AND so to Walsall.

Or, as I discovered when I had driven halfway down the M74 in the office pool car (so called because it has a leaking radiator), Warsaw.

My mistake can be attributed to routine daftness and the non-routine occurrence of being sent abroad to watch a football match.

The last time this occurred the press pack made the trip in a stagecoach to Dover and a packet ship across the Channel. My byline then was Mercury (it was dripping from my fillings) and the match report appeared three days later. As it still does.

The surprise was not just restricted to the destination. Warsaw is beautiful in parts, like a starlet with plooks. The main body of the Old Town is stunning but Communist-built Warsaw puts the bloc into Eastern.

Therefore your correspondent and his faithful companion, the Earl of Putupon (a gentleman journalist who writes about football in a doomed attempt to connect with the proletariat), ventured into the Old Town to drink of culture the way Dylan Thomas once supped of spirits. It must be said the Earl and I come from different backgrounds. He rowed for Oxford. I argued for Possil.

The Museum of the Uprising was shut, presumably because someone slept in. So it was the royal palace for the afternoon.

First, it has to be said the Earl was unimpressed. His family owns all of Scotland outside the Buckfast Burghs and he was not likely to be overwhelmed by a castle rebuilt in the 1970s after it was destroyed in the Second World War. He walked into the Marble Room, a splendiferous acreage of shining wonder, and declared: "This must be the palace en suite."

It was that sort of afternoon, that sort of trip. In between typing so much my fingers became bloodied stumps, I had time to reflect. There was a big mirror in my hotel room.

No, I had time to ponder the differing demographic of the travelling supporter, specifically the Tartan Army. Once football fans only went abroad as part of imperial wars. Then they travelled over the water in the cheapest way possible, namely a bus whose interior resembled a mock-up of a dirty protest after 16 days travelling from Milton to mainland Europe.

Now they head over to Dortmund, Warsaw or wherever in a distinct style. One of the most common sights was the Tartan Army punter with missus. It was like watching an old episode of Mr and Mrs sponsored by a shortbread company.

They walked about in Highland regalia through a city that became increasingly accustomed to the most unusual sights. The most cute aspect was the way man and woman would complement each other in clothing and it led me to wonder what the conversations were of an early morning in a Warsaw hotel.

"Was wondering what outfit we should wear?"

"How about the retro strip with that clinging whiff of airport induced sweat?"

"No, dear, I fancy my tartan stockings with a mini-kilt that gives the merest hint of suspenders."

"Ooh, yes, that is your best look, Jock."

They then walk out on to the Warsaw catwalk and meet thousands of others similarly dressed like refugees from a crowd scene in Brigadoon. This behaviour is not restricted to the day of the match. Tartan is compulsory on all days on all trips.

This riot of colour, though, is not accompanied by any violence, verbal or physical. The most threatening sight this correspondent witnessed in two days in Warsaw was when a group of school kids on a visit to the royal palace spotted No' So Bonnie Prince Chick and his missus and started chanting Polska, which I believe may be a sort of dance. Whatever.

The kids' roars were met by an endearing grin from the chap, who had been poured into his strip but had forgotten to say "when".

The invaders may be dressed  as extras in Braveheart, they may glory in the name Tartan Army, but they are the friendliest of forces and some of them even found time to sample culture.

In the royal palace, they peered at a fine El Greco. In the old days they sooked on Eldorado, a fortified wine that could also be used for taking paint off radiators.

Frankly, I do not know if all this sophistication is a good thing. Perhaps you do? Answers to me on a postcard addressed to the Home for Distressed Gentlemen, Walsall.