h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My radio career sideline continues to develop, although slowly.

After I started out doing the non-league show at Radio Leeds and some occasional match reports for a couple of months in late 2003 and early 2004, I moved on to proper match reports for Radio London from November 2004.

And yesterday, I did an interview that went out on Radio Devon.

I'd only gone along to practice my commentary - at the moment I only do reports, and the next stage is moving up to proper off-air commentary that they can record and replay. But as Radio London didn't have a match for me this weekend, I asked them to get my a pass for the press box at West Ham v Argyle, the idea being that it would be a lot easier to commentate on that as at least I'd know one of the teams really well.

It wasn't that easy, as it turned out. For one thing, I'm not very good at commentating yet. And for another, I found out that commentating on your own side is about as hard as it gets, because my own emotions as a fan were getting in the way all the time. The fact that we gave away a penalty and an own goal in the first 20 minutes or so and went on to get stuffed 5-0 didn't help much either

So I gave up with the commentary practice pretty early on. But Radio Devon's commentator asked me to go and interview the Argyle manager, Bobby Williamson, for him - basically he has to write and file a one-minute match report as soon after the final whistle as possible *and* get a post-match interview, which is a bit of a tough ask. So I went down to the tunnel and did it, and they played the whole thing out on Radio Devon on Saturday night.

So it was a bit of a mixed bag, all in. I was gutted about our performance (West Ham weren't that good, yet still stuffed us 5-0) and worried that my commentary needs a lot of work. And it's not easy trying to work out what to ask after a 5-0 defeat and you know your interviewee's going to be in a bad mood and not want to talk to you. But I think it was the first one I've done since I started reporting again in which I didn't ask a 'closed' question that could have just a 'yes' or 'no' answer. So I was quite pleased with my interview, as it goes.

I'm doing Brentford v Sheffield Wednesday next week. I hope Martin 'Mad Dog' Allen's going to be in a good mood. He's a great character, and I've got a lot of time for him as a manager, but he more or less had me for breakfast last time I interviewed him... he sounded suitably amusing and I sounded suitably stupid.

But you can't take yourself too seriously in this game

Go 6 - I'll be listening out post the Cov Plymouth 6 pointer.

And it seems The Blades don't have a spare keeper tonight....

Bloody hell!!! We won a match!!!

It's company policy not to run with a spare keeper, and has been for the last couple of years. The thinking is that by having five outfield players on the bench, then one can be much more flexible in the substitution stakes.

The downside is that on the odd occasion that Paddy Kenny gets injured / sent off that we have to move one of the best midfielders in the league, Phil Jagielka, into the goal keepers position.

Ho-hum, a bad day at the office. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on...

Well about time we did something.

There is a silver lining here.

Because I lost my job, I decided not to go to this game. Thus saving me x-number of quid for a ticket, a whole load more for the petrol, and the sheer pain of a 200+ mile journey back home whilst suffering in the knowledge that the Blades got beaten by a not very good team.

I would love to get indignant and argue but then I would be lying.

I can take a little comfort in the knowledge that it was not only us that got stuffed; that also Arsenal fell flat on their face

If you drew with Arsenal and we beat you, does that mean we're better than Arsenal?

Actually I'd take issue with the 'not a very good team' there. Nine of the players that started were the side that won the Second Division last season - and they are a very good *team*, with plenty of passion and commitment and willing to get stuck in and run their legs off. Which is exactly what we've been lacking.

Some of them may not be quite up to Championship standard as individual players, but on their day they're one hell of a team.

Where we've been going wrong is that we'd got a lot of players in who were much better individually but the team ethos had gone down the toilet.

OK, I'll reword that to, "and the sheer pain of a 200+ mile journey back home whilst suffering in the knowledge that the Blades got beaten by an often recently not very good team."

One that hadn't won since Boxing Day

Forest won as well last night - getting tight at the bottom..... or loose - depends if you've got the bottle.

If we can win at home to Crewe on Saturday, I'll feel a lot better about things. Although as Gillingham lost, I'm already much chirpier about being seven (rather than four) points off the last relegation spot.

Oh, and I've just found something online.

Listening back, I'm a bit stumbly, a bit stuttery and there is actually a closed question in there. But it *is* me on Radio Devon interviewing an actual Plymouth Argyle manager* who'd just lost 5-0 to West Ham.

http://www.greensonscreen.co.uk/matchdisplays/westham04A/7.mp3

*even if it was only Bobby Williamson - but let's face it, your average listener will be listening to him, and not me so it doesn't matter!

I couldn't understand half what he was saying.