Wembley you’ve been livin’ hell to me with your Hanger Lane gyratory traffic for no reason, regardless of the season, and the IKEA cafe’s run out of lingonberry. Wembley, I hate every inch of you. Your corporate hell scars me through and through. And I’ll walk from your famous arch a sad, dejected man; every […]

You hear it at every 5-a-side: the myth of the man with time. He’s rarely there, but you hear his name. ‘Paul – he must be 60 now – dictates the game.’ He’s reached the point where he rarely runs, but exudes a past in higher echelons. He can pick a pass and he’s a […]

I knew it would happen; we missed the window. Our boat didn’t come in and nor did we swim to it. Our chairman had a month at Cowes Week. The vice-president got trapped in industrial brioche, was stuck in Lidl; there was no way out for him. Our secretary boarded the circling ghost bus on […]

The day I found out I was leaving, no-one told me. It was on Ceefax, page 302: I’m off to Bristol City! Maybe it’s time to ride the Severn Bore to Gloucester from Sharpness in tomorrow’s dusk and darkness. I can wander down Marine Parade, a fox in the box at Ashton Gate but a […]

Then I realised there is no central being, no person in a back room with an Akashic list or metaphysical clipboard in Hammersmith. Ultimately, ‘Fulham’ does not exist. No single person can validate your support; will loyalty points cross our final threshold, rowed over unsettled water by a ferryman courier for passage to a packed […]