As a lad in the northern reaches of the great metropolis a working man’s sport centred around whether you supported the Gunners or Spurs and in spite of attending Highbury with my late father I perversely (as usual) chose to follow Wolves after seeing their appearance against Moscow Dynamo on our flickering, newly acquired black and white TV.

It was not until the family emigrated to Essex and a change of school took place seeing my move from a small church run institution in North London to a large secondary peopled, it seemed to me, by psychopaths and they were just the teachers, that I was introduced to the delights of rugby union and where I had an undistinguished career (other than being the only schoolboy to be sent off in living memory) as first a LHP and latterly as an Openside.

Essex was not a hotbed of rugby and after a short sojourn discovering that my inadequacies were magnified in senior rugby to such an extent that most weekends saw me disabled I changed my allegiance to cricket as a participant and back to soccer as an observer.

It was not until I moved to Enfield in Middlesex, some twelve years later, that my interest in our sport was rekindled - and here’s the shock revelation - by standing on a bit of parkland in Bramley Road watching a team called Saracens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who I supported for the few years that I was in the area. Of course those were the balmy amateur days of friendlies and my support was limited to watching them when they played at home and it was cheap (actually free) to do so. I can’t imagine that I would have paid to watch them then anymore than I would now, unless they were playing Tigers of course.

A further move to the West Midlands saw my interest become increasingly promiscuous as I flirted with Moseley, Luctonians, Kingswinsford, Dudley and Droitwich but none had that certain something that I sought. After seven years the caravan rolled northwards until it came to rest on the Fylde where Grasshoppers plied their wares but after only one and a half seasons we were on the move again, this time to the Peak District where I was invited to go and see a team called Leicester FC play - I did and was smitten.

When, seven years later, we retreated back south from the fog and rain of Derbyshire to the sunlight of Herefordshire I found myself working in that hotbed of Rugby - Gloucester. It was now the start of the professional era. New friends and colleagues could not understand how I could continue to support Tigers when in the cathedral of rugby (they say) and took me to Kingsholm to see how the game should be played. Yes it was exciting and yes the Shed are amusing and yes amazingly the supporters are even more one eyed than many of those of us who fill the Crumbie but yet, but yet, it wasn’t, well - Tigers.

So I remained a Tigerman which at times has not been an easy thing to be down here, but in the last four years how fortunate I have been and never more so than on a windy, sunny September day at Kingsholm last year, but when and if the dreadful day comes when Glaws actually become the force they threaten it may be that the caravan will have to move once again if only to preserve what sanity remains in my existence.

But whatever and wherever the winds of fortune drive this exile he will remain loyal to the Tigers.

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