Off, then, to the British Speedway Grand Prix. Hurrah. A sport that's noisy, unashamedly proletarian and full of Poles. It's hot. Really, really hot, which has all sorts of implications for you know who, who's you know what, but, hey, life is full of implications.
The M25 is at a standstill at the A1 as they've imposed yet more savage 50mph limits. It's a speed slow enough to conform that there are no workers on these roadworks. Great. I take a diversion via Borehamwood and Watford, but that's blocked too.
My back's sticky, even though I'd hit upon the clever rouse of driving to Cardiff wearing shorts and changing into something marginally more dignified just before I arrive. Alas I forget to pack some shoes. For the dignified look, I plump for long trousers and sandals. It's what Jesus would have done. If he'd been covering the speedway.
Everything's a little bit haphazard. The man at the press gate tells me I'm late (I'm an hour early after some catching up after the M25 and that dual carriageway into Wales not being too disastrous, but thanks anyway) and when I stumble into the media area, I'm not on the hacklist.
"How did you get here?" asks another Welshman.
"M4," I trill.
This causes much hilarity, for he had wanted to know how I'd evaded the man at the gate, presumably with a view to shooting someone. I despair. A woman gives me a pass. They're all very nice about it, but not only are there places to spare in the press box, there's an awful lot of people not actually working. This may sound bitchy, but I really don't want someone putting pints of beer next to my laptop and standing up and cheering when the going gets thrilling, as it invariably does. Who are these people? Where are they from? What do they want?
I suspect 21st Century British speedway might have peaked when Chris "Bomber" Harris won in 2007. He hasn't won a Grand Prix since, but he's still the best local hope, since Tai Woffinden is just a kid and so-called wild card Scott Nicholls isn't remotely the contender he once was. Last year they had an endless supply of energy drinks. This year they don't. They don't have milk for the tea/coffee either and the attendance is down since someone moronically arranged British - indeed European - speedway's biggest day on the same weekend as the British Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Call me not understanding things properly, but I'd have switched Cardiff with, say, the Swedish Grand Prix on August 14 in Malilla (no idea I'm afraid) where the capacity is just 15,000 or the 4000-capacity Terenzano circuit, somewhere in Italy, some time in September.
The noise - air horns, vuvuzelas, unsilenced bikes, the Millennium Stadium's ghastly PA and shouty Poles - is overpowering. I wear earplugs. The racing is fantastic. Jason Crump and the Poles Jaroslaw Hampel and Tomasz Gollob seem streets ahead, but when Gollob's bike lets him down in the semi, the Australian Chris Holder surprises even himself by winning his first Grand Prix in his first season after a dramatic Grande Final.
Afterwards, it's a sort of chaos. The riders are jolly enough, but they're asked questions by a speedway official rather than the hacks. Worse, since so many so-called writers use the moment to get stuff signed and take photographs, it's more like a meet'n'greet. Still, you can't imagine, say, Glen Johnson posing with a berk in a baseball cap with the grace displayed by Holder and the more experienced Jason Crump.
I change back into shorts for the night ride home. There's only one traffic jam to negotiate.

Playlist
Sparks - Hello Young Lovers
I've long under-estimated this one. Perhaps it was the awful cover or Perfume, the least interesting Sparks single in decades. I wasn't ;listening properly. It's Lil Beethoven but better.

Off, then, to Aldershot. The season may end here, it may not. And if it does, no I didn't think it would end in Aldershot, but, hey, it could be much, much worse and it still might be. There is much to consider and the conditions are cramped in which to consider it.
I haven't been to the, ahem, EBB Stadium in years, unless going to see Chelsea reserves on one of my more misguided missions counts. In fact I haven't been since it was the Recreation Ground (which it sort of still is, but I'm confusing myself here). And it's not really suitable for league football.
This means there's no seat for both me and a host of Sunday hacks in the hackbox (there are sandwiches; no thanks). In turn this means we have to sit amongst the fans in ordinary seats. Yes, I know, your heart is bleeding and I should really telephone for an ambulance, but much as I don't mind some banter, it's hard to operate a laptop in a plastic top-up seat build for children. That's all. Luckily the kindly people in front don't stand up, but there's no power.
Again I don't really mind. I know it's not Helmand, but it's quite inconvenient Still, we soldier on, bringing the words to the people. The Aldershot people are friendly, helpful and apologetic enough and that they normally get closer to six than 60 means they shouldn't waste precious space on hacks. At half-time they bring cups of tea waitress-style (and I didn't get that at Old Trafford last week) and anyway what did I expect? It's Aldershot and I've never covered a game from here before (except Chelsea reserves, blah blah blah) for a reason.
All things considered, the club are doing OK. Before your could say Spencer Treworthy, they'd crashed out of the league, re-formed as Aldershot Town, began at the near-bottom in whatever the Isthmian League Division 3 is and survived such nonsense as Gary Waddock defecting mid-season to Wycombe Wanderers, who promptly went down thus proving that karma may actually exist. They scraped into the play-offs, but so what? It's been a good season and next year should be better still. And judging from the tone in the programme I'm not sure they feel they;re ready for promotion this year.
Some of the nice people are here: Greg from the NOTW, Ralph from I forget where and a couple more. There's a bit of moaning about the facilities, but everyone knuckles down. Aldershot are playing Rotherham United (heaven knows where the report is) who I've got an enormous soft spot for. And for a play-off, the game isn't bad at all. Rotherham have more quality and greater belief, perhaps because the play-offs was the least they expected and, in Kevin Ellison they have a Nosferatu-esque pantomime villain for the crowd to harangue (in fairness to their baying there is one especially nasty elbow on the referee's blind side).
It all seems to be petering out to a 0-0 when Aaron Brown misplaces a backpass, Adam Le Fondre nips and nature takes its course. What is shocking is how few Rotherham fans have travelled. There's something wrong here; they just haven't turned up at their biggest away game of the season and there's space to spare on the tiny away corner. Live TV? Hard times? The silly cup final? I don't know, but I do know they're not here.
Afterwards, it's scrummage time as we hacks gather round the managers. Ronnie Moore is his usual self - cocky, but a good cocky - and Aldershot's Kevin Dillon is similarly upbeat.
Afterwards, I walk out towards the army base near where my hackmobile is parked. It'll be a while before I'm back. The again, I thought the same thing about Old Trafford last week.

Playlist

Sisters Of Mercy
This Corrosion
Jim Steiman and Andrew Eldritch. They said it couldn't last and they were right, but this is obviously a work of genius. Gimme the ring, indeed.

Off, then, to Birmingham, for what feels like the first time this season. I'm not myself. There's stuff afoot, but more immediately Miss C, the tiny one and the unborn are marooned by the volcanic ash cloud and while my first week of bachelordom was fun, the novelty is wearing off. They have a flight booked next weekend, but we'll see. If it counts as a compensation, me and the furry one have become closer still, but the moment I leave he howls the place down. There has already been one domestic accident I don't think I can lie my way through. Others will surely follow.
And, much as I can look after myself, I arrive at St Andrew's without a power cable (not as bad as the time I arrived at St Andrew's without a laptop, but that was an especially bad day). Worse, I'd been beavering away at home on it before I left and hadn't bothered to plug in, thus leaving about 28 seconds of battery time. Copytakers ahoy. Do they still have copytakers?
I never find out. Enter Tom Hopkinson from The People. He has the same make of laptop as me and he shares without making me feel like the buffoon I so obviously am. Bless him, bless him. I'd have done the same for him of course, but that's not the point: he did.
All this stress would usually have made me hungry. One look at the food - some kind of meat in some kind of fatty gloop - and my appetite goes. I settle on a cup of weak tea. Still, everybody's quite friendly. Upstairs, they must have run the press box like this - free-for-all seating; access via a set of stairs even the moderately fat could not ooze through - when Gil Merrick was a lad. Yet, the view's OK (assuming nobody hoofs it high; which is always a legitimate fear when Steven Mouyokolo gets a game), the replays are quite good and the desks are ample. Which is a word you don't use at Tottenham.
After all that, I'm sat with Janine from The Sun. Since her laptop has five hours worth of battery power she doesn't need something as 20th Century as a lead. I think we can see the problem here. The game is an odd affair. Birmingham City's season is over, but in a good way, while Hull City's is slipping into slipping away. Hull are their own worst enemies. Ian Dowie has strait-jacketed them with an overly rigid formation which fills their play with fear rather than confidence and when he introduces Jozy Altidere, he removes Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, meaning they must attempt the great heave to three points with only one forward. And Jimmy Bullard isn't what he was, although he's still Hull's best midfielder by however long a country mile is.
Afterwards, Alex McLeish re-iterates what a great season Birmingham have had, while Dowie reckons he's pleased with a point with the confidence of someone who hasn't looked at the league table recently. But guess what? They may even survive.
Then I hope I thank Tom enough and swan off home. The M1's closed, which at least means the furry one is even more tail-waggingly pleased to see me when I arrive. A meal for one, then.

Playlist
Sparks
Propaganda
It's not even their best album - not by a long chalk - but it's wonderful and Bon Voyage remains my favourite ever song about Noah's Ark written from the point of view of those left behind. The new Usher album has its moments too.

