Blogs

Around a quarter to seven Saturday evening, Peter Crouch lit up what had been an attritional game at the Britannia Stadium with the kind of goal that should provoke nothing but fulsome praise and exaltation at its execution and skill.

But this is England, so that never happens of course. Shame on us.

Within seconds of Crouch’s extraordinary volley, my timelines were full of comments ranging from the woefully inaccurate (‘he didn’t mean that/that was a cross’) to the unbelievably stupid (‘So what? He doesn’t do that sort of thing often enough…’)

***I was asked by the Football Writers Association to write a blog of a typical week in my working life (if there is such a thing as typical in my world) - here it is in all its glory. Enjoy***

Monday 5th March

I find some football fans flair for the overstatement to be immensely frustrating at times.

In the wake of Mick McCarthy’s sacking at Wolves this past Monday, a caller rang Alan Brazil on talkSPORT saying he was a season ticket holder for 20 years and that (I’m paraphrasing here) the home defeat to WBA was “the worst I’ve ever seen to be honest”.

Most of you who are serious rock music devotees will have read Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s recent statement about his contract wrangles over the band’s proposed reunion album/tour and gently shaken your collective heads in sorrow

I just pissed myself laughing.

Going into a recording studio is always a very exciting time for me.

I first started putting my own songs on tape my nearly a quarter of a century ago. Of course nowadays, tape is nowhere to be seen in your average studio. It’s all Logic this and Pro-Tools that – a world away from reel-to-reel and the era where if you recorded a 99.5% perfect drum take but made just one dodgy snare drum hit, you had to either live with it or record the whole damn thing again -which at £15 an hour wasn’t always the smartest option for a band of eager yet meagre musicians.

My previous blog was in tribute to my late friend Dave Hodgson who passed away on New Years Eve – thank you for reading it in such numbers.

Suffice to say that his memorial service was held this weekend just gone in the church where he and Tatty were married – it was every bit as he would have wanted it to be and the sheer number of well wishers who packed St John The Baptist church as well as the Kings Head pub next door for the wake afterwards spoke volumes.

Well what a dreadful dreadful start to 2012.

Dave Hodgson, one of the bravest men I’ve ever met in my life, finally succumbed to cancer as 2011 ended. My immediate thoughts and condolences to his young wife Natalie, her daughter Olivia and all of Dave’s nearest and dearest.

His bravery came in the way in which he faced blood cancer head on and tweeted every stage of his fight with no small amount of humour along the way, never once descending into self-pity or overstating his situation.

So 2011 is almost done and what a strange year it’s been in some ways for yours truly – mostly in a musical sense! Having to leave the ultimate tribute band (Dressed To Kill natch), helping out 2 others and now, as the year draws to a close I’m finally getting the chance to be at my most musically creative – namely, to record my own album of original material.

Just by chance whilst channel hopping the other night, I stumbled across Later With Jools Holland on BBC2 and in particular a performance that he was introducing from Metallica and Lou Reed – together at last, eh? Not bloody likely.

I am just one of countless broadcasters (especially in the sporting field) who is asked one question more than any other – namely “How did you get into radio?” or sometimes, as it was asked by a chap who met me at Gems TV once “How the hell did YOU get into radio?” Seriously, it has been asked in that way without the slightest concern over my reaction to the tone of it. Charming.