GROWING up in North London it should have all been about Arsenal and Chelsea. But in my house, rather strangely, it was Queen’s Park and Celtic.
My parents had got married and moved down to London from Glasgow in the late 50s. It was a time when mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants didn't go down too well. And so they had sought shelter in the liberal enclave of leafy Hampstead. Not yet the home of rock stars and millionaire footballers.
It was a bohemian place where I got my first job working in a Hungarian patisserie with characters from around the world. It was there I got my appreciation of the Bundesliga, Serie A and the belief that all good football didn't necessarily emanate from these shores.
My first football kit was a Manchester United red strip. I was George Best. Everyone wanted to be then. Then Celtic won the European Cup. I remember huddling around the old Roberts radio in the kitchen with my father that night in 1967. Listening to the crackly transmission seemed exciting, so far removed from reality, in a place a world away.
I was seven then. By the following year I was playing football every Saturday for the school team. Memories of coaches to Wormwood Scrubs pitches. Games in Regents Park in the cold, the wet and for some reason with a Neil Diamond soundtrack in the background.
Celtic had been my maternal grandfather's team. He had worked in the Babcock and Wilcox boiler making factory in Renfrew. My father grew up in Cathcart and took me to my first game at Hampden Park. But it wasn't Scotland. It was Queen’s Park instead. I remember him being very proud that they only opened the seated area at the vast arena. I can still hear the echo.
In our house the Scotland v England home internationals were a very different experience than they were for my friends at school - who mostly, apart from a few Irish kids, backed England all the way.
I remember the famous weekend the Scotland fans invaded the pitch at Wembley, digging up the turf, taking down the goalposts. My parents and my sister headed into Piccadilly Circus that night to join in the fun. I was told to stay at home. I was too young.
By the age of 11 I was introduced to my father's true sporting love. Golf. He had been playing since he was 3 and had a brother who was a club pro around Glasgow.
I joined Royal Mid-Surrey in Richmond as a junior and began to spend many a happy Saturday there.
Music lessons on Saturday morning had put paid to my place in the first team at Cardinal Vaughan school. I could only play in the second team, who turned out in the shadow of Twickenham Rugby Ground on Wednesday afternoons.
Despite the golf we still made time for going to football matches though. I'd become a Manchester United fan while my sister was Liverpool - chosen mostly due to her love of Steve Heighway's moustache.
Our father would take us to White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge, Selhurst Park, Highbury and Craven Cottage to watch our teams. As the hooliganism of the 70s got worse we stopped going after he nearly got into two fights trying to protect us. We were 13 and 15.
On a couple of occasions we went to Anfield - stood in the Kop and swayed with the enormous crowd, who were very apologetic to our mother for the bad language. Incredible days.
Back in London I was beginning to see why journalism might be a pretty good way to make a living. Through my father I joined the European Press Golfing Society as a junior at the age of 14. We played matches against the Germans and the French in exotic locations. I was introduced to Sangria in Andalusia where I won best junior for a round of 85.
That was the start of a slippery slope.
My journalistic career has taken me to many sporting highs and lows. Barry McGuigan's losing his title fight in the car park at Caesar's Palace in Vegas, the New York Mets winning the World Series in 1986, Australia lifting the Rugby World Cup in Cardiff in 1999, an El Classico in the Nou Camp and the Champions League Final at Hampden with that unforgettable Zinedine Zidane volley.
I've played golf with some of the greats of football, played football with some of the greats of golf, and lived to tell the tale - mostly.
Saturdays now consist of waking up early, making the tea for everyone else and then heading up to the London studios of TalkSPORT near Waterloo. There I present The Warm Up with Mike Parry - a broadcasting legend in his own right and a friend for 35 years. We are The Two Mikes.
It's usually the fifth show of the week for us and is the perfect lunch time set up for all the weekend sport that is about to get underway.
The three hours flies by and soon it's back in the car and a drive south listening to see how many of my predictions are coming true........
It's been another stellar year for The Two Mikes. In September we are going to perform a live show in Manhattan after playing venues all over Britain.
The night after we're on stage the New York Giants are at home. I might just go and check out the new stadium. Why not?
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