The FA Cup — sacred chalice of English football, holy grail of the working man’s dream — rattles into town like a ghost train and we’ve jumped on board. 1st Round Proper, numbers drawn out of the hat, names put to faces. Vale Park, our cathedral of cracked concrete, and eternal longing, plays host to Maldon & Tiptree — the little club with the big beat, the David with a slingshot full of jazz and chaos, coming to riff on our Goliath bones. A genuine sense of excitement is building.

Who are they? Cats from Essex, top of the Isthmian North, riding high on rhythm and form. Born in ’46, post-war smoke still in the lungs of the founders. And dig this — Kevin Horlock at the helm, ex- Man City, ex-Swindon Town, you know the name, a man who’s danced in the big leagues and now conducts the underdog symphony.

When’s the gig? Halloween weekend — 31st Oct, 1st Nov, 2nd Nov — the nation tuning in, eyes wide, hearts hungry for blood and a slow, tortuous kill. It’ll be live, it’ll be raw, it’ll be the Vale stripped bare, maybe. The Cup loves a tragedy. The Cup loves a joke. The Cup loves to rub your nose in the dirt and whisper, “This is football, where the gods die screaming.”

We’ve been here before. Enfield – a childhood memory which scarred for life, the night terrors never ever leaving. Chasetown. Kings Lynn. Canvey Island. Names that echo like broken chords in the Vale songbook. Names that humiliate. Names that make you want to run until you reach the nowhere that feels like home. We wear our shame like a badge, like a bruise that teaches. We don’t always rise, but when we fall, we fall with meaning. We fall with style. We fall with grace.

Of course, it may be a breeze. We could take the game by the scruff of the neck and shake it into submission. A show of brutality. The players channelling something ancient, something holy and unhinged into the game. Prophets in white and black, scribbling gospel into the grass with studs and sweat. Maybe the Hamil roars like a freight train and the ball starts obeying strange laws, bending to will and fury. Anything can happen in the FA Cup.

But that’s not all, more news – something fresh, something big. There’s movement in the dressing room. The wing-back battalion has taken hits, one-by-one, like soldiers falling in a slow-motion reel. Darren Moore, cool-headed and clear-eyed, puts the call out into the football ether. And who answers?

Marvin Johnson. “Hank” to the heads who know.

Born in Brum, raised on grit and graft. A journeyman with boots worn thin from miles across the football map — Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough, Oxford United, Motherwell. And yes, Romulus. That Midland League outfit tucked away in Sutton Coldfield, vintage ’79. A club with echoes of post-punk and new wave, three chords and a pint of Snakebite. You can almost hear the bassline.

Johnson arrives on a short-term deal. MIA since the summer and ring-rusty for sure. A mercenary? Maybe. But there’s poetry in that — a man on a mission, stepping into the Vale fold with experience etched into every pass, every run down the flank. He’s not here to make up the numbers. He’s here to make noise.

Will he stay? Will he dig the rhythm of Vale Park, the hum of the terraces, the pulse of Burslem on a matchday? Who knows, man. Who knows.

But for now, he’s in the squad. The beat goes on.