.............and I've had a lovely day, honest!

Sad postscript Merse - Joe Lively injured a tendon during the race and is unlikely to run again much before Christmas 2009. Makes it all the more amazing that he had the guts to run on again at the end of the race to take fifth placed prize-money.

By your reasoning, anytime you paid to go into a football match the money would be wasted unless your team won. It's a sporting event I'm enjoying, not running a business.

It's not at all like that of course and neither is it going racing. Certainly from my point of view, my "betting pot" is the very finite amount I have put away in cash BEFORE I get there. It's cash I already have, not some credit card account that is going to bring the bailiffs round knocking at the door. Once it's gone, it's gone; it's no different than going out for a meal and saying you'll put an upwards limit of fifty quid on your bill and ordering accordingly. It's no different than spending money in the Gulls Shop or on a Fifty Fifty ticket, and as for cold weather - if you went for a walk on Dartmoor would you prefer to get out in the wind and rain or sit in the car like some molly coddled old Doris?

Kempton offers some of the very best of facilities in the game and admission a mere £15 for each of us as we're members of the Racegoers Club entitling us to a £3 discount off entry at most meetings around the country................that worked out at less than £2 a race yesterday. So for my missus watching indoors was little different than enjoying a sponsor's box at Plainmoor, whilst I prefer to out on the "Popside"

Just like football, if my eventual losing choice has put up a good fight and thrilled me I've enjoyed the spectacle and the excitement.....................a "Rocking Horse" impersonation like Tinagoodnight's has only happened to one of my selections once before as far as I can recall and it all goes into the book full of memories we take to the grave - rather like the race at Newton Abbot one day when all four horses managed to stop and there wasn't a single runner left for a little while until one got going again

....................and I drive a very nice car that somebody else paid for and stands the daily de-valuation thankyou!

How I'd love to superimpose a license disc in the bottom left hand corner of that photo Dave!

You can't beat feeling the wind and rain on your face, and wrapping up so that it is only your face that feels it.

Picking up another thread, visiting places like Abbotsbury in the summer....watching cricket....minimalising the risk of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sorry to sound selfish but that's three good personal reasons for preferring winter football.

As for Saturday, like Merse I had a satisfactory day spectating in the cold in rather unexpected surroundings.

Having caught the 0743 from Exeter St Davids on Friday morning I suffered a few minor delays - mainly around Cheltenham - before taking another train north from Birmingham to arrive at the excellent Ashdown Hotel in Preston (come out of the station and turn left down the hill) at 1300 as planned. Plenty of snow falling around Bristol, earlier falls still on the ground until Crewe and nothing by Warrington. Sunny, cold and crisp - just right. No snow all weekend and a smooth journey home today.

With Plan A knocked to oblivion - as I passed through Stafford - the search began for an alternative after reasoning there's always another match somewhere. As it happens I could have made for the Furness peninsula on Saturday morning, as originally intended, to catch a game at either Vickerstown or Furness Cavaliers. Vickerstown could only manage a 4-4 home draw against Charnock Richard - maybe they're better when the ground is under water? (think about it!).

But, wanting something upmarket for a change, the real choice was between Everton or Blackburn (both of which would have been a walk down Memory Lane for me) or a trip to a ground new to me - namely the City of Manchester Stadium (or Eastlands if you prefer). A few hurried texts to a man with a computer - thanks Phil - to check prices and availability and I was soon on the phone to Manchester City. Apparently I could only order tickets in advance by becoming some sort of member so, by 2pm on Friday, I'd signed up to a deal which guarantees me masses of emails from the Richest Club in the World.

Arriving at the stadium on Saturday morning I expected to collect a ticket. Instead I was given a swipe card and a slip of paper with details of my seat. Wave it in front of the electronic reader at Entrance G and you're inside without having to deal with anyone as 20th century as a common turnstile operator. Here's the card minus key details to prevent identity theft (why anybody would want the identity of a 53-year-old Torquay United supporter baffles me anyway):



Waiting for the gates to open I got into conversation with a 73-year-old former print worker from Stockport. Conversation? It was a monologue:

"Have you a tractor and trailer? Because if you have we could make three million quid knocking that bloody thing down. That's more than it cost to put it up. We could split the three million, you and me. So have you got one? A tractor? What a bloody waste. They could have put a medical centre there instead. Too much bloody rubbish in this country these days. It's all a bloody waste. And it's not much good here either. This bloke, the manager, he's got no idea. If it weren't for that Robinho fellow we'd be bottom. Bottom of the league. That Dunne's slow. The forward can be a yard behind him and he'll do him every time. And that Petrov has gone to pieces. Burnt himself out against Blackburn. Finished. I used to be at Bowater's you know. All gone. Brenda Dean started that by getting equal pay for women. That buggered it. All the jobs have gone to China, haven't they? And that Credit Crunch. It all started with jobs going to China from Sacramento. We're doomed you know. Doomed."

Fortunately at that point the gates opened and I was swiping my card with the best of them. As for that "bloody thing" he meant B of the Bang :



As for the stadium I was impressed. Rather more style than some of the other new ones. Halfway line view - high in the Gods - for £24.50 (Middlesbrough must in Category ZZ when it comes to ticket prices). A good view for a one-off treat but - as somebody has said on here - it's not the same without being able to see their facial expressions. A reasonable game - I enjoyed it - and I was impressed by City's foreigners: Bellamy, Ireland, Given.....

But, once again in palatial surroundings, a quiet almost passionless crowd. I'm sure the same people wouldn't be like that on a lower division terrace but, once inside the opera house, they're docile. Nonetheless I enjoyed one understated comment after a flash of brilliance from Robinho: "that's better, City!".

Watchable but not so dramatic or as emotional as when I saw City play Boro at Maine Road donkeys years ago. League Cup semi-final - the season City last won a major trophy - 1-0 down from the first leg. A lively night on the Kippax and here's some shots from the 15p programme:





Francis Lee was long gone from Maine Road by then but yesterday's programme - a 100 page booklet (with a proper spine) which, I have to say, was damn good value for £3 - carried a feature about Lee's record from the spot in 1971/72 - 15 in total (13 league, 2 cup). Seven of the penalties had been awarded for fouls on the man himself.

They didn't call him Lee Won Pen for nothing.

"Some pitches in the Barrow" area does not mean the one we were due to play on does it?

Were they as rutted after a midweek game as Holker Street? Do they suffer from shadow from any stand roofs? Are they as far from the sea and thus a milder micro climate?

"According to Merse's logic", Weymouth made no attempt to travel to a perfectly playable pitch but whinnied about getting home, Barrow on Saturday was an entirely different entity.

I'm not being dismissive of getting stuck in snow either having once spent a night at the foot of a Dartmoor Hill with only a Devon General bus for company and also getting stuck at the bottom of the Gordano climb on the M5 the evening my first daughter was born 90 miles away in Torbay Hospital!

By the way, whenever Telegraph/Haldon Hill is impassable these days is there some sort of embargo on going via the Starcross, Exminster Road to Exeter from Torbay, or was that under a deluge of snow too?