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Non-League teams are increasingly from suburbia. So the visit of a steelworks team to a colliery town is an unusual event in one of the country's oldest competitions, the Northern League. Harry Pearson reports

Saturday afternoon in the north-east and its raining. It’s not a heavy rain. It’s the sort of fine rain that hangs in the air, all-enveloping like an unfinished argument. The bus from Peterlee to Horden drops me off at a stop next to a Spiritualist church. Down the road towards the porridge-coloured North Sea there’s a medical centre named after Manny Shinwell, the Labour minister responsible for nationalising the coal industry. Outside the Comrades Club a mother and a ten-year-old girl in a party frock unload a chocolate fountain from the back of a Renault Clio and scurry indoors. A poster in the window advertises a night of entertainment featuring “Donna, Promising Young Vocal Artiste”.

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A late summer night out in Selhurst. Manchester City breeze down to south-east London for the early rounds of the Carling Cup where Crystal Palace huff and puff against mega-rich opponents. David Stubbs reports

It’s grim down south. The freshly mint Manchester City and their supporters come down to Selhurst Park like a delegation from Italy’s Lega Nord descending with wrinkling noses on one of the more malodorous outlying districts of Naples. What a culture shock it must be for visiting fans from the regenerated and nouveau riche north-west as they emerge from Selhurst station, with its unappetisingly urinal-like walls, down a ginnel flanked with mistrustful barbed wire and as rank as the breath of an alcoholic in the afternoon.

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The revamped stadium has been open since March 2007. Despite trying his best Cris Freddi just can't get used to it

I went to the opening game at the new Wembley. That sounds like a minor boast, I suppose. If there were anything to boast about. You can only judge a stadium in daylight. Lights at night gloss over things. On an overcast afternoon, the Wembley arch looks like a giant concrete rope. And you stand under it and think: what’s that all about? What’s an arch got to do with it?

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Andrew Turton reports on how Cardiff City’s move from Ninian Park began a battle for some slightly odd memorabilia

There were many who thought it would never happen, but this summer, Cardiff City move to their new home. A new stadium had been talked about for years, but Sam Hammam made it a priority on becoming chairman in 2000. Ironically, it was Hammam’s involvement that proved to be a stumbling block with the local authority after he fell out with council leader Rodney Berman, whom he was said to have persistently insulted at one of their many meetings. There was also some concern that Hammam would “do a Wimbledon” once he’d been handed the land. This had been given to the club on a dirt-cheap 999-year lease, which allowed them to sell on the leases to retail groups, including M&S, Costco and Asda. This provided most of the finance to build the new stadium. It was only when Hammam left the club three years ago that progress was made.

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Owen Amos reports on how the FA Vase provides an opportunity for smaller clubs to have their moment in the Wembley sun

To understand to whom the FA Vase matters, look at the list of winners. Since 1974-75, the Vase’s first season, 20 of the winners have been suffixed “Town”: from Brigg and Bridlington, to Whitby and Wimborne. By contrast, just two winners – Truro and Winchester – have been Cities.

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