Here is a rundown of the games that brought me up to 148 for the season and 5,040 all told: Brentford 1 Oldham 0, Times Athletic 2 St Johns Arsenal Deaf 4, New Clerkenwell 8 Clocktower 1, Yeading 1 Carshalton 2, Welling 4 Redbridge 1, West Ham 2 Manchester City 4 (Youth), Wingate & Finchley 2 Potters Bar 0, Reuters 0 Crown House 3, Edgware 6 Brentford 1, Eastbourne United 2 Eastbourne Town 1, Fulham 3 Aston Villa 3, Leyton Orient 1 Notts County 0, Bedfont Green 2 Reading Town 1 and QPR 1 Burnley 1.
I’d never seen a deaf team play before but I can’t say it was any different to watching any other team, except that a player would occasionally go up to a team-mate and communicate with "signing".
It was interesting to witness the half-time "team talk", given by the captain as they grouped at the touchline. They had some decent players and I especially liked the centre-forward who had a build like a boxer but was quick and had a hard shot in both feet.
On the following evening plans to watch Arsenal v Brentford in The FA Youth Cup were scuppered due to a defective train at Finchley Central but I had time to take in another game at Market Road which produced nine goals.
A young woman came up to me in the street outside the ground and asked if she could watch the game with me. Bizarre.
I took in two FA Trophy ties on a freezing cold weekend, with Carshalton and Welling deserving to go through to the Second Round, and developed a cold and cough. It always seems to happen around Christmas.
Then, on the Monday, a bunged-up "Barber" saw Manchester City go 3-0 up after 12 minutes of their FA Youth Cup Fourth Round tie at West Ham. The young Hammers scored twice in the last seven minutes to make it respectable.
Further games that week at Wingate & Finchley, Paddington Rec and Edgware meant I’d been out in the cold on four consecutive nights. I was beginning to run out of handkerchiefs and had polished off a whole bottle of cough linctus.
Then I had three days without a game, because there was nothing on. Old duffers like me will recall that they used to play football on Xmas Day, though I think I only saw it once – Gosport Borough v Gosport & District League at Privett Park in the early ‘60s.
Helpfully, there was a reported wind chill factor of -14 on the night that Fulham played Villa in the Premiership at Craven Cottage. I was wearing so many layers that I must have looked like "Michelin Man".
It was an entertaining 3-3 draw but the highlight for me was something that happened during the half-time interval. Some chap’s marriage proposal to his ladyfriend was announced over the PA and her immediate acceptance was also relayed to the crowd.
Then, as one voice, the Hammersmith End went into a chorus of "You don’t know what you’re doing!"There were another couple of nights without a game, though I might have gone to Barking on the Friday if it had been on, before Leyton Orient v Notts County on a day when there was allegedly a tube strike.
With the strike due to commence at 12 noon, I set off before that and found a normal service operating. I was prepared to play it by ear on the way back and was half-expecting Leyton Station to be padlocked by then.
But, fortunately, a normal service (in fact, a better-than-normal service) was running and I was back in the hotel before 3.30. There’s no question that the service is better when they’re on strike.
My series of festive period games ended with a double header on the Bank Holiday Monday: second-from-bottom Bedfont Green edging Reading Town in a thriller at Greenford at 11.30 in the morning; then a Championship encounter between QPR and Burnley prefaced by a very acceptable Cornish pasty and Bovril.