The art of watching football while on holiday

There used to be a three-stage process when I wanted to watch a football match while on holiday with my family. Stage One: mention as an obvious joke the fact that FC Unpronounceable have a home game against The Totally Fucking Unknowns in the Bob Fazackerly Clipboards League in the very week that we happen to be renting a cottage in the neighbouring town. Laugh along as your wife says something like, "What sad, desperate failure of a human being would want to go and watch such an utterly shite, pointless sporting event like that?" 

The high octane thrills of the Estonian League (Pic: TQF)

Stage Two (the crucial stage. The breaking point): mention it again two days before the game with the vague outline of a plan. Remember that match I was talking about the other day? Yeah, I know, stupid waste of time, ha ha, but it happens to be on the same night where we have nothing really planned, and it turns out that these two teams have a bit of history. Two red cards in the corresponding fixture last season. Could get tasty. Nice little stadium too. Might be able to get a piece out of it for 'When Saturday Comes'. Then cower humbly as your wife unleashes her disbelief. "You're seriously thinking about going to watch this bollocks? Seriously?" Yes, quite seriously.

Stage Three: Permission was not exactly given during Stage Two, but there's no stopping me now. It's time to forge the plan and execute it with added details. "There's a lad playing for FC

The first thrill of Wembley - schoolboy internationals in the 1970s

Where is the Sunkist
 Trophy now?

"I hear you missed a penalty at Wembley last night." That was PE teacher Mr. Baxter's snarky putdown of schoolboy international Gary Hargreaves in an early episode of Grange Hill, when Hargreaves had been acting all cocky with his mates. This was a fine touch of Phil Redmond script-writing, because nearly all young male viewers would have known that England schoolboys played midweek at Wembley. The June international on a Saturday afternoon, meanwhile, was one of the few live games shown on TV in the 1970s.

Better still, our school organised an annual outing to the game, including a visit to London Zoo in the morning. Our own version of Mr Baxter growled at us before we left one year: "This will be my 12th visit to the zoo, and frankly I'm sick of it. So if I catch anyone misbehaving, don't expect me to be in the best of moods."

True, the zoo was just the warm-up act ahead of visiting the national stadium, but it was a crucial part of the day's ritual. If you go all the way from Lincolnshire to London for the day, you have to do something else besides watching 90 minutes of football. But why the zoo every year? Perhaps it was considered much easier to keep us