Off, then, to Doncaster's Keepmoat Stadium for the first time ever. The newness dulls the pain. As a kid, I used to love going to Belle Vue, especially for night games. It was a horrible, decrepit place worth revelling in and one which encapsulated a football that's gone forever now. Last time I went, they boiled a kettle for my tea. Away teams must have hated their visits and I'll bet the showers were neither power nor warm.
Encapsulating a football that's here forever now, the Keepmoat is on an industrial estate on the edge of town, but the man I hand over my parking five to says "have a lovely afternoon, sir" which brings a little warm glow to my heart. As I must at a new ground, I walk around. Disgracefully, there's no moat (Why aren't I in urban planning? Why, Lord?), but there is a small club shop where Chairman John Ryan is late for a book signing - couldn't somebody would write a book on the Ken Richardson years and, while we're at it, what did happen to Mark Weaver? - and a wall of gibberish where some bricks say "Donny for life" etc etc.
Alan Green's chum Mark Clemmit is doing his shtick outside. He's too puppy-dog annoying and too inane for some tastes, but I'm rather taken with his all-smiling 'can-do', camp northern approach. He's here because if West Bromwich Albion win, they're up, hence an atmosphere some might call "carnival" but not me because it isn't.
The hackbox is perfectly fine, although the hackfood - a sort of flavoured pork pie and a ghastly cream bun - isn't, but in front of me a smiling man has stocked up with biscuits and he goes around the hackbox offering some to all. Another warm glow. I like it here, even if the wi-fi eludes me.
The game is a delight, end to end stuff, the outstanding Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and more goals than I've got fingers on one hand (assuming we accept the notion that a thumb isn't a finger; contentious stuff I know) and at the end Albion are hanging on like Harold Lloyd.
Afterwards, we're told that Doncaster manager Sean O'Driscoll doesn't like people moving during press conferences, which means I won't be doing my customary press-conference aerobics. What a fascinating man he is and what did happen with him and Burnley? In his programme notes he said he'd popped down to Plymouth to see a midweek game and check on their next opponents, Argyle, who promptly won at the Keepmoat. Assuming there's no other reason for such an expedition, that's astonishing dedication for a end-of-season game, although it can't have helped that he must have missed some training. Talking to him is like talking to Lou Reed: that's something I've never thought about a football manager before.
Understandably, Roberto Di Matteo takes ages, doesn't say much other than when I ask him if he'd ever thought his team wouldn't make it and he says no. Mark Clemmit decides - unprompted - to butt in. He doesn't seem to notice the hacks scowling at him. I do like a thick skin. Wish mine was thicker.
It's still sunny when I leave. Is reverse seasonal affective disorder a registered condition? It bloody well should be.

Playlist
John Holt
Ali Baba
Much as he didn't seem to like me ("you ask questions like a cunt"), I quite liked Paul Weller. And much as his solo work is hard going sometimes and his taste is often questionable, he has his moments and he loves this. Magically sung by one of reggae's finest voices, an unforgettable chorus and a big bass throb. Yes please.

Off, then, to Bolton for what seems to be the first time this season. That's OK, I guess. It's an odd, unsettling journey up there and, as is usually the case going to Bolton, I think of my fallen comrade John Bauldie. This time, though, my defences are down and it's especially acute, especially when the Reebok appears like magic as I head up the M61. Daft as it sounds, it's a little like Manhattan when you saunter in from JFK, but, lest we forget, a visit to Manhattan doesn't involve wondering why Johan Elmander gets a game. Anyway, I wish John could have seen the Reebok, I wish he'd been able to go to Europe with Bolton, I wish he'd been able to point out the flaws in my reporting, I wish I'd been able to say goodbye (but not as much as I wish I hadn't had to) and I wish he could run his David Ackles theory past me one more time. I know life isn't meant to be fair, but surely it isn't meant to be that unfair.
Thinking of John makes me think too of the last time I did Bolton and Aston Villa here. I came home and did something I thought was ever so brave. It wasn't. It was wrong-headed and cowardly and that I paid for it - and that things turned out remarkably well after I'd stopped paying - is neither here nor here.
That said, it was a fine day from the moment Ryan of the MOS tapped on my window in the car park and caught me reading Simone de Beauvoir's essay on Sade (the Marquis, rather than the chanteuse) which would have pretentious were it not genuine. He's got a surreal - sadly unrepeatable for all sorts of reasons - tale to tell and we watch the Villa team skip off their coach (Hallmark but not their absolute top range I fear) to loud encomium from the Villa fans who haven't found themselves a pub (there's a reason for that in Horwich; perhaps it's a Quaker suburb).
Inside, the pies are OK - far better than the over-rated ones at Wigan - the mushy peas excellent. There's even a sighting of Clavane of the SM and I get to sit next to the ever amiable Baxter of the MEN.
The game isn't exactly attention-grabbing. Bolton are awful, but Villa are livelier than of late.. Even so, I have too few words to really paint the pictures in my head, but no matter there's still art to be gleaned.
Afterwards, Martin O'Neill is more circumspect than he was at Chelsea, but he's had a peculiar week of blowing his own trumpet, something he's usually too smart to do. Owen Coyle is cagey too and he denies my suggestion that they played like they knew they were safe. We both agree they're not safe now, but surely Bolton won't fall. I'm just not sure where Villa are going at all. I don't think anyone is right now.
Afterwards I offer Clavane of the SM a lift south. I put him right on some things; he puts me right on others. Not such a bad day after all, then.


Playlist
Roxette
Hits! A Collection Of Their 20 Greatest Songs
Go on. Laugh all you like. I don't care. They're not absolutely top drawer, but Sleeping In My Car, Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave) and Milk And Toast And Honey came close.

Off, then, to Chelsea for the first time this season. Always a good thing. Outside there's ticket touts aplenty and they're dealing on Fulham Broadway itself as what seems like half the Met saunters by doing precisely nothing. They really don't care about this. Neither do I.
I know ticket touts are not especially nice people, but all that nonsense about them preying on real fans is nonsense. Aston Villa haven't brought enough supporters to fill their section and if a Chelsea fan cannot rouse themselves to being one of the first 40,000 to get a ticket for today after the fixture list was announced last summer, then they shouldn't moan about paying double while the teams are warming up. Touts are not doing a public service as such and, yes, low level crime leads to the serious stuff, and by buying tickets themselves they're probably preventing someone somewhere from getting a ticket. But the value of the tickets they acquire can go up as well as down.
Anyway, let's talk syphilis. Outside I'm accosted by a man offering a free health check. He has what looks to me like NHS identification (yeah, like I know...) and the van he's trying to direct me to has an NHS logo, so it must be genuine. And it's seemingly free and I don't have to sign up for "updates" on anything.
Apparently men like going to football, but don't like having health checks. I like both and everyone in the caravan is very friendly. What's not to like? A very helpful man called Lee takes my blood pressure (normal; hurrah), weighs me, invites me to offer a urine specimen and takes some blood so we can discover if I have syphilis, gonorrhoea or am HIV. They’ll pop the results over via mobile.
When did I last have sex? Did it include anal and/or oral? Have I ever had sex with a man? Have I ever had sex with someone from sub-Saharan Africa? Have I ever injected drugs? Presumably Lee was asking these questions for professional reasons, but it was nice to share with him nevertheless. I once told everything to a woman on a flight from LAX to Heathrow. Everything. I can still see her face.
Syphilis is the interesting one. It used to kill by the millions, and it can still be fatal. It’s a three-stager. Stages one and two come, cause their pain and go, leaving the blighted to assume all’s well. However, stage three - tertiary syphilis - is a friend for life and it can re-appear decades later, having caused violent mood swings and gradual brain degeneration along the way. Then it probably kills you, just like it did Al Capone. I await my text with interest.
Anyway, actually having the health check made me feel better. Before I go in, I’m ordered to wave my fetching bag at a dog by a security guard. I suspect there are legal implications to this, but I’m not in a mood to kick up a stink. The dog seems happy. I wonder if said dog was sniffing for drugs or dynamite. Next time I’ll bring one or the other to discover the answer to that sweet little mystery.
The hackroom is full of nice people (someone who’s ignored me for a decade does actually know my name it transpires) and nice food: braised chicken in what food critics refer to as a yum-yum sauce, manly tea, in-no-way slimming gateaux and cheese and biscuits. There’s no point complaining because there’s nothing to complain about.
The match itself is everything you’d want and more. A fairly even first half followed by a fabulous attacking display from Chelsea - imagine Arsenal, but without the weak links - in the second. It was a pleasure to watch and at 5-15 I’m given another 200 words to keep me on my toes. Annoyingly Carlo Ancelotti doesn’t turn up afterwards, but Ray Wilkins does, which means nothing interesting for the tabloids. Martin O’Neill, though, seems genuinely upset at his team’s unusually supine showing and when he says his team wouldn’t finish 44th - let alone fourth - on that showing the tabloids (and, er, me) have the quote they want.
There are no touts outside. There never are afterwards.

Playlist: Minnie Riperton
Les Fleur
Best knowing for the fabulous Loving You, for being forever incorrectly named Ripperton and for dying of breast cancer at a shockingly young 31, Minnie Riperton’s 1970 debut album Come To My Garden was her masterpiece and Les Fleur was its work of wonder. The choral chorus seems to have come from another planet. Perhaps it did.

