March | 2025 | Words on the Street

I apologise for the early part of this narrative but I think it’s helpful to provide some geographical background to it.

I was born in Bournemouth (when it was in Hampshire – it was shifted into Dorset in 1974) and, obviously, as such, am a ‘soft’ southerner. During my subsequent working life, I lived in Kingston-upon-Thames for most of 1974, Rochdale between 1974 and 1977, when we moved to a house in Oldham. In 1979, I was offered a job back in Bournemouth, and we moved to a small market town in the New Forest in 1981 (Ringwood) where I occupied the post before being given early retirement on medical grounds in January 2004. From April that year, I worked (from home) as a website manager for a membership association; engaged in the same work, I found myself transported to Cheshire in November 2018, where I finally retired from the website job (incidentally, the best I have ever had in my life) in July 2024 at the age of 75.

Now, football, the main point of this sorry tale. I thought I was going to be able to avoid disclosing details of a seriously embarrassing and shameful episode in my life. To be honest, I had hoped it wouldn’t surface until I was pushing up the daisies.

My other half has supported Manchester City since she was at school and is always proud to respond to the standard musical query as to her whereabouts when they were shit. As for me (and here I am mentally quivering), like every other southern moronic football fan, I began to follow the team on the red side of Manchester – a common phrase including the word ‘bandwagon’ springs to mind. I of course know now that they are not even based in Manchester, but in the area administered by Trafford Borough Council.

Looking back, I realise that a dark shadow had been lifted from my life when I came to my senses and we started to go to the Etihad Stadium after my income was enhanced with a couple of private pensions. We became club members well before the Sheikh Mansour takeover (so I can’t be accused of yet another bandwagon hop) and began to undertake the 500-mile round trip to every home match, usually staying at a Premier Inn and mostly using the excellent Metro tram service. This pattern of life became expensive (and, in view of my body’s condition, physically draining) and, as mentioned above (after a good deal of soul-searching), we moved to Cheshire, where we have attended virtually every home match since and from where I am currently confessing to the heinous sin hereinbefore mentioned.

If any of my Manchester City friends read this, I want them to know I am desperately sorry. I couldn’t help where I was born, could I?

Sorry.

Did I say I was sorry?

Well, I really am so f*cking sorry.

Sorry to practically repeat the heading but I think I’m a bit worried. Of what, you may ask. Well, at this precise moment, two things. Every day, I learn of the death of somebody well known (whom I admire in some way) or within my various largish groups of friends, acquaintances and/or family in various parts of the country. Quite a few of them were of a life span currently the same as (76 years) or less than mine. Does this mean it’s nearly my turn next? Or a signal that I’m an upstart in the lack of death department? Please don’t tar me with that brush – I don’t mean to be.

The other worry is the deterioration of my memory. Doctors have reassured me that this is nothing to worry about and part of the normal ageing process. I am not convinced and am often enraged when I can’t recognise the photo of John Wayne on a Pointless picture board. That’s not a particularly good example, actually, I’d always recognise John Wayne but you get the picture (even if I don’t). Memory’s a strange thing, isn’t it? You stand in the kitchen, realise that what you need at this moment is located in the garage, then enter the garage wondering what the f**k it was you needed. And this shortcoming is afflicting someone who can vividly remember lying in a pram outside his Nan’s house when he was a gorgeous little one-year-old baby!

So, should I be worried? I don’t think I’m scared of death, as long as it doesn’t hurt. I would feel extremely sorry for my family and friends in case they missed me and bitterly regret not having been able to do things my body prevented me from doing for so long. As for the memory thing, I can’t bloody remember what I was going to say about that.

I’m still a bit worried!

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Those who have shuffled off this mortal coil from (and including) 20 March 2025