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.