During my week off work, I attended three football matches. I can’t say I enjoyed any of them. In fact, all three filled me with misery.

The first involved Bath City travelling all the way to London for a game against Wealdstone. Yes, Wealdstone is the home of “The Raider”, and yes, I did see him. He was drinking in the clubhouse. There were no selfies with him this time. That’s so 2014.

The Raider would have been more happy than me with how the game went. Bath City dominated from start to finish, but lost the game. How they didn’t win, I don’t know. They couldn’t even score one sodding goal.

It was cold in London. Very cold. So, not only did I have to endure Bath City losing, I had to do so while getting frozen to the bone.

The following Saturday, I made my second trip of the week to the seaside (the first being Weymouth). This time, I would not be bringing my bucket and spade. It was not a holiday. Far from it – a journey to a very wet Bognor Regis in the FA Trophy.

City got so close to reaching Wembley in last season’s FA Trophy – missing out on penalties (how very English). I was hoping for them to go one better this time. Sadly, I was left disappointed. Like a inbred horse, having the audacity to enter the Grand National, they fell at the first hurdle, shattering their legs and getting shot.

The term “inbred horse” is harsh. Like the previous week, we were the better team! This will no doubt sound like a broken record, and you’ll all be laughing at me, but did EVERYTHING but score a goal! As the fulltime whistle approached, the game remained goalless. The highly unappealing prospect of a replay on a Tuesday night looked inevitable. That was until the referee decided to award Bognor a penalty in the final minute of the game. Cheers. Of course, they scored it, which meant we were out the Trophy. Season over. Unless we get pulled into a relegation battle. It was just a five minute walk from the football ground to the stadium. It should have been 30 seconds, but for some reason, Bognor Regis Football Club don’t have a place for coaches to park. This makes it even more embarrassing that we lost to them. In this five minute walk, just to compound my misery, I got absolutely soaking, as it pissed down. I think God was crying that we were out of the Trophy.

It was Claire’s birthday the next day and I had just about dried off from my trip to Bognor. We had decided to go to Bristol City’s ground to watch the England women football team. I have a lot of respect for the England women. They did really well in the World Cup, reaching the semi-final. The last time the men got that far, I was barely out of nappies. They also seem to care about the fact they’re playing for their country, and not the fact that they may not get their £500,000 a-week contract, or if a team mate is shagging their wife.

England were playing a team called Bosnia and Herzegovina. I would say “try saying Herzegovina after a few pints of Thatchers,” but I struggled to pronounce it sober. Apparently B&H aren’t very good. To be honest, they didn’t look it. They put every man, I mean woman, behind the ball and defended for their lives. They were desperate to get a draw. It felt like watching Bath City and I ominously predicted that Bosnia would get a penalty in the 98th minute and win the game. Luckily, I was wrong. In the second half of the match, England finally scored. You would have thought that this would wake Bosnia up. It didn’t. they seemed as determined to hang onto their hard-fought 1-0 defeat.

England did win (woo-hoo), but there were no winners in Ashton Gate. It had rained for a vast majority of the game. Not just any old rain. Sheets and sheets of the stuff, combined with gale force winds, which blew all the water into the stands. I was soaking. Had I fallen into the River Avon on the way home, I wouldn’t have become more wet. It was horrendous. We were planning on going for a meal in Bristol after the match. This was of course cancelled – I don’t think Wetherspoons would have appreciated us all descending upon them and soaking all their tables and chairs… although incontinent alcoholics, who turn up for their daily 10am pint of Guinness have probably already soiled the furniture.