Yesterday, as you may have guessed from my poorly rhymed poem, I went down the hill to watch Charlton play Sheffield wednesday. My friend James from the cricket team suggested it a couple of days ago, and it turned out to be great fun. We first met up with some friends of ours who live close to the stadium, then went to watch the match. It started, I felt, rather slowly, but soon warmed up. Sheffield scored first and it went to half tim one nill, but Athletic got one back in the second half. The home team might have won it had their second goal, scored in stoppage time, not been disappointingly offside.

Oh well, at least a draw is better than a loss. I really had fun, and with the ground so close I think I should go more often. Mind you, I have written that before. Nonetheless, it is something I can regularly do with James, who has become a good friend; it also gets me out of the house. While I have never been one of those sporty, footbally types of guys, the football culture interests me: where else do you get groups of men hurling the most obscene insults at each other – the house of Commons aside? It’s quite peculiar when you think about it, and worth delving into. And if I get to a few more games while I investigate tis form of fandom, who am I to argue.