Off, then, to Stoke yet again. The car doesn't know to drive itself there. That's because cars aren't sentient beings. I don't mind, but I know it's going to be one of those days from the moment I hoot (and needless to say I am not one of life's hooters) a woman before I've reached the M25 as she pulls out in front of me without looking. Needless to say, she has a SatNav.
Since there won't be much to talk about at Stoke, let's talk about SatNav shall we? More than the rise of Simon Cowell, more than the shrinking of newspapers, more than men wearing gloves, more even than N-Dubz, SatNav is the ultimate example of the pampered moronification of Britain.
Designed for mentally flabby people, too stupid and/or too lazy to use the words "satellite" and "navigation" in full, it atrophies that part of the brain which decides how to get from A to B, one of the most natural human attributes. It is as if ,like the appendix, evolution has abolished the need for map-reading. This means - and I see them every day - those whose stupidity baffles yet intrigues me, using SatNav on motorways, a notoriously one-way transport system. My solution if you're going to, say, Chesterfield would be to drive along the M1, look carefully at the signs and leave the motorway at the sign which says "Chesterfield".
It takes away all personal responsibility (hence why SatNav will lead to murder and societal breakdown) and if there's a traffic jam, you are, of course, buggered. Meanwhile, the tracking knowledge that takes you around the backroads slowly becomes lost to civilisation and we're all doomed. And should I mention here the idea of having options at every motorway junction should the traffic be too awful? Or, since we're not fearing a Nazi invasion and roadsigns remain, looking at them?
And now the new-fangled internet has been invented, if, perhaps, you're a criminal looking for a house to burgle in a strange town you don't even have to ask for directions since the World Wide Web does very detailed maps. So, in short, SatNav is the most pointless invention since the Buttoneer. You do remember the Buttoneer don't you.
Anyway, Stoke. The hackbox is full of people I know and like so it's time for a cackle and a commiserate, but the hackfood has gone off the boil (Ha! Do you see what I've done there?) and the lasagne's claggy, the garlic bread more garlic-laden than a garlic-farm and because we're in Stoke it's really, really cold. To think I almost spurned my attractive woolly hat.
Worse still, the match is a shocking shocker. Aston Villa play two wingers, plus Petrov and Milner in midfield and they still look only to defend, while Stoke are at their most one-dimensional. Result, no goals; no controversy for Tony Pulis to sidestep and Martin O'Neill as guarded as his defence afterwards.
I take the straight road home. I could, of course, have taken the winding one had I wished.


Playlist
Chris Rea: I Can Hear Your Heartbeat
I suspect history will not be kind to Chris Rea, but history is wrong and much as I detest pop stars wittering on about being misunderstood, for him I'll make an exception, simply because he is grossly misunderstood and he's right to witter. He's as uncompromising as they come and this is a beauty. The 1983 version from Water Sign - unusually poppy for him, but there's no sin in that - rather than the 1988 re-record is the one.

Off, then, to Stoke once again. And for the evening game too. There's a weird atmosphere. The Bridge-Terry handshake and that peculiar game at Stamford Bridge means that unless something extraordinary happens - like say a career threatening injury - it's the second-ranking game of the day.
Evening game and tricky deadlines or not, it's all very relaxed. The hackroom is full of people I know and like and the steak pie shows Stoke are upgrading their hackfood too. If only someone would proof-read their programme.
And something extraordinary and extraordinarily horrible does happen, during a game where Arsenal do enough to show that for all their struggles against their peers, they're getting clinical at picking-off the also-rans.
Then, with Arsenal on the verge of scoring a second after going behind to a Rory Delap long-throw (call me a stickler for detail but on the week of playing Stoke I’d practice defending long throws in training) it happens. Nobody could possibly argue that Ryan Shawcross deliberately set out to injure - let alone break the leg of - Aaron Ramsey. Of course he didn't. Footballers aren't like that and, even if it were, football isn't such a precise science.
However, even from where I was sitting, it was a reckless challenge. The game sort of stops as Ramsey lies prostrate. Arsenal and Stoke players alike frantically attempt to summon medical help. They must have heard the crack. For reasons far from clear, Stoke chose not to replay the tackle on the hackbox screens, instead they focus on the anguished, lachrymose Thomas Vermaelen, who looks like he's about to be sick. The referee has a look at Ramsey's leg and then sends Shawcross off. He's in tears - presumably occasioned by self-loathing, rather than the prospect of a ban - and the Stoke fans don't help by chanting his name as one as he slopes off. As he walks to the far corner, police and stewards stop Arsenal fans from assaulting Shawcross, which is probably for the best.
In the hackbox, the Monday guys chuckle as the Sundays go white. It's time for an extensive, superquick rewrite with a looming, unyielding deadline minutes away. My adrenaline surges and when Arsenal pop in two late winners, it's pumping through my stomach like self-made crack. It's an extraordinary feeling, it really is. I try to channel it into high-speed typing, praising Arsenal's resilience, explaining how awful the challenge looked without knowing exactly what the damage was and speculating on Arsenal’s Premier League chances now. I never get to see that first edition, which also might be for the best.
There’s no time for smugness (not that I’m suggesting smugness might be in order) as another deadline’s hoving into view like a blunderbuss-toting rent collector of words. Or something.
Afterwards, I’m not the only one hyped up. You can almost smell the adrenaline oozing from both managers‘ pores. Arsene Wenger goes conspiratorial, before urging the hacks not to write about what a nice guy Shawcross is. Pulis spends 10 minutes telling us what a nice guy Shawcross is - “smashing” family apparently - and how Wenger doesn’t know Stoke’s players and is therefore inot entitled to comment, before stomping off.
They both have a point and they’re both wrong. It’s not that there’s a conspiracy against Arsenal, just that teams play to their strengths and their opponents’ weaknesses. While there’s no rhyme or reason in telling anyone to be, shall we say, overly physical, with Manchester United or Chelsea, there obviously is with Arsenal, who’re physically small for a 21st Century Premier League team and, for all their strength at the Britannia, mentally variable.
On the one hand it’s that culture which is partly responsible for breaking Aaron Ramsey’s leg. On the other hand, it could have been broken anywhere (even in training) by anyone, even Robinho. We’ve learned nothing.

Playlist:
The Psychedelic Furs: Dumb Waiters. Obviously their finest moment and a Dylan-esque lyric (“Tell her that I’m not in here/Tell her I’m a freak/Tell her that I fall about every time I speak”) we can all identify with. It wasn’t a huge hit. I’ve no idea why.

Off, then, to Portsmouth for the first time in, ooh, ages. Best not appear too anal, eh?
Anyway, it's not as other days since Miss C and the Tiny One decide to accompany me, at least as Southampton where they - and therefore me, but you know what I mean - have family. This means no loud music until the M27, a strict adherence to the speed limit (speeding is neither big nor clever, lest we forget) and two lengthy toilet stops. All in all, it's more civilised, there's less thinking - but thinking's over-rated - and it's less, um, me. The jury isn't out here: it's a good thing and it doesn't happen very often.
And what of Portsmouth? I've always liked them since the more boisterous elements of their support who weren't the 6.57 travelled to games in furniture vans and since they attracted over 10,000 in their desolate Division 4 years. They even had an Aizlewood, in the giant shape of Steve.
Now, though, they might be on their way out, and not just out of the Premier League, but out of the actual league. There's a theory - not, admittedly, one that fans of Maidstone United, Bradford Park Avenue and the former Aldershot might subscribe to - that football clubs cry wolf and since they are so crucial to a locality's morale and self-esteem, they eventually get saved, but things here seem different.
There's the fact that the HMR are the instigators of the winding-up order to be heard next Monday. They don't go away quietly. There's the sheer scale of the collapse, there's the decrepit ground, there's Peter Storrie on over £1 million a year, there's a support which doesn't even fill that tiny decrepit ground this evening and there's the unmistakeable feeling that this is a ship steering itself towards oblivion.
How did it come to this? Where's the Johnson/Defoe/Muntari/Crouch/Diarra etc etc money gone? And what does Harry Redknapp have to say about it (the situation, not the money)?
Strangely if you didn't know about Portsmouth, you wouldn't guess. There's hackfood (small portions, but that's good for everyone), in the shape of a cockle-warming stew. There's a fully functioning wi-fi (admittedly it costs them nothing, but it's a lesson Wigan could learn). Meanwhile, the press box isn't quite as cramped as some lardy folk suggest (ie it's not Tottenham) and the screens are terrific. You can almost smell Jimmy Dickinson's resin.
The atmosphere is muted, but hey they're bottom of the league, it's a cold evening and Stoke are the visitors. I'd hardly be shouting from the rooftops myself. But, in the first half of a fascinating match they're every bit as good and as combative as Stoke.
But when you're down you're down and while they created few chances, Portsmouth have a perfectly legal goal ruled out for offside.
After the break Stoke are much improved and look marginally the more likely even after Andy Wilkinson gets himself sent-off. Since it's an evening game my first deadline is the final whistle and so my first few, ahem. poetic paragraphs speak of Portsmouth's battling heroism in securing a dignified draw.
Then Stoke mount one last attack. The hitherto invisible Ricardo Fuller does wondrous things down the right and Salif Diao, of all people, belts home the winner and the groan from the hackbox is almost as loud as the one from the home support. I pen some lightning quick, but properly syntaxed words lamenting the unfairness of it all (to Portsmouth; not to me since I'm paid to do this kind of thing and the adrenaline kick is astonishing), meet the deadline and exhale theatrically.
Afterwards Avram Grant is even more lugubrious than usual. He knows the game's up as sure as Portsmouth are down and they might as well take administration if they exist after March 1. Is this the moment to mention Mrs Grant? It certainly is and how fabulously she dismantled a scandal in one easy interview.
Unusually, Tony Pulis has a lot to say and it's all about Portsmouth. In precis, he says this all needs properly investigating and I can't help but agree with him.
By the time I get back to Southampton to pick up Miss C and the Tiny One, the latter's fast asleep. We journey home in complicit silence.

