Manchester City FC

You get to a point where you think whats the bloody point. I'm there. I sent Ingridd and Olga back to Stockholm, they'd been kicking up for a while. I guess it's not easy living with a man obsessed with football, but living with a man obsessed with poetry and football, well I might as well have been Beelzebub himself. No sooner would I finish writing a villanelle about Villa or a haiku about Halifax when one of them would make some unreasonable sexual demand, so what could I do but nip down The Bell to finish off my clerihew.

Bazinho has bitten the dust too. Who was I kidding there's only one sort of Brazilian I could be likened too. So it's down to me and the cat, you'll be glad to know that Zizou is still here, although pretty amazed to discover that Zizou is in fact his given name.

I guess I'm the granddaddy of Catflap bloggers so I feel a certain responsibility to set a good example and tell it like it is.

Football is ridiculous. You celebrate beating one of the Big 4 one week only to be humbled by lower league opposition the next, its like life, and life is ridiculous.

I know a person, shall we call him X who lives breathes sleeps and eats his beloved team, he knows everything about their history, their squad, the under 11's girls team's fixtures. He has a full length cardboard cut-out of his hero (now retired) and an inflatable mascot (comes with puncture kit). His boast is he's not missed a game home or away for 11 years, he missed the birth of his first daughter and got married in the close season, before the friendlies started. He once flew home from a holiday in Corsica to see a reserve match against the local rivals...it was the debut of the new centre froward they signed from Gillingham for £100,000.

I bet you all know one of these dedicated fans too, maybe you are one? I'd just like to say good luck to you. I'm going to watch 'The Boy With The Striped Pyjamas' at the cinema with my daughter tonight (review to follow) then I'll be home and go to bed with a mug of Ovaltine and a book of Ted Hughes's poetry...and you call me strange.

Barry