Well I say ‘ I moved’ but this is not strictly true because being only 4 years old at the time I was clearly too young to either have a mortgage or drive a removal van!

You’d think that spending the majority of my life in Northamptonshire would make me want to sing out three choruses of “Oh when the Saints, go marching in….” but thankfully I have avoided this fate!

Even living in Northampton itself for the last 18 months has not made me sway towards the Green and Black from the Green, Red and White! Even if my MD and most of the company have a persuasion to the dark side. We used to have a box at one point before the game went pro and prices went silly.

So what is it that has made me so resilient towards the lure of the Gardens? Well I’ll tell you….

I was 9 and my Dad thought it has about time I stopped playing with my matchbox cars and started to experience a more manly pursuit. So he took me to a game of poofball!

It was at the Waterworks the home of Desborough Football club. I can’t remember the opposition but I do remember being thoroughly bored! The fortnightly trips to the Waterworks soon stopped as both my Father and I had tired of watching the ‘beautiful game’. The fact that the pitch was shared with the local cricket club and had a 2 metre wide strip of 1mm long grass down one wing didn’t help the quality of the play.

Around two years later my Father decided he wanted to go and see a live rugby game for the first time in years. Watching the England team in the then 5 nations had stirred up his interest again. He’d played to a reasonably high standard through the various school age groups at Denston College and Nottingham Casuals until a career in clothes manufacturing beckoned.

So the first game of rugby I ever went to was in May 1990. Leicester were playing Coventry and all I remember is being disappointed because my coat was blue which unfortunately were the colours that Coventry were wearing that day!

The following season we became members of the club. My Father paid £40.00 for his season ticket whilst my junior ticket only cost £16.00! I’m not an accountant so I’m not going to try to work out if the prices have increased inline with inflation! In those days ‘every home game’ meant EVERY HOME GAME! Barbarians and cup games were all included.

The link with Leicester was cemented when I started playing Rugby at Kibworth RFC which led to programme selling duties at Leicester’s home 1st team games. My most vivid memories of those days was when we were playing Saints. The Saints team had just arrived and so I thought I’d try to sell a few extra programmes.

A certain Martin Bayfield, all 6’10 of him walked past and just decided that he’d take one without paying. Fortunately this was back in the days when programmes cost 80p and most people would give you a £1.00 and say “Keep the change” so I wasn’t out of pocket by the time I’d sold them all.

A later move to Kettering RFC at colt level didn’t diminish the link to Leicester although it was difficult to cope with the weekends when Leicester lost. Being the only Tigers supporter at a club in the Saints catchment area was trying at times!

During our 15 year membership at Leicester my Father and I have attended most home games and a select few away games. Most memorably, away to Bedford with their sloping pitch and the first game against Leeds when their annoying band sat right behind us! Obviously the most emotional games were the European cup finals in Cardiff against Brive and in Paris against Stade Francais. Clearly very different outcomes but similar in terms of the drain on the emotions.

I now attend all the games I can get to with my parents and my wife. We all sit in the Alliance + Leicester stand right next door to the Sky TV camera.

If you see me give us a wave!

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