Julio Arca has just made his debut for Sunderland Sunday League second division outfit Willow Pond.
There is a cruel open goal of a punchline in there about him finally finding his level with a Mackem pub side.
But there is a warm, life affirming element to the story too.
A millionaire former Premier League side - a foreigner to boot - has become embedded in the local community and committed himself to that most noble of English institutions, Sunday morning parks football.
The Argentine schemer and notorious drag-back merchant could have cashed in his chips and jetted back home with a huge bag of money.
Instead, come Sunday, he will be doing what thousands of us have done over the years, waited in a pub car park for a lift to some windswept wasteland with rusted goal-posts and changies that wouldn’t be allowed in a concentration camp then get kicked to bits on a rutted pitch. Then going for a light-hearted beery debrief with the lads.
Arca, now 33 and retired after a broken toe that kept him out for most of his last year at Boro led to arthritis, is playing for the love of the game. That is really refreshing.
“I enjoyed it,” said the former Boro skipper, after pulling the strings in central midfield as his new side hit from behind to draw 2-2 against Hylton Road Carpets.
“It will take me a little while to get into it. The lads will also need a little time to get used to the way I play.”
Arca played at Sunderland for six years and at Boro for seven. He started 155 games for Boro, came off the bench 36 times and scored nine goals.
View gallery But he has lived in Ashbrooke with his wife Valeria and two boys Mateo and Franco through his stay in the UK and now is very much a local and naturalised Mackem.
“My routine changed a great deal when I stopped,” he said. “Playing professionally is not something you forget in one day. I miss it.
“The lads asked me a couple of years ago if I would play for them when I retired and I always said I would.
“Playing is great for me, it gets me out of the house. And I also enjoy a couple of drinks with the lads after the match.”
Arca has made what is now a very unusual transition from top level pro football to Sunday League - but one that used to be commonplace.
Now when you hear of a “former Boro player” turning out in the Teesborough League it is a young lad who never made the grade or maybe sat on the bench once.
Possibly in an early round of the League Cup.
The last “next big thing” Nathan Porritt went from a controversial attempted TV tap up and mooted £250,000 move to Chelsea or Liverpool to playing for the Lingfield in the Langbaurgh League.
And there are dozens of others who left the Rockliffe Academy at the age of 16 or 17 or never made it beyond their first pro deal now turning out for Saturday and Sunday teams across Teesside.
But there was a time not so long ago when local football was peppered with newly retired Holgate heroes with a lot of games under their belt and real cultural cachet.
When you heard the opposition had “a former Boro player” in their ranks you got excited because it was likely to be someone you had paid to watch, a star who you had cheered. Or jeered.
The likes of Ian Gibson, Gordon Jones, Terry Cochrane, David Mills, Mick Angus, Archie Stephens, Bernie Slaven, Craig Hignett and Curtis Fleming all turned out first in the Northern League then in local Sunday set-ups.
Some still pop up playing five-aside at Goals.
I’ve played with or against a lot of those at one time or another and even in a casual knockabout they are still lightyears ahead of everyone else of the pitch.
They have brilliant control, see the next pass but one and it is impossible to get the ball off them. And they are utterly ruthless, hard as nails and fixated on winning.
And you can see why a Sunday side would want one of them playing, even if only in the bigger games. They could rip up the League and North Riding Sunday County Cup glory beckoned.
Of course, things were different before the Sky money started to bloat the game and make ordinary players millionaires.
There was a time when even reasonably successful players retired and had to work to pay the bills. And football helped.
There were no palatial mansions, no property portfolio in Dubai, no stocks and shares funded by huge wages and accumulated signing on fees.
Our heroes would leave Boro, wind down with a season or two at Darlington or Hartlepool and then pop up at a non-league ground near you.
And former Boro fringe players who had made a solid career in lower divisions who smoothly slip into non-league football: Bobby Scaife, Charlie Bell, Mitch Cook... and many, many more as it says on the compilation albums.
And they would still be fighting fit, fiercely competitive and with a silky touch that stood out as they dominated games.
Then the differential between playing for the Quakers say and a top Northern League side was very small.
And recently retired players didn’t necessary have the money in the bank to be able to pick and choose where they would start their new life.
Many had bought houses in Teesside and had kids in school and had roots in the area so simply stayed and got on with their lives, almost like normal mortals.
But they at least had the skills and drive to start a nice sideline.
At Darlington in the 80s players earned maybe £400 a week. They could get £100 a game at Bishop Auckland or Whitby or Synners... and get a well paid nine-to-five too.
So it wasn’t a massive financial dislocation (or culture shock) that stepping down from earning £20,000 a week to playing away at Grangetown Boys Club for £50 would be.
Then the step down to local football was a handy decompression chamber as players adjusted to life outside the bubble.
And it was a handy bit of pocket-money too.
Even the top Sunday sides - big social clubs with a healthy budget or local firms ready to back their works’ team - might slip them £50 for making the difference.
That kind of money is just enough to light a cigar with these days.
That won’t happen again. Players now are rarely part of their community. So many in the upper divisions are foreign who will when they retire will return home and never been seen on their patch again.
Even in the domestic game there is so much social mobility that players have few roots and even the ones who profess to love the area rarely stay round these days.
You can’t see too many of the current pampered top flight footballers going down that route after the game.
The media, the golf circuit or property management yes, North Ormesby Cons v the Steelies, no.
So good luck to Julio. Who knows, Willow Pond may get drawn against a Billingham or Stockton side in the Durham Sunday Challenge Cup.
We may yet see his silky circular skills gracing Teesside once again.
