91Èȱ¬

Transcript

"Some Cardiff fans test each others' loyalty by asking you to recount your first game. But I don't like tests. The truth is, I can't remember it. The opposition, the score, the date, or even what division it was in.

I do remember standing on the old disabled terrace, concentrating intensely ... on making a mud castle with the builder's sand and a styrofoam cup, totally oblivious to the game. And I must have been such a disappointment to my dad at that moment. All he wanted was to make his boys bluebirds. But here I was, the second of his two sons to seemingly reject his gift of football.

I went off trying other things: swimming, sailing, quad biking, rallying, pool, dj-ing ... and inadvisably dancing! But none of them stuck. Dad just kept quietly pushing the football and after a while the spark caught the wind.

Then he couldn't get me off the pitch to take me to watch football! Spending every spare minute over King George's with the boys, "Why would I want to watch other people when I can win things dad?"

But eventually the curiosity won out and me and Cardiff City got it together. First just home games, then kits, then a season ticket, then away trips, then always poring over the coverage in the Echo. "What a great job these reporters have got." I thought.

And now, here I am, totally by accident, covering Cardiff City for the Echo. "What a great job you've got," people tell me, "your own career and your hobby together!"

But now my career has come to a point where I need to move on to progress, which means a different publication in a different city and a different football club and bang goes my hobby with it. So the very club that sucked me in is now pushing me away, unless I can swallow my ambitions and stay put. Maybe it's a test of loyalties.

I suppose I could always quit the words, stay here and become a plumber or something. But I won't."