Filthy Puerile Southern Prejudice

The awkward thing about being a City fan that doesn't live in Bristol is that you have to choose your fixtures carefully. In my house (roughly 160 miles from Ashton Gate) it's a constant juggling act.

I spend most Saturdays driving one or other of the children to various clubs (Worthing Dynamos U-10s need all the support they can get frankly), keeping the wife sweet (she comes from a rugby family, bless her) and working out how quickly I can get to games without attracting the attention of the speed cameras. Its why, along with many other exiles, I tend to see more away fixtures than home ones.

This year though, there is definitely a conspiracy to prevent me from seeing City. But this conspiracy doesn't come from MI5, the CIA or the FBI – its much more sinister than that. Have you spotted it? The Northerners are plotting to take over our division. Look at the number of trips beyond the Watford Gap this year.

One or two is okay, I admit – hands up who doesn't secretly enjoy a weekend in a Blackpool B&B? There are even some nice stadiums – for anyone who hasn't been to the magnificent McAlpine, I would recommend making the journey.

But, and it's a big but, this year, of our 23 away fixtures, only four are what I would call ‘southern' - Torquay, Bournemouth, Swindon and Brentford. Don't try to tell me Luton is in the south, cos down here in Sussex , I don't buy it. And don't talk to me about Milton Keynes , because even if they paid me to go, I wouldn't watch Franchise FC. So lets re-cap, that's four southern fixtures between now and May 2005. FOUR! That's 17.3% of the fixtures, less than 1 in 5, for Gods sake.

Go on, take a look at the fixture list, if you don't believe me. Its full of godforsaken places where they eat deep fried mars bars and think Posh Spice really is posh. For example, between November 20 th 2004 (Wrexham) and February 19 th 2005 (Colchester), during those poxy winter months with dark afternoons and freezing cold mornings, our away fixtures are as follows: Doncaster, Blackpool, Stockport, Huddersfield, Tranmere, Hartlepool and Hull . All we need is a weekend fixture with Anchorage Academicals, and we've cornered the market on the world's coldest destinations.

Now don't get me wrong, I spent four very happy undergraduate years in the North West and there are some beautiful places north of the Watford . And I'm not having a go just because Bernard Manning, William Hague, Jimmy Tarbuck, Cilla Black, Terry bloody Christian, Melvyn Bragg and Roy ‘chubby' Brown all do the ‘professional northerner' thing to death.

It's just that it's a long way from where I live.

On the way to the play-off final, I had this season all planned. Away trips to West Ham, Gillingham, QPR, Millwall, Watford, Reading, with a few ‘long distance' trips to Cardiff, Coventry, Ipswich and Plymouth (relatives in all cities, you see - easy). But, no. Muggins here is now stuck with trying to blag business trips to York to coincide with all those flippin' Yorkshire games.

Five bloody times we have to go to the self-proclaimed ‘God's own county' (Actually, its six if you include Hull as somewhere that's hosted Yorkshire cricket matches). You want to know what it'll be like? Picture the father of Amy Hardwood, in the classic Blackadder III saying, of his daughter, ‘I love her more than any pig, and that's saying summat! ' and you'll get the drift. It's just such a long way (he says in his whiniest southern accent) to get to all those places. In my darkest moments, I almost wondered if Danny had scuppered our chances in the hope that he'd have more weekends at home in Chesterfield , that's how bad it was.

All right, all right. Having insulted every northerner going (and now I've thought of it, that includes our new manager – sorry Gaffer), I ought to come clean. The truth is that this division is just a living hell and its not really because its full of flat-cap wearing pigeon fanciers. Its because its only one division above Rovers and two divisions behind where we should be.

I still get angry looking above us and seeing the likes of Charlton, Bolton, West Brom, Pompey, Fulham, Norwich and Palace, teams we should be on a par with but as I write are a million miles from. Its not because northern towns are hellish (as anyone whose lived in Swindon will tell you, the north doesn't have a monopoly in that area), its because we simply shouldn't be where we are.

Oh yeah, and its because I want to have a good anti-London rant, next season.

Niall.