Saturday is FA Vase 2nd Round for Atherton Collieries and we excitedly await the arrival of County Durham side Seaham Red Star.

Colls first played in the competition in 1980 and have entered every year since. To be honest, successes over the years have been few and far between with this year being only the fourth time progress has been made to this stage.

1992 was one of these years. Under the management of ex Manchester City player and Horwich RMI gaffer Alan Kirkman - Ayone FC, Merseyside Police and Blackpool Wren Rovers were vanquished to set up a clash with Yorkshire outfit Worsborough Bridge Miners Welfare.

There was little between the sides at Alder House with the game drawn 2-2.

In the replay goal scoring centre half Brian Hart saved Colls bacon with a last gasp extra time equaliser.

In them days there mustn’t have been penalties to ensure the conclusion of the tie after two games and Colls won the toss to host the second replay.

Colls legend has it that they once naively lost a coin toss for a home cup venue over the phone. It goes without saying the canny opposition secretary tossed the coin.

The game was set for Saturday 5 December but was postponed due to bad weather. As the 3rd round was a week later the FA insisted the game go ahead during the week. The problem was that Alder House didn’t have floodlights.

Therefore the FA decreed that the game should be played on Wednesday afternoon.

I know the professional game had midweek afternoon kick offs during the electric blackouts in the 70s but this was a conundrum for the Colls.

The UK workforce in the 90s were still mainly working 9 -5 so would all the players be released by benevolent employers to play in the big match.

Fortunately all the players managed to get the afternoon off.

I was a casualty though. I had to miss the game because it was the last week of my flexi time period at work and I had to work a 50 hour week to get under the limit.

I sulked all day at work. Missing this game will always be a regret of mine.

A bumper crowd of spectators had managed to organise holidays or taken sickies and those from the red rose county were not disappointed.

Colls managed to win another close affair 2-1 with both goals scored by Dave ‘Chuck’ Berry. I bet there was some ale supped that afternoon.

I only found out the result when I got back home as the days of texts, twitter and facebook were still light years away.

Chuck will always have a place in Colls folklore with those two precious strikes. The subsequent 3rd round game was at Bridgnorth Town in Shropshire and they won 4-0 with ease.

For some reason Chuck wasn’t even in the squad. I’ll have to ask him why next time I see him.