It's been about 9 years since I went on a holiday and that was a bit of blur seeing as we stayed in Magaluf, Majorca, spending most of our time face down on the Spanish pavement eating grit, so it was only right that I booked myself on a skiing holiday to France. I'd never done skiing before, but was enthusiastically informed that I would "get hooked" and would be back for more and, as it turned out, I am. The dry slope lessons I had before I left had turned out be a God-send as I was on the red runs by the end of the week, satisfying my need for speed at every occasion.

Enough of my holiday, because, let's face it, you haven't accessed this page to read about my exploits on and off the piste and the merits of wet, dry, slushy snow and the intricacies of Vaz plates. The day of my departure coincided with the home game against Bury and the Five Nations game against France. The flight was inevitably delayed, giving us the opportunity to watch the first half of Scotland v Ireland; all very fascinating to rugby fans, but when your mind is tuned to the Vic, not a lot else matters. The egg-chasing first half ended, followed by ten minutes of psycho-babble about rucking, tucking, mauling, lobbing, kicking, fighting, etc, but little mention of football. Had the football world stopped because I was at Heathrow? The girlfriend became instantly pissed (not surprisingly) on the half-a-bucket of wine I gave her to shut her up as she was spouting how rugby is a "man's game" and football is "f*cking sh!te" - the only trouble was that she grew louder and louder and the language became more colourful as the wine disappeared. "What are we waiting here for?", she asked abruptly. "I'm waiting for the half-time Watford score", I replied exasperated. "Boring football; it'll be 0-0 anyway". Then it came up as 0-0. "See I told you.....", muttering as she wandered off. One of those moments where you have to bite the lip....

We left for France thirty minutes later. I'd no idea what the score was, but I'm sure I'd find out soon enough. On the coach to the resort, somebody (thankfully) had a messaging system on their mobile phone and was getting his mate in the UK to send the footy results. Should have known they'd only send the Premiership results. "What about Watford v Bury?". Pause. "I can't ask him that!", came the reply. "YES YOU CAN, seeing as you've just announced the Peterborough score!" [NOTE: most of the party were from the Posh, so they had every right, I suppose!]. "Can't find the score", he said. So that's it. How the hell am I going to find the result? What's the likelihood of finding an English paper at the top of the Alps?

My hopes were raised when I saw a Saturday paper in the Hotel late Sunday, so I thought all I have to do is wait until tomorrow and I can look in the paper! Fat chance. The next day came and went without a sign of a newspaper. Desperation was setting in here - I just couldn't concentrate on my skiing (that was my feeble excuse for falling over!). There had to be an English paper in the resort, so I set about it like Anneka Rice on Treasure Hunt... I managed to find one late Weds, but that was Tuesday's paper so no football info whatsoever! Aaarrgghhhh! The same the next day, and the next and the next. Saturday came and still no result. On the journey home we were being piped, via the phone, England v Poland scores (despite repeated pleas to the French coach driver that it would be in his interest to tune to the footy - he probably said he couldn't get it! - rather than listen to the French techno-thrash, jungle bitch music that was filling the air). No other scores we being fed through, so it was going to have to be another wait for the Watford score (I had a feeling that our game was cancelled because of international call-ups, but being stuck half-way up a mountain, I wasn't sure!).

Cutting this story short, as Spandau Ballet said once, I found out by looking at the teletext and working out the tables from memory at around 10.30 pm Saturday night! Only seven days late to find that we'd drawn 0-0 and subsequent reading of the BSaD reports lead me to believe that I didn't miss much!

Moral of the story - don't go on holiday.