Playlist: Frankie Valli, My Eyes Adored You. Steve Stammers at The Sunday Mirror reminded me of how great Frankie Valli is. He's one of the few interviewees I've asked to sign something and this ballad - "Still I reminisce/About the girl I missed/And the love I left behind" - is every bit as great as classic Four Seasons. Wonderful and we've all got one of those. Mine's called Berni. Or was it Bernie? I never asked. The new Knife album's good too.

Off then, to Wigan for the third time this season. I really don't mind I guess, but since John Terry is neither a Wigan Athletic nor Everton player, there's the distinct feeling that this may not be the most widely reported game in Lancashire today.
And, not that anybody's asked me, what do we do with a problem like John? Man has alleged affair with colleague's girlfriend. That hasn't happened before has it? The moral climate seems to have shifted to something akin to that of Mississippi in the 1950s (without the racism) and presumably those responsible for said shifting lead lives of unimpeachable morality themselves, although they're not England captain, except for those erstwhile England captains who've been sharing their thoughts with us.
Obviously Terry isn't the nicest person in Surrey (parking his Bentley in the disabled space outside a Pizza Express seems the most casually revealing of the real John Terry) and while he's done something that's morally low, it isn't illegal and obviously it was done without coercion.
Premier League dressing rooms have a way of sorting these things out. For my money, Chelsea won't do anything publicly (I'll bet they were more worried about the alleged training ground tours) and since Roman Abramovich has widely abstained from lecturing on anyone's ethics, Terry will keep the captaincy there, but since he has destabilised England's dressing room harmony he'll "resign" the national captaincy. But what do I know? Nothing, as we know.
Anyway, Wigan. Can we dispel the pie myth? They're not that great and to prove it, I had two, one a sort of steak and the other mean and potato, both with gravy that's as beefy as, um, John Terry.
There's a double whammy of despair: it's the coldest I've been all season and the game's an absolute shocker, which Everton just about deserve to win.. I could have still done with more words though, if only to say how disappointed I am in Hendry Thomas. He really looked the part in August and September. He looks lost now.
Mark from the MOS and Jeremy from the NOTW (see those abbreviations, that's hackspeak) cheer me up, but they look warmer than me and they seem to be wearing more clothes than myself. There's a moral there. Afterwards, David Moyes is cagier than zoo-reared lion, but Wigan's Roberto Martinez takes a lurch into the surreal and not merely when he doesn't answer my question about whether Wigan are in a relegation struggle (in fairness it's not a "yes" or "no" right now).
Instead, he explains at some length that half his defence mark zonally and half mark man-to-man. For all the hacks' scepticism, it's a fascinating theory, but it surely means that Titus Bramble bumps into Maynor Figueroa too often to keep Wigan out of the relegation struggle. As John Terry's dietician may have told him: you can't have your cake and eat it.
There's a lot of roadworks on the M6 isn't there?

Playlist: Pink Floyd, The Final Cut.
Not everybody's favourite Pink Floyd album, but for reasons we can only speculate on, I'm entranced by its all-pervading air of disappointment and ennui. And the tunes are fantastic.

Off, then, to White Hart Lane, to see Tottenham Hotspur for the third Saturday on the trot. Not that I mind. I'm becoming quite attached to them in an odd sort of way, probably like other members of The Rolling Stones have become "quite attached" to Ronnie Wood.
As it's the FA Cup, everything is up for grabs, but as they're playing Peterborough United, who came only to avoid a hammering, Spurs saunter through, as if - cliche alert, cliche alert - it were a training session. In fact, I'm not entirely sure Harry "H" Redknapp didn't treat it as one, just to see how Luka Modric and Niko Kranjcar gel (very well indeed) and to check whether Robbie Keane has really lost it (maybe, maybe).
The hackroom may be a bit (ie a lot) cramped (folklore has it that when they built the new stand, Spurs forgot the press box and press room, surely that can't be true) but the ladies who serve the hackfood (an unashamedly edible chilli) are a delight and you can almost smell the good vibes of a club who're finally getting it together after years of Jol, Ramos, Hoddle and the rest. I have my reservations vis-a-vis, ahem, "H", but he's done an astonishingly good job here and his public reaction to the players sneaking off to Dublin to drink their bodyweight in Cristal was a masterclass in how to handle a potential humiliation.
The press box is subhuman unless your size is closer to Mickey than Wayne Rooney and the view from it astonishingly poor, but I'm next to Jim Foulerton of the Independent (and the Express, oddly) which makes things better. He can't sport the wi-fi out. He's not alone ,but since there's nothing resembling a shock afoot, nobody is going to be given an extra few hundred words. Afterwards, "H" gets as easy ride as his team did. Fair enough, he deserves it.
Peterborough's Mark Cooper fails to hit the right note afterwards. He's as defeatist as his team had been. That they were actually defeated is neither here nor there and his musing that it might have been nice if Spurs had rested more stars than Crouch, Jenas and Lennon hardly inspires confidence in him getting three points against Newcastle or West Brom. I ask him why he hadn't been more adventurous. He shrugs and says that if he had, his team might have lost by seven and that system (one isolated attacker, unsupported by an over-manned midfield tripping over each other) scored four against Cardiff the other day. He was so right and so wrong. Darren Ferguson must be chuckling at the wonder of it all.

Playlist: Scarlette Fever, You Don't Know My Name. As joyous as Zoe's Sunshine On A Rainy Day. She'll be my tip for 2010, then, despite that rogue "e". We may not choose to speak of this prediction in December.

Moment of zen: one piece 15 with possessive apostrophes, all correctly used.

Off, then, to Underhill, home of Barnet, who somehow induced Fabio Capello and Trevor Brooking to travel to Edgware to open their training ground the other week.
I'm not working. It's a day off. Miss C and the tiny one suggested (rather too eagerly for my liking) that I leave them in Southampton post-Christmas and, like some kind of neglected Victorian child, make my own entertainment . And what do I do, after picking up the furry one from his Christmas stay at dog prison? That's right I go to the fucking football. Barnet v Northampton Town. On my own. Sometimes I can see why people say I don't quite interact with the real world as I should.
And for £13, plus another £3 for a for a semi-literate programme, plus some more extortion for a semi-edible pie and a steaming cup of Bovril, I stand, watch the Northern Line trains amble in and out of High Barnet, listen to the man behind me compare the Scrubs with Pentonville and have a ball. It's a strange place, a TV producer's idea of what a homely football ground might be. Had I money, I'd buy them. If we are to judge people, perhaps the response to the "if you had serious money would you buy a football club?" question is a start. Obviously the answer is "obviously".
A little boy comes in with his grandfather (let's just assume I'm right and he's not one of this 70-year-old fathers) and stands in front of me. They've both got Barnet scarves around their necks and they've having a ball too. Until the kid takes a can of pop from his coat.
Before you can say "how do you spell 'Al Quieda'?" and before he's opened it, security (begging the question of why Barnet v Northampton Town needs security) pounce.
"You can't have that in here."
Grandpa thinks he's joking. The kid thinks he's joking. I think he's joking. He's not joking. In fact he's scowling like Avram Grant when Portsmouth concede a fourth. Nonplussed and visibly upset, granddad takes the can and puts it in his pocket. They both look like they're about to cry. I feel like crying for them and suddenly their Barnet scarves don't keep them quite so warm. Security marches off, impervious to pain. Nice PR work, The Bees. It's not as if they need fans.
And yes, of course, people shouldn't bring cans into football grounds - there may even be a notice saying exactly that - but that's not really the point is it? Call me overly trusting, but I'd wager the grandchild wouldn't have thrown anything anywhere.
Anyway, the game doesn't produce a goal and it's literally freezing (memo to self: don't wear a shorter scarf just because it was a Christmas present) but Northampton's Adebayo Akinfenwa is the tubbiest player I've seen in a while, Barnet's Dean Sinclair gets himself sent off (surely "being stupid" is a red card offence in itself) for two pointless bookings and the 10 men hang on gamely, with home goalkeeper Jake Cole the best player on the pitch by however long a country mile is. Across the pitch from me, a couple of fans are forcibly ejected. Wow.
And the difference between this and the Premier League? Obviously the quality of football is poorer - even Barry Ferguson would stand out as a football genius here - but there are moments of magic, just as there are Division 2 moments in the Premier League, albeit mostly from Paul McShane. The real thing is fitness. Division 2 players don't run as hard, as fast and as long. And they don't twist as supplely, if "supplely" is actually a word. Couldn't Division two train their players harder, or am I missing the point?
By the end of four added minutes I can't feel my feet, but the abused grandchild looks so nervous as Northampton pound down the slope and bombard the home goal and so I do feel strangely warm inside.

