Quakers rained on Stanley's parade

The Dyers and Finishers Club adds a dash of local colour, the Victorian Market essays a gentler age and Stanley, Accrington Stanley, are back in the Football League.

It's as if nothing's ever changed and in one sense it hasn't. Accy - flat cap, pot pie, hacky Accy - still barely gives a tinker's.

Their first home League game for 44 years is against Darlington on Tuesday evening. The crowd's just 2,667 of whom 758 are officially Quakers' supporters and probably another 500 nostalgic neutrals. Half-hearted, the 50-50 draw pays out £66.

The tea-time town centre displays not the least sign of emotion, nor even of attachment, not even a deja-vu-do.

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph billboards proclaim "Accrington Flasher in Court", simultaneously exposing some indecent editorial judgment.

A lady in a café that sells homity pie - East Lancs delicacy: cheese, onion, potato and parsley - says that her grandfather used to draw the football cartoons in the Accrington Observer.

She alone seems to be interested, like Scrooge at Old Marley's funeral. "My grandad would have loved to have been there tonight," she says. "Mind, he'd have been 120."

It's a town built on bricks, the town of Holland's Pies and Stockley's Sweets and where Terylene was invented, the birthplace of both Janice Battersby and Hayley Cropper, or whatever it is they're called.

The centre gives the impression of a place that's trying very hard, this week's Observer reporting that three locals have been fined £75 apiece just for dumping a tab end. The letters page, alas, is up to its oxters with litter complaints.

Forever the fish paste in a Burnley-Blackburn sandwich, Stanley have been re-inventing, too, especially since Eric Whalley became chairman in 1995 and John Coleman joined him, as team manager, four years later.

Best remembered for a swiftly-souring Milk Marketing Board commercial - "Accrington Stanley, who are they?" - the club's renaissance has been remarkable.

"I honestly don't think we've finished yet," Whalley tells the Observer. "We can be a good Championship club," writes chief executive Robert keys in the homecoming programme.

It's seven o'clock, and Accrington appears still to be watching Emmerdale.

Accrington FC was formed in 1876, known even then as Th' Owd Reds. The team "won" its first recorded game by a goal and a "disputed" goal to one - if they still allowed disputed goals, Shildon might now be among the elite, too - were founder Football League members in 1888.

Five years later they left, amalgamated with Stanley Villa - they of Stanley Street - and joined the Lancashire Combination. Accrington Stanley joined the Third Division North in 1921-22, departing it ignominiously on March 3 1962, bottom of the table - Hartlepool were second bottom - bankrupt and owing £63,000.

Their Peel Park home, which in 1954-55 had attracted a record 15,400 league gate for a match against York City, drew just 984 when the sides met six years later.

Recriminations flew like cow heel at a barn dance. Even now, 44 years on, it is advisable not to mention the name of Mr Bob Lord, the butcher of Burnley, within shot of a Stanley supporter.

The club was re-formed at a meeting in the public library in 1968, again joined the Lancashire Combination in 1970, has played since the early 70s on what was the Crown Ground, the site of an old clay pit.

Twenty years ago they were in the North West Counties, the same level as the Northern League. In 1990-91 they had 11,000 for a Cup match with Gateshead. Now, five further rungs up soccer's unsteady stepladder, they were back.

The pub 200 yards from the ground has just one football poster. It's for Burnley's away trip to Sheffield Wednesday. About three Accrington fans are outnumbered by 30 from Darlington. It's more Stanley United than Accrington Stanley.

The ground seems little changed since the column was there 12 years ago- that was Shildon, too. Admission's £13, considered reasonable, the "commemorative" programme a fiver and quickly sold out.

A Darlo fan says that he'll have it on E-bay first thing next morning, Last time Accrington were in the Football League, "E-bay" was usually followed by "gum", and then only in posh places like Osbaldwistle.

Another fan's texting the team news to his daughter in Shanghai. Last time Accrington were in the Football League, the news would have taken a month to get there, and only then if the pigeon hadn't become disorientated en route.

A queuing spectator asks a steward, who looks like the retiring vicar of Holy Trinity, Darlington, if there are any seats. "Not for you lot," he says, affably.

Holland's pie and peas is £2, pie and chips £3. We buy the bairn's, too. Dutch treat.

The ground's quite humble, the visiting fans provoked to sing that they've a bigger garden shed back home. They also sing something about Poolies, but since nothing rhymes with Poolies, it may be ignored.

At 7.40pm, the public address man urges supporters to take their seats - chance would be a fine thing - at 7.45, just as the Acme Thunderer signals the start of a new era, the heavens open as if by remote control.

