday's suggestion that all three watched Albert Franks play for Queen of the South may be discounted. He's been reading too much Peter Pan.

Today, a little sadly, back to Whitley Bay. Readers are invited to name the Scottish international and Newcastle United legend who played for the Seahorses in 1976-77, at the tab end of his career.

An attempt to back the right horse, for once, the column returns on Friday.