Off, then, to Wigan for the second time this season. They're playing another of Steve Bruce's exes, Birmingham City. I remain equivocal, he said pompously. It's a good day and even the journey up is stress-free, so there's time to consider my latest moral dilemma.
I'll be long-winded, if that's OK. There's a pub opposite Norwood Junction station. In sepia-tinted I've had great times there, before and after matches with Palace, Charlton and Wimbledon. I was back there one night the other week, paying to see my team and meeting my old friend Alan in the grumpy away section. Seeing him was fantastic, but I'd already sneaked into that pub before-hand on the off-off-off-chance there was someone I know similarly clinging on to times gone. There wasn't, but I do it again (pointlessly discreetly since I had trains to catch) afterwards for a quick emptying of the bladder. At the urinal, I think I half-recognise someone but men being men (except under other circumstances) this is neither the time and place.
At London Bridge, I'm behind the same guy. If I think it's who it is, his hair has gone white and he's looking oldish now. Over 15 years or so, we spent truly great times together - some of them at that pub at Norwood Junction before and long after games - but when the going got tough for him, I proved to be a poor friend indeed. Quite rightly, he took it quite badly and I don't think he truly accepted my apology. Unsurprisingly, when the roles were reversed he wasn't there for me, but in truth we'd never reconciled since I'd undone something that had seemed tightly bound.
And there he might be, a few yards in front of me. What to do? Let it pass? Embarrass myself by hailing the wrong man (I'm genuinely not 100% sure it's him. I think it is, but I wouldn't bet Miss C or the tiny one on it)? Endure the awkwardness of him not wanting to know me or, worse, planning a faux reunion which we both know will never happen? Rekindle something which we probably both outgrew and haven't got time for? Or begin the relationship as though nothing had happened, since some of my best times in pubs and on trains were spent with him and he must feel the same way?
He goes to the Northern Line as I have to do. Down there, it's chaos, a 15-minute wait which I have no choice but to endure. Just as I'm coming to a conclusion, I lose him. I've lost him forever now.
Anyway, the game is a delight, far better than I'd feared. There were some pies left (the notion of the great Wigan press pie isn't wholly true but they're OK) and the peas were divine. The press box isn't full, which seeing as it's so cramped is a good thing, but the screens don't work and there's an art to erecting the tables I haven't fully mastered. Afterwards, I ask Roberto Martinez an extremely convoluted question about his current squad having the character to win games when in good positions, such as this one. He's pretty convoluted in return, but I think he means he'll be strengthening in the transfer window. Whatever the question is, the answer isn't Mohamed Diame; although until today I though it might have been Hendry Thomas.
And although I'd annoyed Alex McLeish last time out (and I'm unrepentant since he knows Teemu Tainio isn't an attacking midfielder better than I do), this time I serve him an easier one since his charges have done pretty well since their cause was seemingly lost. He's friendly and eloquent for which I'm childishly grateful. Aah.

Soundtrack
Alexander O'Neal, Heresy.
Always too feral for his fellow Americans, O'Neal never sounded this great again and Jam and Lewis never closer to genius. Magical.

Moment of Zen: when the guy next to me's computer crashes. My stomach somersaulted for him. We've all been there.

Off, then, to Eastlands (or is it the City Of Manchester Stadium? As if anybody gives a hoot...) for the first time this season. Great and the drive up (and home) is almost wholly without incident for once. Whatever the new ground is called, its primary selling point is that it's not Maine Roade (see what I've done there?), which means it's not situated in a favela, there's room to breathe in a press box which has more than one exit and there's a palatable view of Manchester City's latest calamity.
And there's lots of people I like here: Jackson from The Guardian (or is it The Observer), Lovejoy of The Observer (or is it The Guardian). Rico of the Express (or is it The Sunday Express) and the rest. I don't have a hackbox nickname. There's no need to ask why.
I don't have quite enough words, but it's a fascinating match to write on. Those who had runners are not smiling afterwards. Then it's time to pray the subs are good.
The food is terrific, the people are friendly despite their new money and the wi-fi is free. And City are always fun to write about. They were fun without new money (Uwe Rosler makes an appearance before kick-off and isn't stoned to death) and they're fun with it - what does Robinho think about while he's playing? It certainly isn't the game - as they lurch from weirdness to weirdness.
Against Hull City they should have sauntered home once they were gifted an opener, but they dilly, they dally and they give away a silly penalty near the end.
I'm not sure if Mark Hughes is the man for this job. Afterwards he's defensive about drawing seven on the trot, forget to trumpet how far they've come and how few they've lost and begs for more time by saying that everyone at the club knows it's going to take time. I wonder if he believes it.
Hull, meanwhile, are a travelling soap opera. There's the big rumour which surely cannot be true and the little one which makes more sense, but the harsh truth is that they're in the wrong division. But they have pluck, Jimmy Bullard and proper spirit. I'd still bet against them, but it isn't going to be straight-forwards.
Phil Brown is cock-a-hoop afterwards and I don't blame him. It's the best point of his season at the very place where some say (not me; it's an idiotic argument) Hull began to implode. He always makes me smile, even if (or perhaps because) no manager has ever had quite such a skew-whiff grasp of PR and what on earth was all that stuff about him saving a woman on the Humber Bridge all about? Perhaps Phil Brown is Jesus and it was a metaphor. Perhaps not. Anyway, today is his triumph and he savours it. I wouldn't dream of begrudging him a moment of it.

Moment of zen: Sylvinho's piece in the programme (a fine read, probably because the mighty Neil Jeffries is involved). He hasn't started a league game yet, he's 35 and he wants to stay. I bet he does.

Soundtrack: Snoop Dogg's Malice N Wonderland. His best in years - if no Still D.R.E. - and I am indeed aware of how this looks.

Off, then, to Tottenham for the first time this season. What to say? I ;love going there, although the hackroom is horribly cramped, the hackfood - how to put this? - is not to my liking and the hackbox is more Conference than Premier League and built not so much for short-legged dwarfs than pre-school children and can it really be true they forgot to put a press box in when they built the stand?
The best aspect of all is how close we are to the benches. This means every last managerial grimace and mouthed obscenity can be treasured forever and Sunderland can check with their own hacks whether Tottenham's first goal was offside. It wasn't and they're keen to know who played Robbie Keane onside. More than one defender is the correct answer.
At half-time, as some hacks troops off, someone (not me) accidentally knocks someone else's laptop (not mine) onto the floor. It crashes onto the concrete with the sort of rattling thud that sickens anyone dependent for theirs. It doesn't appear to be broken, but these things take hold and brood, like electrical cancer.
Since it's arguably the game of the day, everyone has an essay to write so there's not much chat, but I do swap child-rearing tales with Amy from The Observer. Her boy already looks like he's better at football than me. More to the point, it's the sort of encounter nobody can take their eyes off: Sunderland are all over Spurs, but they're thwarted by a combination of poor finishing (a big hello to Jordan Henderson here), misfortune (Andy Reid hits the post from somewhere near the North Circular) and Heurelho Gomes, who saves a penalty as part of the best goalkeeping performance I've seen in years. Is this really the buffoon who Juande Ramos signed? Apparently it is. No wonder he has so much applause to milk he's last into the dressing rooms.
Afterwards, Steve Bruce has too much information vis-a-vis Keane's goal, so he moans - incorrectly on many levels - that Gomes should have been sent off for bringing down Darren Bent for the penalty, but Harry Redknapp didn't think it was a penalty in the first place. Ho hum. Unlucky they were and infinitely better than when I saw them at Stoke the other week, but Bruce might have been better addressing his team's lack of firepower without the suspended Kenwyne Jones.
As ever, Redknapp gets a certain group of hacks (male, cynical and over 50) giggling like smitten schoolgirls. He makes a joke about his diamond formation not sparkling (hold on to your sides at the back) and they're laughing like hyenas. It's an admirably honest admission and, of course, he's done wonders for Tottenham after Ramos and Martin Jol, but it gets him off a hook of his own making. Not one to be pinned down is the man they call H.

Off, then, to Preston, for the second time in a decade. The traffic's a nightmare on the way up - half-term, rain and a bit of sun - but at least the nice people at Deepdale have cheerily allocated me a parking space.
Since I was last there the press room - once a huge lounge-type area - has been re-located into what was surely the room formerly given to cleaning materials storage, they can't find any teabags and the pies are lukewarm. And that's before a team sheet which thinks Middlesbrough have a striker called Leroy Leta and a player called Jonathan Francis. Still though, some things remain reassuringly unchanged: the press box is still spectacularly inaccessible and there still aren't enough powerpoints.
I like it here though. The people are friendly enough, Preston North End have been admirably punching way above their weight for a while and I can almost smell the tradition, even if the far from completed stadium is far from full and that with half of Teesside travelling to celebrate Gareth Southgate's demise.
Apparently, Southgate is the world's most decent man and certainly he always answered my questions seriously and at some length, but at the one home game I reported on, he kept the hacks waiting until 6.30. I know nobody in the real world cares - and nor should they - about a few missed deadlines, but Southgate is sufficiently media savvy to understand the problems he was causing. And if he's as casually, dislikeably thoughtless in that one regard, it's a fair bet he's like it in others. Oh and him doing that Pizza Hut advertisement was neither right nor funny. He won't, I suspect, be doing one about getting dumped by Middlesbrough. He'll get another job soonish and then go on to be the next decade's Glenn Roader.
The game's OK, actually, but Middlesbrough should have won by whatever a country mile is and that sloppiness is another legacy of Southgate's reign, even without Justin Hoyte and Didier Digard reminding us of his transfer acumen.
Even so, I'm far from sure Gordon Strachan is the answer to these questions. Steve Gibson has always been swayed by a big playing name (Bryan Robson) or the devil he thought he knew (Steve McClaren, Southgate) and as a result Middlesbrough haven't had an outstanding manager since he took over in 1994. Or, if we're being strictly accurate, since Jack Charlton left in 1977, the only truly great manager - and he was truly great at the time - they've ever had. In the meantime, just as in what southerners call "the south", the legacy of Ken Livingstone's tenure as mayor of London comprises the bendy buses and some hero worship of dodgy Hugo Chavez, Southgate leaves us the lumbering Afonso Alves, the distracted Justin Hoyte and home games with Scunthorpe United.
The drive home isn't so bad once the rain stops.

