Welcome in. Pay at the turnstile, buy your overpriced steak and kidney pie and splash out on a polystyrene cup of scalding Bovril.
Don't bother with a matchday programme - you can always read the bloke's next to you.
Team news: I'm in the starting lineup with any
number I want. The rest of you can choose your own shirts and have your say after me.
This is the new blog dedicated to all things football....or rather all things Premier League football - and anything else I deem worthy of comment.
Its title comes from the phrase I've muttered most often since moving to these shores almost five years ago.
It is called football. There's been a game called football in England since at least the 13th Century. That's before tectonic plates shifted and spewed out a Rangitoto Island for everyone to marvel at.
And yes, yes, before anyone starts I know an Englishman is credited/blamed for first coining the word "soccer", but Charles Wreford-Brown was also a keen chess player so in all likelihood he needed help to dress himself in the mornings.
Today it's only really used by people who elected President Bush. And then his son.
Even New Zealand Soccer has changed its name to New Zealand Football.
"Soccer" sounds like coughing up phlegm. It's an affront to the beautiful game.
Mind you, on the basis of Monday morning's Community Shield pre-season curtain-raiser, it could be another season where "beautiful game" is the biggest misnomer since Peter Crouch was described as a goalscorer.
Man Utd's goal wasn't a bad move, I suppose, and Chelsea's equaliser was a decent bit of work from the new winger Malouda, but the highlight for me was clearly Christiano Ronaldo setting off on a mazy run...and promptly standing on the ball. Brilliant.
Anyway, Man U took the first silverware on penalties, but to be honest, who cares? The season proper starts this weekend and life takes on a whole new meaning. Bring it on.
