One thing i never, ever want to do again is be shotgun for the footy bus. I had to watch all the little rats on the bus and made sure they all behaved. What a nightmare that was.

The resaon why i had to this was because no one else said that they could do it that week. Because mum was organising the thing and did not want to do it herself. She decided that i should do it instead. She was the only one who didn’t have to go on the bus as dad was driving and Sonny was training.

The trip to Northampton wasn’t too bad until the last fifteen minutes of the trip. All of them decided to go crazy and a couple of kids at the back were fighting and bickering. That was fun having to sort out.

Eventually they all got off the bus and started training, thank god for that. i joined in with the U14’s training as I had nothing better to do. That team is probably one of the laziest and most uncoordinated team i’ve ever seen. They didn’t even win a single game. They usually got flogged by a hundred or so points, but that’s Northampton for you.

Training ended, the kiddies all had their meals, so we headed off. The trip back was even worse, they were all climbing and jumping and screaming and carrying on. It was that bad. The kids at the back were still bickering and some of them would keep fueling the flame.

Then we had to drop them off, which is more painful than any other part of the trip. You’d ask who’s next and you’d get the vaguest of answers from them. Where do you live? Over there. That doesn’t help. Then some kid goes, you missed my house. You end up going back and forth all through town.  I was greatful that i was always the first one off the bus.

But it did eventually end, it took a while. Me and Dad agreed to never do that again.