I’m English through and through, so football is just bred into me, like hockey to a Canadian.
From the earliest I can recall, as soon as I returned from school, the first thing I would do would be to pick up my football and go knocking on doors, looking for friends to come and play football with me on the field behind my house. If no one came out, I would just kick a ball around on my own!
I wasn’t very good and gave up playing at a very young age, moving on to Judo, then to table tennis and eventually to hockey.
In my primary school (Ages 7-11), everyone seemed to support either Liverpool or Manure. For me, it was Liverpool, while also developing a deep-rooted loathing of that horrible lot down the East Lancs Road! There was probably a degree of glory hunting about it, because at the time, Liverpool were the dominant force. Guys like Kevin Keagan and Kenny Dalglish were heroes.
My local team is Reading and I went to see a few Reading games at their old Elm Park ground when I was young. As I got older, I would look out for their results as much as Liverpool’s and by my late teens, I had realised that the Reading results were the ones that would set my mood for the following few days. I now consider myself a Reading fan, though I still have a massive soft spot for Liverpool.
Hockey is my main love, so I only go to a hand full of Reading games each year, but I am a season ticket holder with Reading FC Women and am one of about half a dozen fans that go to most away games as well
