How long have we known each other... two years now ? I've told you everything: what makes me tick, what makes me tock, about the good times, the bad times. Opened up to you. Shared.

But I've not been straight with you; no, I've held something back. It's not a sin, though it is to some, I'm not exactly shame-faced about it, ok, sheepish maybe, it's just I did n't want to tell you. The time did n't feel right for one thing, and I wanted you to have a particular picture of me. Listen, don't be judgemental. Understand me that's all I ask, I have a flaw, a guilty secret, a hidden pleasure....I support a football team...I even own shares in them.

There, it's done, I can breath out, loosen up, you know everything. It's out. It's been like conducting an illicit affair. Who could I tell ? I've skulked in corners, glancing surreptitiously at the football scores on the TV; lurked in the newsagents furtively reaching for a sports magazines, and worse, oh far worse: I've dissembled. Told people, workmates, anyone who asked that I loathed the game, professed ignorance deliberately, jeered at players, derided managers, scorned referees...and yet all along, a covert fan. I have wronged you.

I am not a yob, no, not at all merely a simple man bearing a dark burden day after day. Flawed, that's what I am. Are n't we all?

What forced me to the confessional was this lampoon, my team ridiculed, their downfall mocked. You follow your team to the gates of hell and beyond if necessary. Through thick and thin, and with Sheffield United, it's only ever been thin, gruel in fact...but this, oh no, how could they. Surely only the hand of a Sheffield Wednesday fan can be behind such terrible mischief...