My first ever game was also played on 5 November, in 1960, and was also an FA Cup First Round match – between Crystal Palace and Hitchin Town at Selhurst Park.

Johnny 'Budgie' Byrne, my first footballing hero, scored the opening goal after ten minutes and Palace won 6-2.

I think I was the only boy in 'Wing Stand B', where my seat cost my dad half-a-crown, with everyone else seeming to be an old man in a flat cap smoking a pipe. There was an all-pervading smell of tobacco…

Back to the immediate past and here is a run-down of last week’s ten games that brought me up to 101 for the current season: Parkfield 1 Orrington 5, Eastbourne Town 0 Hastings United 11 (Women), John Lewis 2 Halcrow 1, AFC Bournemouth 4 Aldershot Town 1, Eastleigh 2 Farnborough Town 0, London Reaction 0 Visa 3, LU Finance 13 Hammersmith District 2, Woking 3 Thurrock 0, West London Phoenix 4 Newton City 1 and Dagenham & Redbridge 5 Chelmsford City 2 (Women).

The less obscure ones were in The FA Cup, FA Women’s Cup, LDV Vans Trophy and Conference South. I also realised a long-held ambition to see a game in the 'London Underground League'. It ended 13-2, a scoreline I couldn’t remember seeing before, and the losing side used four different goalkeepers. The crowd at that one? Well, it was less than two.

In the circumstances I was fortunate to see so many games. I turned up at one, a Sussex Intermediate Cup tie between Eastbourne Town Reserves and Steyning Town Reserves, to be told by the only person in the ground that the visitors had just ‘phoned to say they didn’t have enough players. Luckily there was another game nearby, i.e. within 200 yards.

There were two days of heavy rain while I was down in Bournemouth. The Cherries’ LDV Vans Trophy tie on Tuesday survived and they scored three goals in seven minutes in an exciting finale. But I noticed that Weymouth’s Conference South game with Weston was abandoned at half-time with the pitch waterlogged. Bournemouth’s manager had been asked in the local press what emphasis he was putting on this season’s LDV. "None" was his honest response.

The following night I ‘phoned the club first before setting out for Eastleigh and had it confirmed that the game was on. On the walk along the motorway from Southampton Airport Station to the ground the trick was to avoid being splashed by vehicles passing at high speed barely inches away.

Slipping and sliding across wet leaves, I turned into the side road leading to Sparshatts Stadium and saw that all the puddles had merged into one gigantic lake. I could have done with a canoe.

So I’m sitting at the back of the stand, seeing how perfect the pitch is despite all the rain and feeling quite smug. Then, ten minutes before kick-off, the floodlights failed.

In my experience floodlighting problems are rarely rectified 'on the night', so I was expecting the worst. There was some talk of an electrician having arrived in a white van but it was still a surprise when (a) the lights came on and (b) it was announced that the game would kick off at 8.30, i.e. 45 minutes late. I stood behind one goal and with the rain lashing down again, about half of Farnborough’s away support joined me under a huge red and black golfing umbrella lent to me by the hotel manager.

I asked the chap on my immediate right if he had seen their famous Cup game at Arsenal three seasons ago. "Yeah," he said, "it was a bit surreal to be honest."