I was born and raised high up in the Rossendale Valley, East Lancashire, where the men are men and the sheep are worried, and where winter lasts for three months longer than anywhere else in England.  The people here are brilliant but I've run out of stuff to do. As The Enemy once sang “We’ll live and die in these towns”. I was in danger of doing just that until a cocktail of middle age rage, repeated life-threatening asthma attacks and shear mortal panic propelled me out of the goldfish bowl. Buoyed by this new sense of optimism, I started 2015 determined not to float towards death undecided. I needed to crack on with my life and quickly.

 

 

Growing up, I loved those films like The Great Race, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Around the World in 80 days. Everything seemed so unrestricted, colourful, exotic and above all so totally different to my quiet, cobbled street and whippet existence (Yes, I had both! How northern can you get?) I wanted all that excitement…still do. I have always seen myself as an adventurer but, despite a short spell teaching in Greece and the odd brilliant, but criminally short, overseas charity challenge, I’ve hardly been intrepid. Now, with my son at an age where he is ready to go off do his own thing, I have the chance at last to fulfil my globetrotting dreams, which I know must somehow involve my love of the beautiful game……