Family Affairs

Wednesday 27 January

Where do I start, two manic days? I didn't blog yesterday as I had a family emergency, my Mum was admitted to hospital. She lives in Milton Keynes, so I travelled down to visit her. Whilst waiting for visiting to begin, I waited at my sister's. My brother was also there with his wife and I could see that he struggled to come to terms with not being able to engage in football talk, as usually we have a good catch up about football as we don't see each other regularly. He told me he listened to the Arsenal v Bolton match on the radio in his cab. He gave away the result. 'I was going to text you after the Leeds result' he said. 'But then I remembered you're not following it'. I thought don't worry, my father-in law gave that result away!

Whilst I was there I received a football joke from my Dad. The joke was about 5 Premier League Managers in a pub getting the rounds in and then came the 5th round one of the managers only bought himself a drink and told the others their not in the 5th round! From the joke - I learnt that Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool and Man Utd are all not in the FA Cup and that Aston Villa are! Martin O'Neil was the manager buying the 5th round.

My Brother-in Law's daughter was also at the house and she said that her partner had driven to London to watch... wait for it ... Torquay United. My mind got ticking straight away and I guessed that they were either playing Dagenham and Redbridge or Barnet. They're the only League Two London clubs I could think of.

Today, whilst watching GMTV news, not thinking that they'll mention sport had a news item about the arrest of some football fans ahead of the Carling Cup semi-final between Man Utd and Man City. Great, so now I know the match is on...

Discussed the blog today with another colleague, who said he's been reading it. Its made me realise that there are some 'silent readers' out there, radio stations refer to as 'silent listeners'. Another colleage wrote a note to self to remind him to read it!!!

Why did my colleage feel the need to tell me Rooney scored four goals in a match recently? Sabotage. I said to him, I might as well just watch the games. I wasn't impressed. It made me think that if it was a league match then he must be one of the top scorers in the league. It'll be typical if he wins the Golden Boot when I'm not following.

I drove through Islington this evening and even the signposts are linked to football. Anytime Arsenal have a home match, the signposts note the date of the match. The borough has match day parking restrictions. So I know Arsenal have a home match on Sunday. This has got me thinking, why do football fans think they own the road on match days, just because there's a couple of hundred of you walking from a stadium it doesn't mean you own the road! I usually drive at them. If you want to drink your beer outside your favourite pub, then at least stick to the pavement, you don't need to congregate on the road. Whilst we're on this subject, drinking before matches, why do men insist on getting so much drink down their neck before a game, that when the game begins, you spend half your time getting up to urinate??