School’s out

Good morning from Bradford Interchange station where I’m sat aboard a train.

For those who haven’t read this awful blog before,  please turn back, there is nothing to see here. For those who choose to read on, I would encourage you to think about your lives and what else you could be doing with whatever time you have left

I haven’t written anything for ages because the kids are much bigger now and don’t want to be shamed in public any more. Plus there’s Vanessa.

However, holiday time is finally upon us so I thought I would dust off my typing finger and perhaps write a few lines as we go along as a means of retaining some hazy memories for future exaggeration. 

Our actual holiday doesn’t start properly until Monday - more of that on Monday, at a guess - but first a little personal pilgrimage over the Pennines to that Lancashire to see some football.

Anyone who knows me understands my divine love for Coleraine FC, my hometown club. It’s been around for 98 years and we’ve won the Irish League just once in that long and not especially illustrious history. But we’ve been taken over twice in the past couple of years, are now a full-time professional club and might even have a chance of winning something again before we turn 100. (I really shouldn’t have said that out loud - sorry fellow Bannsiders).

In a sign of how things are looking up for us long suffering fans, we have an away friendly game today against League One team Fleetwood Town. And, having never seen the team play outside Northern Ireland before, there was no way I was missing that.

So you find me on this train bound for Blackpool where I will meet my good friend Stephen, we’ll dump our bags in our cheap hotel and then - perhaps via a hostelry or two - will clamber on to a tram to Fleetwood. And because it’s a friendly, it doesn’t even matter if we get stuffed. Sport as it should be.

More later (or later still).