I’m trying not to get pneumonia like I did last year and it’s touch and go at the moment. I deliberately missed a couple of London League games at Paddington Rec during the week, as I was still coughing and it was really too cold to go out at night.

Saturday was a bit of a disaster and I didn’t see anything, despite turning up at four different grounds in Eastbourne. I reckon I’ve only had half a dozen blank Saturday afternoons since I had a bad dose of ‘flu and was off school for two weeks in 1965.

When I was at Liverpool University I stayed in hall one Saturday afternoon in 1978 to write a philosophy essay on "The Logic of Love". I think the Reds were playing Newcastle at Anfield but it was a bitterly cold February day. Then I missed another Saturday in 1994, cosied up in a Reading hotel with a divine girl called Amanda. Unfortunately, she wasn’t into football. A team called "South Reading" were playing a few minutes’ walk away but she didn’t want to know.

There must have been three or four Saturdays, perhaps more, when there were several inches of snow and all the local football was off. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I usually found something to watch. Even if it meant travelling ridiculously long distances.

Well, on the Saturday just gone, I hadn’t imagined there’d be a problem. There was no hint of frost or snow, it wasn’t too cold and the pavements were more or less dry. I turned up at The Saffrons for Eastbourne Town Reserves v Rottingdean Village in the Sussex Intermediate Cup and saw a sign by the turnstile that read "Match Off – Pitch Unfit".

I had a close look and it certainly wasn’t. The worst you could say was that it was a little muddy in midfield. Perhaps it had been called off on the Friday. Then the afternoon became the stuff of nightmares. It was "off" at Larkin’s Field, "off" at The Oval and "off" at Princes Park.

Yes, I know the Borough played but I didn’t have enough money for that. How terrible it is to be poor.

But Sunday’s game at Craven Cottage made up for all of that. Definitely my best game of the season (out of 149). I sat with the Orient fans, right at the back at the Putney End and lashed by the wind and rain because I was barely under the roof. Pre-match I had fancied the O’s to get a draw and even at half-time, with them 2-0 up, I could see the Premiership favourites coming back to level.

A fantastic win for the underdogs, a typically rousing Cup tie and all’s right with "The Barber" again. I’m aiming to see six games this week, cough or no cough.