It was a good start to the football season. Things could have been better, but they could have been worse… I remember the opening day last year, Bath City lost 3-0 to a team called Concord Rangers; who play in an Essex hellhole called Canvey Island. On the same day, Leeds were being managed by David Hockaday – a man who Forest Green Rovers had recently sacked. Unsurprisingly, they lost to an awfully bad Millwall side.

Before anyone could really concentrate on the football, a far more important matter had to be dealt with – The Ashes. I’m one of these people who like cricket a bit, but become addicted to the sport during The Ashes series. A bit like those annoying football fans, who don’t support a team (or worse, Manchester United) but decorate their cars and houses with St. George flags during the World Cup. My limited cricket knowledge lead me to understand that Australia were diabolical. In fact, while at work and following the score on my mobile phone, I thought the application was broken, because Australia were just so bad.

The internet is great for jokes in the time of big news. Whether it be following the death of a celebrity or mocking a sporting team’s failure. Twitter did not let me down and there were endless jokes, mocking the Aussie’s failure. An advertisement for Australian cricket bats, with the description “hardly used” was the best – closely followed by a tweet “Rolf Harris is now officially embarrassed”.

Anyway, it was Saturday morning. Leeds were on the telly at midday. England needed 3 wickets to win the Ashes – this was something I really wanted to witness and I was very much hoping that England could finish the job in time to allow me to watch the football. They didn’t disappoint. The Australian batsmen, clearly aware of my wish, thoughtfully collapsed, handing England The Ashes urn and allowing me to watch Leeds.

Leeds looked good – much, much, much better than 12 months ago under Mr. Hockaday (although they couldn’t have been much worse). I loved the look of one of the new signings, Stuart Dalllas. No doubt this won’t last and he’ll turn out to be shite, get injured or be sold. I didn’t get to watch all the game, as we left early for Bath City. When the telly went off, the score line was 0-0. Five minutes later, while waiting at the traffic lights outside the hospital, the in-car radio announced that Leeds had scored. I tried to contain my excitement, as I didn’t want Claire to crash the car. A few minutes later, while driving across Windsor Bridge, I found out that Leeds had conceded. I tried to contain my anger, as I didn’t want Claire to crash the car.

Fear the beard

My second football match of the day was at Bath City. The opponents – Wealdstone. Yes, that’s right, the team of The Raider. “You’ve got not fans” “What a shit hole” “You want some?” etc… I met him once, don’t you know? It was a game of two sets of defenders – or lack of them. Both teams attacked very well, but the defence was just awful. Our new goalkeeper, Steve Phillips (who had a very good game), is going to have a busy season. Luckily City did what Leeds could not and won the game, leaving all the home fans happy and the Raider to only dream of what might have been, before going home to kick the cat.