Where have all the Cup heroes gone?

. . . "Hail the Cyberman" - as author of the Cup's most preposterous tale.

Unemployed nomadic Irish-Ghanaian striker, last spotted in some Finnish hinterland, gets signed via teletext and the internet after bizarre SOS by second division strugglers, heads last-minute goal to knockout Premiership Leicester and earns semi-final with Liverpool. You cannot be serious.

Roy Hattersley wrote a love letter about him in the Daily Mail. Papers interviewed his mum. Fantastic.

It couldn't last and it didn't. Wycombe lost and limped to League safety and Essandoh couldn't make the grade.

Still, as a 'have boots, will travel' journeyman, he never really did believe he was Michael Owen.

"Great fun while it lasted, an experience I'll never forget," he shrugged. "Hopefully, it will help me find another club."

Ironic in Cup final week, though, that he shouldn't be the only giant slayer to find himself suddenly out of work.

Remember Colin Addison steering Yeovil past their 20th League victims Blackpool? He quit in a huff at the weekend after they'd blown their Conference title hopes.

Sadder still on Wednesday, little Kingstonian and big Geoff Chapple got divorced.

Surely not. In January, a fellow K's official said reverentially that here was "non-league's Alex Ferguson" after Chapple had toppled his seventh League outfit, Southend.

In February, K's fans went further. God, they called this onetime insurance salesman - though God actually turned out to be a Bristol City fan, offering them 93rd minute salvation from humiliation in the fourth round.

But Chapple was fallible after all. Back on the Conference treadmill with relegation threatening, he lost his touch. K's fired coach Ian McDonald, who left raging about Chapple not doing his job properly. Still, the team remained awful, winless in their last 13 league games. They got relegated at Chester, watched by 26 forlorn travelling fans.

"It's been all very sad," conceded chairman, Alan Kingston. He tries to be positive, talking of their smart redeveloped stadium, a keen new coach, Steve Sedgley, and no financial alarms. Yet he doesn't even know what League they'll be playing in next year - the Doc Martens or the Ryman.

"After the Cup run, it was like some bad dream that you think you must wake up from," Kingston sighed.

Unfortunately, he still hadn't when their season ended with a penalty shoot-out defeat by Chester in the Nationwide Variety Club Cup final last Monday. They had a bloke sent off too. "Summed it all up," he groaned.

Still, Cup heroics couldn't save more celebrated names than Chapple. John Aldridge oversaw Tranmere's miraculous 4-3 comeback win over Southampton but resigned as they subsequently plummeted towards relegation.

Look at George Graham's reward for taking Spurs to the semis, or Harry Redknapp's after orchestrating the most universally adored upset, West Ham's at Old Trafford.

Was their some sort of Cup curse at work here? Not elsewhere down Essex way. The Half-way Line Posse, Dagenham's hardcore supporters who got joined by thousands of bandwagon jumpers when Garry Hill's boys almost put paid to Charlton, watched the Daggers surge to third place in the Conference once the terraces emptied again.

And so to the really good news. The last time I'd seen Canvey Island's substantial manager Jeff King, he reckoned he felt like David Beckham - even if he didn't quite look like him - swamped by all the hoopla after his Ryman League boys had beaten Port Vale and were preparing for the epic Essex Riviera derby with Southend. Where were the whelk stalls, TV reporters asked him breathlessly.

He thought it couldn't get any barmier but it did.

Canvey's subsequent title and FA Trophy chase led to an insane fixture log-jam. Last Saturday, they completed their League programme after 14 games in 20 days, including eight in the final nine. Astoundingly, they lost just three.

"We'd get in the car almost every night for another trip on the M25, think 'here we go again' and burst out laughing," chuckled King.

If it was Tuesday, it must be Hitchin Town . . . or, er, was it Enfield . . . or Croydon? King did his best to rest and rotate players but inevitably they all ended up like "walking wounded". Yet nobody gave a Houllier bleat, not even postman Mick Bodley, who'd be up at 4.30am for his round and back at midnight after a game every day.

Nor teacher Steve Ward, famed as the column-writing "ginger sex god" during the Cup run - for reasons still thankfully unclear.

Something had to give, so they pulled out of the Essex Senior Cup final at the last minute against, yes, Dagenham - who were not amused. It cost them a £200 fine.

Yet, after missing out on the League title, Canvey will hopefully get their deserved reward in their 72nd match of an amazing season at Villa Park on Sunday.

If they beat Forest Green, they'll be the first team for 20 years from below the Conference to win the FA Trophy.

And if King is worried that his worn-out strikers might still not be able to walk properly let alone play, there's this bloke called Roy who's looking for a game...