A long and entertainingly interesting/exciting day. Shan't dilly-dally with all the finer details. It has been suggested I launch into this one post-haste, for the sake of your sanity.

And so I left the house at ten to eight, in order to showcase my infinite enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I was left lounging around for a fair while, until Mouse and Woody (a duet something like that, anyway) popped into the cavernous, open-ended hall that is York station. Shortly after, further companions trickled through. I made my usual purchase of the Sun (for the sheer woman-exploiting thrills of page 3) and a big bottle of H20. Cost a small fortune, it did.

The smallish posse of Paddy baby, the two Daves, Laurence, I, Wilko and Woody entered the York-London train at 8:29.

The trip passed enjoyably. I simply could not contain my glee at Mouse and co. having a go at me for blabbing on about random waffle, so they put me up to the task of staying quiet for ten minutes - the catch being they ask daft questions like "are you gay?", so they have an excuse to lash out at yours truly. I did actually stay quiet for ages when we were near London. Some of the other chaps were actually asking me "what's wrong?" and such and such. Well, I'll tell you what was wrong. I needed to urinate somewhere mid-way through the journey, so I told the Padmeister "get up" (much to his annoyance as I'd been doing this loads on the journey.) I moved up the carriage and to the one of the train's bogs. It was indicated green on the door handle (presumably meaning "not engaged", unless GNER have their own language I am not in the knowledge of.) I forced the door open. Suffice to say, the woman on the inside hadn't locked it. The image has stained me to this day.

London. Met up with Richard, in which it was good to see him. A chance to pose for pictures and such like, while Laurence queued for TEN MINUTES for the tube tickets - to no avail, as for reasons I don't think even he understand they didn't supply him with the tickets he was after. We then noticed the HUGE size of the GNER ticket office and we walked to the Thameslink station, fully furbished with vending machine, which I took full advantage of - just ask Woody as I denied the cheeky bugger of a Jaffa Cake.

The entirety of our group winded up at Waterloo all in one piece. A relatively short train ride to Farnborough came up next, in which little occurred, except practically all of our group tried to take my shoe again (which you'll know all about if you read the Crawley report) and my first ever visualization of the over-sized Ferris wheel at the London Eye.

Every member of our 8-strong group managed to get to Farnborough with all footwear still intact. There were several taxis nicely lined up outside the station. I jumped in a cab with Laurence, Wilko and the Davestar (I think Dave, anyway.) This writer admits to struggling to find the fold up seats (like what you might find in a cinema), opposite the "normal" seating at the very back.

Our (me, Laurence, Dave, Wilko) quick taxi ride came to £4.20 - the princely sum of £1.05 each. We (me, Laurence, Dave, Wilko) arrived at Farnborough's "ground" thing. Notable features of the ground include the blatant crapness of the place, the friable terracing, the wheelie bins the home club nicked from local residents and I can't resist passing a comment about the ridiculous seats in one of the stands - they had no back rests, which looked both ludicrous and daft to say the least. The PA system was equally crap, although they boasted a not all that annoying announcer chapette. The bloke deserves better. Farnborough FC, delve into your chequebooks, grab a pen and bless your matchday announcer with a decent PA.

No doubt Terry Doyle will be having harsh words in York's official matchday reading material about their programme, "Boro View". It's not the most imaginative title in the world, but certainly one of the highlights of this 48-page publication, full of adverts and of little reading interest. They even managed to waste three pages, dedicated to digging out the local tarts and having them "model" Farnborough's new kit, along with slogans and the like, including "WHAT A NICE PAIR OF KITS!" Thank you very much, Jess and Karlie... or alternatively, not.

I'll quite kindly skip most of the match. The proper match report... has gone AWOL, it would seem. You should know that the score was 1-1. What that scoreline doesn't tell you, though, is that most of our group were stood just a bit in front of a (possibly) schizophrenic maniac, who thought he was funny. Indeed he was funny in the bad sense of the word, what with such vocalizations as "Farnborough... foot... Footborough! Footborough. Footborough..." This inane rhetorical freaked supporters nearby for a good twenty minutes. Literally more scary than the snuff flicks of the 21st century.

The game went into half-time. As segregation wasn't in place, the York City fans swapped ends, while some random Farnborough fan shouted words, including profanities, about Mousey and how he was a "fat b*****d", or something. Fortunately for him, the Mousester didn't hear, so he was spared a nice bunch o' fives. I was tempted to have words, but that would have been morally wrong.

We watched the England match after the game in Farnborough's quite nice social club. Myself, Laurence and Wilko made the long walk to the station, while all the others got a taxi. We saw some York fans causing general havoc, probably alcohol-related. Such wanton destruction included the uprooting of a fence and throwing random stuff about. One of these pissed-up chaps actually jumped on a bus as it stopped, to ask if it went to King's Cross. He sat down without paying. The look on the driver's face was priceless.

Laurence and Wilko wanted to wait around for a later and supposedly faster train, so I "mistakenly" (as Laurence had my train ticket!) jumped on with all the others. I didn't possess a valid ticket. And yes, there was a ticket inspection. Richard, I owe you one for managing to talk the inspector away and get me out of a potentially hefty fine. Met up with Laurence at King's Cross, and we had a bit of a chat. Apparently, I was "really lucky not to get a fine". I still wake up in cold sweat even now.

There are, for those who have never been to King's Cross, a multitude of shops at the station. Desperate for some refreshments, I had a little explore. WHSchmitt? No ta. Upper Crust? Upper class, more like... I made a purchase of two bottles of water and some crisps from something akin to a corner shop. As a result of the rumpus of liquid refreshment, I needed to urinate desperately towards the end of our uncomfortably hot train ride back. But as of today, I learnt two valuable lessons: 1) Stick to Laurence like glue. 2) Never use a train toilet again.

Thanks for reading.