By PADDY SHENNAN
ECHO Writer

THEY may not command the same attention (or pay packets) as their wealthy neighbours, but Rugby Union minnows Hoylake are enjoying their own sporting fairy tale.

While Liverpool's footballers look forward to the FA Cup Final and the Rugby League stars of St Helens prepare to do battle in the Challenge Cup Final, the Hoylake hotshots are dreaming at glory at Twickenham this Saturday.

The amateur club, whose "pay to p1ay" members fork out £25 per season and contribute to a kitty to cover the washing of their kit, take on North Yorkshire club Malton and Norton In the Tetley Vase final. And the boys in green, red and white, who include university students, a solicitor, marine biologist. forest ranger. leisure centre manager and three firefighters, will be keeping things in the family.

The first team is captained by Paul Kay, whose dad, Gordon, is the club Chairman. Brothers Richie and Mike Young and twin brothers Ben and Jay Baldock are all first-team squad members. And Richie and Mike's 14-year-old brother, Stephen, is a first-team assistant, while Dan and Jay's dad, Pete, runs a junior team. Another player, meanwhile, is Rob Kurton, whose dad, Jack, is club President. And if that isn't enough, Andrew Fielding is another first teamer with a family connection - his dad John, runs one of Hoylake's Junior teams.

"As you can see, it's a really family club! " says Gordon Kay. But the whole club, which was founded in 1922, is gearing up for the biggest day in its history. Gordon adds "it is fairytale stuff. Someone asked our Presiden, Jack Kurton, 'Is this what you've always dreamed of!' No! Because we would never even have dreamt of going to Twickenham.'"

Cynics may scoff and say that the 72,000-capacity home of Rugby Union will be far from full on the day, but everything is relative… Gordon explains: "We joke about our stand - it's a bench which three people can sit on but we have had games when we really have just been watched two or three people. More than 1,000 watched our semi-final win over Tewkesbury and there could be a crowd of up to 5,000 at Twickenham."

"You'll certainly be able to see a few empty seats in the stadium! But it'll still be by far the biggest crowd we've played in front of. It's been pointed out that 99.99% of Rugby Union players never get the chance to step out at Twickenham and so the lads are determined to enjoy it". "If it was football, it'd be like a Sunday League team getting to Wembley (or the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff)."

But, he stresses, it's been no overnight success story. "This is the culmination of a lot of work that has been done at the club, including the setting up of the junior section 20 years ago." The vast majority of today's team squad began in one of the junior teams (from under-sevens through to under019s), going away to university and then returning to live and work in the area - and play for the Hoylake first team.

Which is exactly what happened with skipper Paul Kay, 23, a firefighter it Birkenhead station. He says: "I started playing here when I was eight and 90% of the first-team squad will have been here since they were children. It's different to most clubs - there's some sort of magic about the place. "I've played for Fylde and New Brighton, but I always wanted to come back to Hoylake. We are all friends as well as well as team-mates." Paul has actually played at Twickenham before - in front of more than 60,000 people as a 17 - year old, when he represented Cheshire Colts against Lancashire Colts in a curtain-raiser to an England-Scotland game. "We won that game and it was a superb experience, but I'd rather play there with Hoylake - It will mean a lot more. On that day, I was playing with a lot of people I didn't know - this is the one I'm really looking forward to."

The lads will he travelling down on Friday to stay at a top hotel and will begin taking in the grandeur of Rugby Union's showpiece stadium on Saturday morning. Win, lose, or draw, they'll stay in London for a second night to toast their Twickenham experience. And they're sure to return as heroes, whatever the result. Paul explains: "The atmosphere around the club is electric. When we walk into the pub we're treated like stars."

Hopefully for Hoylake, the families that play Rugby Union together will be the families celebrating a famous cup success together.

Liverpool Echo 16th April 2001.