As I’ve been away I only caught up with the news of the demotion of East Stirlingshire from the SPFL late yesterday.

61 years in the SFL/SPFL gone in a flash. It’s sad for them but they’ve been living on fumes for seasons on end now. It was always most likely that it would be the Shire that would be the first to fall victim to the play-off system.

Congratulations, though, to Edinburgh City. The role of third (or fourth) largest football side in Edinburgh has been taken in the past by St Bernard’s (defunct since World War 2) and Leith Athletic (demised 1955, reconstituted 1996 and as a senior team in 2008.) As those statistics suggest, surviving in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs is not easy.

Then there is the case of Meadowbank Thistle (Ferranti Thistle as was) admitted to the Scottish Football League in 1974 but weren’t satisfied with the sizes of crowds they were attracting in the capital and decamped to Livingston in 1995.

Speaking of Hibs, I see they managed to muck things up again. Hibsing it indeed. Then again they’ll probably win the Cup Final now and so put to an end the longest running “will this be the year” saga in Scottish football.

Leicester City’s fairy tale first top level title made the news in The Netherlands – as elsewhere I suspect. There was a newspaper article there about the length of time previous winners of their country’s football championship had been waiting to win it again. Schalke 04 topped the list at well over 20,000 days with Tottenham Hotspur second (also over 20,000 days.) Liverpool were about eighth on the list. I can just about make out some Dutch but a list is no problem.

I also divined from a radio report on the way back up that Roberto Martinez had lost the Everton job, paying the price for not getting enough out of a talented group of players. (An alternative possibility is that those players aren’t quite as good as their reputations would have them.)

And then there was the Scottish Parliament election, where the SNP paid the price of winning too many constituency seats and Labour actually did come second in the percentage vote in that element but not in the regional lists. We had voted by post before we left.

A magnificent achievement by Wigan Athletic to win the FA Cup yesterday. A place in Europe to boot.

One more illustration of the unpredictability of football – and the romance of the FA Cup.

Wigan join a long list of Lancashire clubs (including Blackburn Olympic, the first to do so) to win the trophy. Congratulations to the Latics.

Given that Wigan were playing Moneybags United (sorry; Moneybags City*) they ought not to have had a prayer. Yet it’s there in the record books for ever now. And manager Roberto Martinez has won one more major trophy than new Manchester United boss David Moyes. It’s a funny old world.

Not least that, come Tuesday night, Wigan could be relegated.

There was another unlikely event involving teams named Athletic on Saturday. In the SFL Div 2 play-offs Dunfermline of that ilk eventually beat Forfar Athletic on aggregate over two games and extra time.

Yet by that extra time Forfar were down to eight men, thus giving Dunfermline an overwhelming advantage. I was listening to the radio reports coming in from the game. Forfar had taken the lead (4-1 on aggregate) and it struck me that with the one man down they were at the time, extra time was the most likely outcome. Given that Dunfermline were at home even that one man advantage would probably mean they would go on to win.

But how fair is it that Forfar would have to play extra time with a disadvantage in numbers? A football game lasts only 90 mins. In effect extra time is a new game, why should the sending-off extend into the 30 minute extension? I had an idle thought. Should not both teams be allowed to have a full complement of numbers for the extra period? (Unless there are further sendings-off, of course.)

When I discovered that Forfar were down to only eight players for extra time I knew it was curtains for them. But had they thought of it there was a way out. A way which goes against the spirit of the game – but so does any sending off really.

I believe there is a provision in the laws of football that should a team have fewer than eight men the game must be abandoned. I remember Neil Warnock, when he was manager of Sheffield United I think, – in exactly that situation of eight men remaining – encouraging his players to get themselves sent off to ensure an abandonment. Full marks to Forfar for not going down that road.

Dunfermline will be playing yet another Athletic – Alloa – in the play-off final.

*Wigan’s owner Dave Whelan is not short of a bob himself but the scale is a little different.