I rue these because they conspire to make me follow United's perennial promotion push on Teletext, the poor man's Internet. The connection in our flat is a relic from the land before time (or 'Gainsborough' as some people call it) and as such is worse than crap for streaming the commentary, leaving me glued intently to page 308.
It's excitement like the recent Hull victory that really rubs it in. That Saturday I was going home from work on the train when my text messaging results service (well, my Dad watching Soccer Saturday on Sky at his house) alerted me to the happy news. A far cry from screaming my guts out on the terraces.
Oh to see the look on the mudrats' cocky faces, who claimed their 'team' was bigger than United because of their vast attendances. Surely just a measure of how big their town is. Now the last time I checked, the size of a town didn't correspond to the quality of the football, using that logic, we should all be quaking in the shadow of Leyton Orient with their potential fanbase of six million.
On the subject of Hull, a big group of their townsfolk have taken up the BBC's challenge to recreate the conditions of the Somme, to live in the squalor of the disease ridden, rat infested, stinking trenches in a new reality programme. Still, they must be used to that, spending their free-time at Boothferry Park every other Saturday. (Cue responses from those across the river including the phrase 'Biscuit Tin' and hilariously pointing out the swearword in Scunthorpe.)
So for me it's hanging on until awaydays at Southend and Orient, plus of course our day out at Cardiff. Ah well, the trials of being an exile. Altogether now, "Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be / We're going to Wembley or equivalent / Que sera sera".
See you all at the seaside on Saturday, let's get behind the team and show Mr. Garcia some love after the way he's been treated.
Up the Iron.
Jim can be heard on SBN, weekdays between 2pm and 7pm. (www.sbn.co.uk or Sky Digital channel 894)