Playlist: Sparks, The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman
Deranged but brilliant. A sort of opera, a vague metaphor for our times and a homage to artistic compromise and artistic non-compromise alike.

Off, then, to Newcastle, home of Bigg Market, the Byker bikers and a sense of proper nothernness. Maybe the south is expanding, but Newcastle feels northern. Going to St. James' Park in the '80s was not for the faint-hearted. It was never as menacing as a Chelsea, West Ham or, God help us, Millwall, but even when they were getting 15,000, they swamped the city centre and they weren't over-keen on outsiders.
Now though, it's all rather more genteel and much less dark. Back when men were men, we weren't actually that manly. Identifiable chiefly by not speaking Geordie, we used to sneak from pub to pub in small groups like wartime resistance organisations, terrified of being tripped up (in both senses) by the hordes of marauding, slightly cross beerboys before sprinting the last few yards to the away corner.
These days Plymouth fans (2000+ of them have made British football's longest trek; if I ever had something as facile as a second team it would be the mighty Bastia, but Plymouth are OK too) wander the streets in their green shirts in danger only of overdosing of keeling over with sleep deprivation since their coaches set off at 4am. As a city, Newcastle is alive and, even at lunchtime, the pubs are throbbing. Say what you like about regeneration, but better an O'Neill's pub (not that I'd drink in one, mind) than a slum, better a nice city centre than so-called character and better a Starbucks than nothing (they reheat their milk, you know)
Curiously I was never dispatched here while Newcastle were famous, but United still act like a superpower backstage and not just because they didn't return my call asking for a parking space. The hackfood is quite lavish (a sort of lamb arrangement) and, mercy me, there's garlic bread too. There's a little old to serve tea, smile and elbow me in the stomach in conspiratorial fashion. She's fantastic. I slip off the hackroom seats since they're made of shiny metal and that isn't just me. For once.
The press box is close to the pitch, but the view is fantastic, although the perspex wind/rainshield isn't laptop compatible so it's more cramped than it shoulod be. Still, there is wi-fi and I'm next to some nice, helpful Plymouth souls (Marcel Seip, their defender and son-in-law of the vice-chairman is at war with the manager which must poison everything) and Clavane of the Sunday Mirror; always a treat.
The match is hugely entertaining. Plymouth fight gamely, but they're beaten by a better side, for whom Andy Carroll, not always a model professional, is outstanding.
Afterwards Plymouth manager Paul Sturrock looks broken but when I ask him about the pressure, his words are upbeat. He thinks things are coming together. They did well today, overall, but I'm still not sure and judging by how they flagged at the death, I'm not sure how fit they are either.
In contrast, Newcastle's Chris Hughton has the air of a man who knows things actually have come together and he's the primary cause of it. No wonder nobody's talking about a new Newcastle manager any more.
It's a long way home, but, hey, I don't mind.

Playlist: Cheryl Cole's 3 Words. She's a bit Geordie isn't she? Nice pop for nice times. Really.

Milton Keynes, 5 September, 2009
Off, then, to the ground that thinks it's called stadiummk. Obviously, for many reasons, this isn't an entirely magical moment, but at least it's a new ground. A few years ago, for a few heady months, I'd seen games at all 92 grounds. Since you ask, I'm now missing Rotherham, Dagenham, Swansea, Cardiff, Burton, Hull, Colchester, Brighton, Morecambe and Shrewsbury and, of course, you never know when newness will stalk.
stadiummk (Jesus, don't they have capital letters in Milton Keynes?) is surprisingly impressive, even with the top tier still unfinished. It looks built for bigger things, just as the club does. And I like the club too, not least because it annoys the luddites, the crazy gang of sentimentalists and the irredentists. Wimbledon didn't want or deserve a football team, Milton Keynes did, hence MK Dons's support always being more numerous than the former Wimbledon's. And in Pete Winkelman, they have a chairman who has delivered what he promised - a viable, upwardly mobile club loved by its locality - and they may yet reach the Championship in May. Their supporters are just like any other (ie noisy and frustrated) and it's a place ethnic minority families want to come to. What more could you want?
It's a shame the decent folk who supported Wimbledon from Southern to Premier League lost their club, but MK Dons isn't franchise shifting (and they really should disentangle themselves from Wimbledon's history and get on with making their own now), it's a new way forwards. Still, they have plenty to learn. The programme is skimpy, the press box open to the elements, there's no milk for the coffee and there's no food. But they do have wi-fi and the security staff are especially friendly.
And there are other winners here: AFC Wimbledon. Nobody seriously believes fans make the trek from South London to Buckinghamshire for every (or indeed any) MK Dons home encounter. So the floaters have long floated off and the glory hunters gone to pastures new but, unencumbered by obstructive councils and not necessarily helpful owners, the Wimbledon fans with the real drive and real talent have built a club that's hurtling up the pyramid and after a couple of years acclimatising to the league everyone still calls the Conference, they'll be back on the pools coupons. So now we have not one but two terrific clubs. What's the problem here? There isn’t one is there?
The game (and if you can find my report on the net, many congratulations because I can't) against Huddersfield is a funny affair. The first half is a slight and goalless business. The second a thrilling five-goal orgy which sees Huddersfield Town pouncing on defensive naivety to come back from twice being adrift to win.
Afterwards, MK Dons’s Paul Ince is common sense personified, suggesting we don’t make a mountain out of a molehill (his cliche not mine) after one preventable home defeat, although he’s on less sure ground when he blames the referee for crimes nobody else noticed.
And I’ve always like Lee Clark, not least since he always had the look of a manager about him. He spars with the local press who react like they’ve had their tummies tickled (which, in a sense they have) and suggests goalkeeper Alex Smithies will one day play for England. I wouldn’t argue with that.

Stoke, 30 August 2009

Off, then, to Stoke once more. This isn't easy since I'm not well. Manflu. I get up five times in the night to take pills, to blow my nose and to cough so I don't wake Miss C, the tiny one, or the furry one.
The trick here is get out of bed and then back into it without disturbing your evening's companion. As fleet-footed as a mountain goat, as stealthy as a panther, I manage this magnificently every time as she sleeps soundly. She is truly lucky to have me. "You creaked a floorboard the fourth time you got up," she coos on waking. "But that wasn't as noisy as the second and third times. The first was just annoying, but the fifth wasn't bad until you coughed." As I say, truly lucky.
And, just when a nice easy trek up the M1 and M6 might be nice, the journey is a nightmare. Whenever I slide manfully into fifth gear, it's immediately back to first again and I'm undertaken by a platoon of coaches ferrying Arsenal supporters for the tea-time kick off. All that traffic. All those people. All those accidents. It'll be a bank holiday then. Bugger. However, a nation can breath easily since I made it in time to have some reasonably appealing lasagne.
Oddly there's hardly anyone I know reporting and having worn only a shirt and a lighter jacket, I'm wind-buffeted to the marrow at what, allegedly, is England's second highest ground (West Brom is first; Oldham is third, since you ask). I pump myself up with Day Nurse and hope for the best, almost - not to be confused with "actually" - relieved not to be over-burdened with words.
The match against Sunderland is hardly a sight for my sore eyes, but Dave Kitson wins it for Stoke with his first Premier League goal since leaving Reading last summer and they never look in grave danger.
This might just be me, but could it be that the expectation of winning is beginning to reduce the Britannia's cauldron-like atmosphere? I hope not, but human nature is human nature he said sagely. Either way, the result is fair since Sunderland are hollow in central defence, but I do like the look of their handy Albanian Lorik Cana. Afterwards, Steve Bruce is honest enough to admit his side's glaringly obvious problem and signs Michael Turner on Monday (ah, the moment Hull were relegated, they'll say in years to come on Humberside) I ask him when we'll see Steve Bruce's Sunderland but he doesn't really bite. Meanwhile, Pulis charges in, talks to some local radio types and charges out again. My Day Nurse is wearing off and it's time to go home.