The column joins those scuttling for shelter, a rare example of undercover journalism.

There has been no razzamatazz, no brass band, not even the Ossie Cloggers - just a big bass buffoon with a drum. There are empty spaces all over, not least next to the drummer.

Stanley start brightly, fade. The Darlo fans, good lads, sing probably the same songs as they did on their last visit, August 21, 1962. It poured down that night, too. Had they chanted "Two-four-six-eight, who do we appreciate?" it wouldn't have been entirely surprising.

A couple of bulbs are missing, too, sparking jokes about shillings in the meter. Who says it's a young man's game?

Hoardings around the ground promote the ineluctable pies and one for Greg Pope, the local MP. A man of clearly catholic tastes, he's also an avowed Sex Pistols fan. The Accy Army can't be heard at all.

Darlington score, deservedly, after 33 minutes, Michael Cummins one of several of that surname to have been in black and white over the years. There's only one Gaetano Giallanza, though.

Downpour unabated, Martin Smith - ex-Sunderland - adds a second before half-time. Now perhaps as then, the Stanley defence shows the resilience of the Swiss navy, the porousness of a magic sponge.

Though the Quakers look good, there's no further score, just time for one of Th' New Reds to be sent off before the whistle snuffs out the anti-climax.

Two games in, Stanley are again bottom of the bottom division.

On the way homeward, we spot a formal sign reading "Accrington Stanley, the team that wouldn't die." They should change it to "The team the town doesn't deserve."

DID YOU KNOW?

Lancs for the memory... ten things which have changed a bit since Accrington Stanley last played in the Football League:

* The only drummer they'd have allowed in the ground would have been Ringo Starr.

* A message board was something with which a little kid went round the pitch at half-time, giving chalked-up winners of the meat draw.

* A red card was the three of hearts.

* A sub was something which lurked beneath the Firth of Clyde, but of which the government denied any knowledge, anyway.

* The only thing a steward did was pull pints of Thwaites's bitter.

* The "Accrington flasher" would have been the chap sitting behind the goal-line with trench coat, trilby hat and photographic plates.

* The only Reynolds of whom Darlington fans had heard was Debbie. (She sang better than George, an' all.)

* The referee is no longer the b****d in the black. (He's the b*****d in the green.)

* Half-time lasted ten minutes, half an orange and a fag.

* A double-chock had nothing to do with Nestles.

BACKTRACK BRIEFS . . .

Forewarning of Accrington Stanley in Tuesday's column, reminded Stan Evans in Hartlepool of the long-gone day in 1949-50 when Pools played at Peel Park in the FA Cup - winning 1-0 with a goal from Sunderland born Les Owens, one of 12 in 28 appearances.

"I took my father-in-law on the supporters' bus at the extortionate cost of 12/6d each," Stan recalls. "It was worth it for the sing-song on the way home, and all without booze."

Pools went out to Norwich City in the second round, 5-1 in a Carrow Road replay, prompting protests that the club was using too many part-timers.

Three weeks later, New Year's Eve 1949, 18-year-old local lad Ken Johnson scored on his debut. It was to be one of 101 goals in 383 appearances, a legend first footing.

The circumstances not so immediately joyous, Bishop Auckland also return tonight to the league they left long ago.

The Two Blues are back in the Northern League for the first time since 1988, following a torrid few years and relegation in May from the UniBond first division.

"Our longest trip this season will be nearer than our shortest last year," says club chairman Terry Jackson. "We're just going out to enjoy ourselves."

The game, against Arngrove Northern League champions Newcastle Blue Star, is at Shildon's Dean Street ground (7.30pm). "I don't suppose," says Terry, "that we'll have a brass band, either."

Perchance in the Half Moon at Barton on Wednesday evening, we encounter the triumphant village cricketers returning from the Darlington and District League "sevens" final against Rockliffe. Their cup overflowing, the large and long-engraved trophy is filled with a cornucopia of vodka, Coke, Tia Maria, "summat I've forgotten" and two ice cubes before being passed ecstatically around the pub. Last they've now forgotten almost everything, we promised them a mention. Well done, lads, anyway.

Burnley was the most popular choice for the smallest town in England to have supported a club in the top flight of English football (Backtrack, August 8).

It wasn't, it was Glossop North End - bottom of the old first division, 18 points from 34 games, in 1899-1900.

Fred Alderton in Peterlee - who thought the answer was Darwen - in turn invites readers to suggest what was particularly unusual about Bon Accord's kit in the record shattering 36-0 defeat by Arbroath.

Kit and kin, the column returns on Tuesday.