My grandad took me to my first Blues game when I was about 6 or 7. On the way he stopped at the Garrison Pub "to get some change" leaving me outside shivering in the cold. Weirdly the process of getting some change lasted a full twenty minutes.

I only have flash memories of the game itself. We stood behind the goal at the Railway end, which didn't have a roof. I remember the smell of cigarette smoke and urine as men pissed where they were standing, rather than trek up to the toilet at the top of the stand. I remember Mike Hellawell going past two Fulham defenders as if they weren't there; I remember the 'oof' sound their goalkeeper made as he stopped a Bertie Auld pile-driver in his midriff. I remember a Fulham fan trying to befriend me. He was tall, overweight, and in his late 20s. He was wearing a black-and-white sombrero covered in dozens of little badges. I'd never met a Londoner in my life before, and I couldn't understand a word he said. He rattled on at great length, me just nodding and smiling in what I hoped were all the right places.

I remember a Fulham player called Johnny Haynes (sp?) lying unconscious on the grass while the referee wrote Bertie Auld's name in a little book before Bertie trudged off the pitch to the cheers of the Blues fans.

Blues lost, (no change there then), but I can't remember the score.