London, 21 August, 2009
Off, then, to deepest, darkest South London, where the streets are no strangers to litter and where you wish for a moment those odd, elderly women whose names escape me would do a How Clean Is Your Suburb? programme. It's the condoms that get me: what kind of social interaction has gone on where someone buys a condom, unwraps it but doesn't use it and then throws it on Norwood High Street (I might be in South Norwood, West Norwood, Norwood Junction or Norwood International for all I know or care)? There are some mysteries I'll never solve.
Anyway, for reasons to Stygian to detail, I'm off to Crystal Palace for their game with Newcastle United. Selhurst Park is just the wrong side of ramshackle always the sign of a club who know they won't be ascending in the near future, assuming they haven't spent it on players, which Palace clearly haven't.
The press box isn't up to much either. I remember owner Simon Jordan saying this was why journalists hate Palace, but I don't know any who do, even the ones who were summoned to Iain Dowie's 8am press conferences. Last year they had wi-fi, but that's gone now. Cheers.
Downstairs, heroically awful tea and sandwiches I wouldn't touch with someone else's bargepole are served by an eccentric cast of mature people, who neither smile nor answer when I say "good afternoon". This is the sort of battle I'm up for. I don't win it this afternoon but if I'm here more often (please, no) they'll succumb.
I can't see one of the goals and I'm sandwiched between two Newcastle hacks. There aren't enough plugs, but - hey! - I've got a three way adaptor. Do I get a thanks? A smile? An information-sharing chat? I do not, but they do lean behind me to have a chat. Nice guys and so socially skilled. When Ian Ridley from the Mail On Sunday comes over (not, it must be noted, over them) to have a chat I'm childishly grateful.
The game itself is straight-forwards. Newcastle are two ahead early on and never look back. Already weary and wholly unable to deal with Shola Ameobi, Palace look resigned to their fate. I'm sure if they spruced up their ground it would help, but, hey what do I know?
Afterwards, Neil Warnock explains how pleased he is with everything and you really wonder how much he believes it. Unless a club out west comes calling, this will surely be his last job.
Meanwhile, I thought I'd like Chris Hughton and I do. He's got the rabble of last year playing for him and for each other, which is a huge achievement. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, he's a straight arrow and since Joe Kinnear's health and Alan Shearer's ability precludes them and the suggestion of David O'Leary must be a joke, surely Hughton deserves a crack at it. He may not be a big name, he may not be sexy and he may not attract galacticos, but he's just the man to eke three points from a visit to Glanford Park. and Selhurst Park too...

Nottingham, 25 July, 2009
Off then to Notts County. This is actually good news. I'm tasked with writing about Sven-Goran Eriksson who, for reasons nobody claims to understand, has joined Notts County as director of football.
Every argument you can offer vis-a-vis the old fox's motives is counterable, even if counterable isn't a proper word. The money? He doesn't need it. The glory? Hardly. The lack of job offers elsewhere? He's Sven; he gets jobs. Nottingham? Come on. As my dear old dad never said to me, the most obvious explanation is usually the right one: perhaps he's genuinely up for the challenge.
County are playing Nottingham Forest, the big boys from across the Trent in a pre-season friendly. Great. It's sunny, the queues are massive and although I've been a few times (who could forget John Pratt's screamer for Tottenham in 1977-78?) I've never reported a game. Alas, Notts have caught little-club-in-big-story syndrome, so they're over officious and not quite up to the task (surly men with walkie talkies make sure we don't actually get to speak to Sven; this may not have happened in Jimmy Sirrel's day), but the press box is wi-fi less but spacious.
And speaking of not being up to the task, I've forgotten a laptop lead, so I'm on battery power, which really means writing notes and then tapping them in, ensuring I've enough power to transmit via mobile. I am, in its truest sense, a berk.
No matter. This wouldn't have stopped Henry Wickham Steed and it won't stop me, but the darkened screen is a bit hard to make out. Anyway, I don't have to study the game, just keep an eye on Sven in the directors' box and watch how Notts play (not to say I didn't notice Forest ambling around like it was a pre-season friendly).
As it is, they're well-organised - this, obviously is down to manager-for-now Ian McParland rather than cuddly Svennis - and ever so quick. They deserve to win and do 2-1. Sven stays to the end, shakes hands with some startled Notts folk and is driven home by his giant chauffeur.
I haven't gone native with the old non-tech ways, but I have conserved my battery successfully so that's no worry. I've talked to McParland - he knows why we're here, but we're all adults - on the side of the pitch because the room which started out as the press room (tea but no milk, etc, etc) is now the players' lounge. Yet another man with a walkie talkie - think mumps but less friendly - escorts me from the building and my day is done. It doesn't really feel like football's back. At all.

Playing today: The Stranglers, Bear Cage. "Drawing lines on a map just to show I'm there". Self-pity as art. Hurrah. And it's my favourite song about East Germany. And while we're at it, can't someone write a proper joint biography of Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker? No. Oh well. Just a thought.

Wembley, 30 May, 2009

Off, then, to Wembley for the second time in seven days. Last week it was the Division 2 play-off, but today it's the FA Cup Final. Or the FA Cup Sponsored By E.On Final, as nobody calls it outside the E.On marketing department. Hurrah. I never get bored of them (FA Cup Finals, not E.On).
Chelsea v Everton hardly sets the neutrals' pulses racing, but at least it involves one team who're not in the big four, even if Everton are nobody's underdogs and once they move to the new stadium there may be no stopping them. And I quite like both: Chelsea have that gang feel all successful football teams need - Manchester United have it; Arsenal don't; Liverpool are somewhere in-between - and Everton have proved me wrong about Steven Pienaar, but right about Leighton Baines and the injured Phil Jagielka.
Hold those offerings of sympathy, but the food has gone downhill at Wembley. They must have changed - not to be confused with upgraded - caterers. I try some unidentified chicken arrangement before-hand. It's disgusting. And it's hot dogs at half time, which I adore, but that's just me. It really is. The coffee's nice though.
The ST are mob-handed. Apart from myselfy, there's Walshy, there's Glanvilley, there's Nothcrofty and there's Townsendy. We rarely contact each other during the season, so bar e.mails and the odd call, so there's much to discuss, some war stories to swap but, great as it is to see them, there is a certain amount of work to be done.
I don't bother watching the game's big picture. Instead, I'm looking at 22 little games to write a piece on each player, whether it's John Obi Mikel floundering, Louis Saha giving up after scoring or Ashley Cole, finally playing like he did at Arsenal.
Afterwards, I skip the manager's press conference in favour of the scrum for player interviews. The Everton players don't really fancy chatting, but Phil Neville does the decent thing, says the right things - they were deservedly beaten but hardly disgraced - and they're all soon heading back home to count their money and their bruises.
My deadline is 6.15. John Terry has spent much of the post-match period playing with his kids on the pitch and the Chelsea players start dribbling out at 7.30 shortly after Roman Abramovich.
"Could I have a word Roman?" he smiles and walks on. Technically speaking, that isn't ignoring me.
Frank Lampard is his usual polite and eloquent self, but he had just scored the winner. Even so, he's modest in the way the truly gifted don't always have to be. He might actually be a lovely man. I think I'm the last one out of the ground.

London, 2 May 2009

Off, then, to Stamford Bridge, for the first time in too long. It being a weekend, the tube is in chaos - those poor, poor tourists - but by a nifty bit of line-hopping I'm there early enough to get lost in the Fulham Broadway shopping centre, and, yes, another Pret A Manger is just what the world needs. I watch the football fans merging with a battalion pretty girls off to a posh wedding: as George Orwell might have noted if he hadn‘t been busy with all that writing stuff, it's getting increasingly hard to tell them apart.
I slouch in the sun drinking coffee and yes another Starbucks is just what the world needs, but remember they don't do franchises, just licences. The sniper alley between Fulham Broadway and Stamford Bridge used to be a battlefield; now it's as benign and upscale as American football. A good thing, I suppose.
The streets are lined with a travel company's representatives dispensing leaflets offering myriad Champions League Final tours. Strangely they're not so keen on revealing their prices. Take your pick: this is either a) because these tours are too cheap to mention or b) because they're so extraordinarily over-priced the company are waiting until a final berth is secured when they know the less worldly fans will be fretting about logistics. If the direct flights are overbooked and overpriced, my advice - not that anybody's asked - would be to simply fly via any other European hub. It'll be less convenient, but cheaper and imagine the queues at Fiumicino for flights to, say, Manchester the morning after in comparison with those bound for, say, Frankfurt. Just a thought. Don’t thank me.
Chelsea are not the most press-friendly of clubs - the only extant part of dear, dear Ken Bates's legacy - but they've radically upped their off-field game of late, even if it still takes two security checks to gain admission to their training ground off the A3. The food is hot and edible, if not up to the divine level of their neighbours at QPR and the staff are unfailingly friendly. Even so, the press box is a dump, the television screens too small, the replays too amateurishly delivered and they have the venal gall to charge for wi-fi.
However, the really good news is that nobody sees my traditional pre-match tumble. Result: one cup of tea over my scalded hands, soggy trousers (I know, I know), but a laptop as dry as the day it was purchased. All things considered, this is good news. I make a mental note to tie my shoelaces before moving in future.
The game is a strange one. Chelsea ought, certainly, to be thinking about Barcelona and Fulham ought, perhaps, to be thinking about Europe, but Guus Hiddink has selected a remarkably strong team. This means three goals in the opening 10 minutes, a masterclass in the art of strikeplay from Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka - of course they can play together, great players always can - and yet more grist to Hiddink's coaching mill.
Should he stay or should he go? He still says he'll go and he probably will, but everyone knows who's pulling the strings and signing the cheques at the Russian FA and Chelsea. Perhaps some consultancy role might be the way forwards.
Afterwards, Hiddink looks pleased with himself, but he's too smart not to add caveats about sloppyness, while Hodgson is even more self-lacerating, although Fulham had their moments. I'm liking him more and more these days and reading not too closely between the lines, it's clear he fancies Barcelona on Wednesday. He's rarely wrong about this kind of thing.

See Liverpool v Blackburn.

This blog has been removed in the wake of threats of violence from Liverpool supporters.

