BILLERICAY might not be the kind of town you would normally associate with soccer fever.

In fact, you'd be forgiven for assuming the average resident would rather study the FTSE100 index than Saturday night's soccer results - even after tomorrow's once-in-a-lifetime FA Cup game against Swansea.

But three times in the Seventies, the town's football club had Billericay completely immersed in football fervour.

For that was when the New Lodge club - then playing at a lowly county league level - captured the national FA Vase trophy three times in four years.

What made the occasions so special was that each time the final was held at the home of football - Wembley Stadium. The first time saw Billericay residents make their way to the twin towers in their thousands - and I, as a young sports writer on the Basildon Recorder, was proud to be among them.

Billericay beat Lincoln side Stamford 1-0 and were treated to a regal return the next day, when tens of thousands forsook their usual Sunday morning trip to the garden centre to turn out in their tens of thousands to cheer on the team's open-top bus-ride. In 1977 it was slightly different. The first final at Wembley was drawn.

The super-fit Billericay players won a set of floodlights for the club, in a special competition at Crystal Palace, the following day. They won the Vase replay against Sheffield at Nottingham Forest's home the following Thursday.

After a break to give the Billericay residents time to restock their champagne cellars, the Vase excitement was back on in 1979.

By now, I'd been elevated to a full-time sports writing post with the Echo and I was privileged to be invited to join the team as they made the journey to Wembley for the big match with West Country side Almondsbury Greenway.

I think it was Town's finest hour.

Doug Young, their main striker, achieved soccer immortality by becoming the first player to score a Wembley hat-trick since Geoff Hurst's 1966 World Cup trio against the Germans in the final. Town won 4-1.

And, travelling with the Billericay party, I enjoyed the experience of excited fans, thinking I was a player, requesting an autograph from me. Well I was younger then. The scenes in the High Street again the next morning bordered on the delirious as more than 10,000 turned out for the open top bus celebration.

But if Billericay can produce the shock of the round tomorrow and do the impossible - stop Welshmen singing - by beating Football League Swansea, those heady years of the Seventies might be thrown even further back in time.