Ray Hitchcock Sports Shop in Solihull was THE place to go for youngsters like me to buy replica Blues shirts like the iconic early 70's 'penguin' strip or the equally lauded 'satin' design that followed it later in the decade. They were always in stock - what they struggled to keep in stock were the number "8" transfers that you would have ironed onto the back of the shirt you purchased. And that's because everyone around my age wanted to be No.8

We all wanted to be Trevor Francis

I wrote a blog a while ago about underrated/overlooked drummers that had been important to me in my development as a player - folk like Vinny Appice of Dio and Mickey Curry with Bryan Adams being 2 particular examples I cited at the time

https://www.iandanter.co.uk/blogs/10th-january-2017-5-most-overlooked-an...

As we entered the final furlong of our month long tour, there would be one slight change for the last 2 shows in Portsmouth and Shrewsbury. Jon had a prior commitment which meant he unfortunately wasn’t available, but a band like ours always has folk standing by to come in as ‘pinch hitters’ as and when required. In fact, there’s only one band member yet to have had a dep come in for them…more on that later.

I had my special little night in Solihull mid-tour, so it’s only fair that the love gets shared around in this show. And so, partly to minimise the mileage of 3 of our number just for a change, we had a show booked in Swansea-home city to guitarist Jon, a hop, skip and a jump away from Bridgend for singer Tanyth and a hop, skip and triple-jump from Newport for guitarist Glenn.

I still got there first to set up, though.

The end of my 19th season with talkSPORT bombing around the country - and further afield - in pursuit of the beautiful game. I reckon I’ve done over 25,000 miles driving around the UK covering matches for the mightiest sports radio station in the known cosmos this past campaign. I didn’t claim any diesel expenses for the trip to Qatar though… :)

L&L The Tour Pt2

And so to Rugby via Bishops Stortford as our jaunt around the UK continued.

Having already been nearby to Stevenage at the start of our tour, we wondered just how well this Stortford show would be attended. We needn’t have worried, really. A very friendly welcome awaited us at South Mills Arts Centre…and the tea/coffee on offer from the venue staff as we set up was augmented by a spectacular array of quality biscuits in a glass jar. A jar that quickly emptied.

I’ve blogged before on here about my one week or so as a touring musician back in the mid 1990’s when City Kidds took to the highways and byways of this land to spread the word of Glam. Or Nu Glam…or whatever we were…

Once we’d played The Marquee in London on the final night and I was back selling guitars in Brum the very next day, I harboured desires to repeat the process in very short order - perhaps 29 years is a bit of a stretch as being termed ‘short order’, but here we are.

As someone remarked to me the other day, “25 years eh? You get less for murder!”

Perhaps you do, but this past quarter of a century in broadcasting has felt anything but a ‘stretch’ for me, as February the 16th this week heralded that particular career milestone.

I’m sitting on a 6 hour flight from Doha back to Heathrow T4 and my inflight entertainment thingy in seat 27K is steadfastly refusing to work - so I thought I’d reflect instead on the World Cup I’ve just witnessed in Qatar. A tournament more controversial than any previous edition; one which sought to show itself as an all-embracing celebration of our love for the beautiful game, but raised more red flags off the pitch than yellow cards on it.