London SW6

Off, then, to Fulham once again, just in time to catch the sun going down and right into my eyes. Without sounding like El Pompo, the world's most pompous man, this is what football journalism is all about. Five minutes from time with Fulham and Liverpool drawing 0-0, my copy's due.
I've written a 138-word introduction extolling the virtues of Fulham's defensive prowess and berating Liverpool's luck. Then with my finger poised over the SEND button - literally since I've connected to whatever the "remote queue" is - Yossi Benayoun scores. To my left the travelling Kop goes wild. To my right Fulham fans despair. Around me, the Sunday papers' hacks' faces go ashen and, as one, we chorus "fuck". I feel the sort of body-quaking adrenaline jolt that only hurts afterwards and two minutes later I've written another 138 words describing Benayoun's goal and celebrating Liverpool's luck . So, lest we forget, has everybody else, except for the man from the Mail On Sunday who'd already been ordered to file.
After that, the press conference can only be fun. Everybody's a bit giddy in truth. Roy Hodgson, the gentlemen's gentleman, gets all cross with the man from The Observer ("I don't know if you're deliberately misunderstanding me, but...") and he's not especially enamoured with me when I ask him if the defeat means the talk of Fulham for Europe is idle, claiming "nobody's been talking about Europe here." Alas, at that point I hadn't read the programme which mentions Europe more often than the Michelin Guide To Europe.
Rafa Benitez is in cocky gibberish mode which is how I like him. I ask if he doubted three points when the board went up for added time (I'd like to have told him about my never-to-be-seen 138-word introduction, but best keep shtoom, eh?). His answer makes no sense but probably meant yes and no. Colin from the Sunday Express gives me a lift to Putney Bridge, the tube's full of drunken Scousers and I get home in time for wine and Match Of The Day/Family Guy.

Bye-bye Boro

Stoke, 21 March, 2009

Off, yet again, to Stoke. Good. I'm getting to like it. Obviously not Stoke the place: that old smoothie Derick Alsop of the Telegraphy brought Mrs Alsop with him. The plan was for him to report on the game while she took in the sights of Stoke. Before half-time, she'd texted to say she was back in their car listening to the radio. In many ways, Mrs Alsop speaks for us all.
The pies are average at best; the video screens didn't work and the press room and press box is packed with non-journalists (I'm not being snobby, it's just that there isn't room), but the atmosphere makes up for almost everything. It's football in the raw, a cauldron of sound and even the most cynical hacks are stirred by it. Forget the away games where they're a shadow of themselves, if Stoke keep winning at home - especially against fellow relegation candidates - they'll be safe. The game against Middlesbrough is a humdinger. Stoke win it near the end when Middlesbrough fell asleep during the Rory Delap long-throw they'd trained all week to thwart and the crowd is beside themselves with a joy that doesn't always go with living in the Potteries.
And Middlesbrough? Oddly they weren't bad at all. A bench featuring Afonso Alves, Marvin Emnes, Justin Hoyte and Julio Arca was grisly testament to Gareth Southgate's transfer market acumen, but in truth, they deserved something from this game. There was even the novelty of genuine commitment, Marlon King and Afonso Alves excepted of course. At half-time the travelling support is well-pleased. At the end they're making wanker signs at Alves and Southgate, who couldn't be more out of his depth if he'd taken up deep-sea diving. They're a broken club and just as the Premier League has had enough of them, they've had enough of the Premier League. They won't come straight back. And yes, Steve Gibson is a terrific chairman, but he's no judge of a manager.
Afterwards, Tony Pulis is his usual quietly confident self and, aside from a trip to the Emirates, their run-in is hardly fearsome. They're going to survive aren't they?
In contrast, Southgate is almost tearful and I almost feel sorry for him. He seems to understand the game is up, even if before Ryan Shawcross scored, they were still pushing for a winner. He talked about pressure, about it being part of the job and about escaping from relegation being a "big ask". I didn't believe a word of it and, I suspect, neither did he.

Liverpool, 14 March 2009

Off, then, to Everton for the first time in a wee while. I've missed them, but it seems safe to assume they haven't missed me. Oddly they were kind enough to call and confirm I had a car parking space. Then, ho hum, I wasn't on the list. And the endearingly apologetic car park attendant showed me said list, just to confirm. Then he phoned someone. More apologies, but still no result. Bastards (not him of course).
I love doing games at either end of Stanley Park (and yes the hairs on the back of my neck always rise when Everton emerge to Z-Cars), but this city's curious mix of mean and maudlin means it could never be my kind of place. Never ever.
They've rebuilt the press room since I was last here. It's still far too small of course and for all the detailed instructions they give, the wi-fi doesn't work, but it feels like a proper football ground and that's something. Quite a lot in fact. The food was always good and I have an excellent pie to check it's still fine. It is, you'll be relieved to hear.
The game between Everton and Stoke City is terrific although I wish I'd been given more words to talk about it.
Two goals down after 20ish minutes, Stoke look dead and dreadful in the first half. In the second, they're a revelation and when Marouane Fellaini scores a fluky third it's greeted with relief rather than hysteria. I'm almost beginning to think Stoke might stay up. Afterwards, David Moyes is his usual taciturn self - up here they still talk in awe about a press conference where someone asked him if he'd rowed with Victor Anichebe and he just didn't answer - but is typically honest in admitting complacency almost did for them.
Tony Pulis always finds time to change from tracksuit to suit. I like that. Shows a bit of respect and right now we're all grateful for that. Mind you when I ask him what he said to his players at half-time he answers another question entirely. Oh well.
Soundtrack: James's live album Getting Away With It. How Tim Booth doesn't get attacked whenever he steps out of his front door must always remain a mystery.
Moment of truth: "God, Stoke are awful..." me at half-time to the man from The Sunday Mirror. "God, Stoke were unlucky," me at full-time to the man from The Sunday Mirror.

Derby, 7 March 2009

Off, then, for the second time in two months to Pride Park. And even before I've got there I've had a row with the car park attendant at the place I've always used. He tells me to go to a specific area, I oblige with a smile and wave. Only to find there are no spaces where he sent me.
"Why did you send me there?" said I.
"I didn't," said he.
"Well I didn't go there for a laugh," responded I
"I don't like your attitude," responded he.
"Well I don't like yours. Or your stupidity," concluded I.
"Are you late or something?" concluded he.
I know. There hasn't been dialogue like this since Boys From The Blackstuff, but I quite liked his surreal pay-off.
Onwards I trudge. At the door, Derby claim - nicely of course - that they haven't had my request for accreditation, although I'd seen the e.mail the office sent. I charm my way in. It's one of those days and since tit's a 1pm kick off, it's not even midday yet.
The food remains inedible (although in fairness the half-time cake is all-too-edible), but a pretty woman offers me a cup of tea and the world starts to look brighter already and in the press box I have empty seats to the left and right of me and Spencer from The Observer to talk nonsense to. Life isn't that bad after all
In fact, Derby County's game against Bristol City is a humdinger.
Derby go one up in the first minute. Bristol take over but somehow take over 80 minutes to equalise, only for Derby to sneak upfield and win it. Gripping stuff.
Afterwards, I'm confused. I can't quite follow why, at half-time, Nigel Clough took off an injured striker, Chris Porter, and replaced him with defender Andy Todd, who's never had a good game. In effect, the territory they yielded allowed Bristol to further seize the initiative. In fairness, Clough sort of agrees, admitting “needs must”. he got away with it today. That won’t happen too often in the future, but he’s surely smart enough to know that. And he’s transformed Robbie Savage...

Reading, 28 February 2009

Off, then, to Reading for the first time in a while. I don't like coming here at all. Not that they're unpleasant souls, they even e.mailed back in the affirmative when I asked for parking, but the Madejski is a soulless place, they keep moving the press room, they charge for wifi, the food is inedible, the drink is from a vending machine and while you might not need oxygen for the press box, Kendal Mint Cake is required, but not supplied. Oh, and you - or at least I - can't read the numbers on Reading players' shirts.
No, it's just that the journey is horrible - not long but treacherously difficult to time - and just visiting the place brings back dark memories of really bad times, twice over. There’s no other ground I feel like that about, this side of Chasetown, but I can’t shake it.
Anyway, life is good and there can be no darkness if you’re sat next to Harry Pratt of the Star. The game against Nottingham Forest (no link, alas, if you can find it on the net, well done because I can’t) is fascinating. Reading have no confidence, Forest look as though they couldn’t believe their luck at facing such a despondent shower.
Afterwards, Steve Coppell is at his most annoying. I ask if it’s a crisis, which might be a bit of a tabloidy way of putting it, but it’s a fair point. He takes the ludicrously sanctimonious it’s-only-a-crisis-if-you’ve-got-cancer line, which is obviously a manoeuvre to deflect any serious discussion of their - ha! - crisis. More to the point, if I’d lost a nearest or a dearest (and surely someone in the room has) to what he called “the Big C”, then I’d be mortified by his trivialising it. After he’s gone, I pop to the toilet. When I emerge, he’s coming in the opposite direction. He gives a giant, knowing grin.
In sort-of contrast, Forest’s Billy Davies is the happiest I’ve seen a manager all season. He’s glowing, as well he might be. He’s never short of an opinion or three and so he rails against Reading’s multi-ball system, he claims he was never going to resign last week and he even admits to time-wasting, before he dances off into the night. When I leave after 6, the Forest team coach (far from lavish Hallmark) is still there. It might still be there now.