• Being awake from 5am to 11.30pm is one way to guarantee a good nights sleep
• Making a 550 mile round trip in a full mini bus can make you feel claustrophobic and overheated
• The theory “Build it and they will come” is a load of bollocks – just because you have a 25,000 capacity stadium, it doesn’t guarantee a big crowd
• All people from Darlington sound like Alan Shearer
• The further north you go, the better the pies taste
• The further north you go, the more likely you are to find Bulmers cider in the pub than Thatchers
• It rains in the north as much as it does in the south – except it’s colder
• Burger King outlets at motorway service stations are a rip-off
• Bath City will never, ever win the FA Trophy
• The camera on the iPhone 4 is rubbish (see here)

25,000 empty seats

Getting up at 5.30am, traveling over 550 miles and losing 4-1 in front of little over 400 fans. Love it!

Tomorrow morning I will embark upon my longest ever trip as a football fan. In fact it is my longest trip ever. OK, I’ve been abroad to France, Spain and Italy on holiday, but this is my furthest ever venture north. The lyrics “Oh my God, I can’t believe it, I’ve never been this far away from home” would be rather fitting.

I need to get up at the truly awful time of 5:30am. The thought of getting out of my bed at this time is simply too terrible to comprehend. Leaving my flat shortly after to walk to Twerton Park for 6.30am when the mini bus (yes, that’s right, no full sized coach this week) departs for County Durham, won’t be a barrel of laughs either.

Looking at Google Maps it really is far. Miles and miles and miles.

Compare the map of Bath to Darlington to that of Bath to The Moon. Not a lot of difference!