Above is a photograph of Glenn Middleton with the Scottish Cup. Glenn was in the victorious St Johnstone team that beat Hibernian 1-0 in the final on Saturday.
Many moons ago we were landlord and landlady for Norwich City Academy players. We had a succession of full-time lodgers who stayed with us for most of the year. We also had a succession of triallists, coming to the club. Many of these stayed for one day a week and others we had for two or three weeks at a time (often when their usual landlords were away on holiday).
I well remember the fortnight that we had Glenn staying with us. He's only 21 now so would have been about 14 at the time. Our permanent resident at that time was Harry Barker (very often referred to by our two sons as our third son).
We often had footballers who (how can I put this politely) weren't the most sociable of people. This always made for awkwardness at meal times. But with Harry and Glenn it was different. The chat flowed and we remember both of them fondly.
Glenn was much more mature than his young years and we covered lots of different topics. He was with Norwich City from 2012 to 2017 when he moved to his native Scotland to play firstly for Rangers, then on loan to Hibernian and then on loan to St Johnstone. We remember he came to Norwich from Northampton where his family had re-located from Scotland. It looks as if he still has a bright future in professional football.
Harry was also a cup winner as part of the Norwich City youth under-18 team which won the national trophy by beating Chelsea in a two-legged final. Over 20,000 people were at Carrow Road to see them win the first leg 1-0 and over 3,000 went to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea, for the second leg which Norwich won 3-2. We were at the Carrow Road leg and it was one of the most emotional football nights we have ever experienced because we knew most of the players. We couldn't go to the second leg as we were on holiday in Newcastle (who goes to Newcastle for a holiday I hear you ask?)
We were desperate to watch the second leg on television as it was being shown on one of the terrestrial channels. Unfortunately the television in our room didn't work. Usually this wouldn't bother us as we don't go on holiday to watch TV. But we really wanted to watch this match. So we went to the front desk to report it.
"Have a word with the head waiter," they said.
"Pardon," I replied.
"The Head waiter will sort you out."
Probably not a good idea to ask why, I thought. So I approached the head waiter and said:
"For some reason we've been asked to tell you that our television isn't working."
He gave us that - haven't you seen a head waiter that doubles up as a handyman look and said:
"What's your room number. I'll have a look once we've finished serving."
And he did. But he didn't get it working so we ended up watching in a friends' room who were very kind as they have no interest in football and couldn't understand why we were screaming at the TV.
That hotel in Newcastle on the banks of the Tyne was something else. It was the best worst service we have ever had. All the waiting staff looked and sounded as if they had been brought in from the street. One admitted it was his first night, he had no training and he had no idea what to do.
It was a buffet style meal. Our table of four went up to get some soup and went back to the table to find everything had been removed - no table cloth, no cutlery, no nothing. We pointed this out to the head waiter/handyman.
"Sorry about that. I thought you had finished your meal."
"But we haven't started it," we replied.
Everything was put back in place. We got through the main course and then went to get the dessert where it was a choice between apple pie and apple pie. No cream or custard in sight. And guess what? When we returned to our table they had taken everything away again.
We pointed this out to the waiter/handyman.
"Sorry about that. I thought you had finished your meal."
"No we were just getting our dessert. Do you by any chance have some custard?"
Off he went. A few minutes later we were approached by another youngster.
"Sorry there's no custard. The other people have eaten it all."
By now we just found this service so bad it was funny. They were all very polite and friendly referring to me and my friend as "mate" and our wives as "love."
We never did get custard or a repaired television but we did get some memories that I knew I would one day over eight years later relate to a wider audience (that's you).
Harry Barker didn't play in those final matches though due to injury. He bowed out at the semi-final stage but did get a winners' medal.
Harry is now playing for local team Norwich United. We still see him and his lovely parents on a regular basis. They are all firm friends of ours.
And that as they say is my blog for today. I could tell you about the day we got home to find a current Championship footballer pretending to do homework with his mate when in reality they were playing poker, but I'll leave that one for another time.
* * *
You just knew that I was going to mention Eurovision. I sat up late with millions of others on the edge of my seat. Would it be Switzerland with a song that sounded more like Radiohead than Eurovision? Or would it be France with an over the top ballad in true French style? Didn't you just love it when the UK jury gave France 12 points? That's Brexit forgotten for the moment. Perhaps it was an impassioned plea for them to re-open their borders. Let the holidaymakers in and we will give you 12 points.
I predicted the UK entry would come in the bottom three but even I wasn't ready for nil points - only the second time this has happened to the UK in history.
And once again it wasn't because of political or tactical voting. It was just all the so called professional juries and all the millions voting throughout the world just thought our song was naff. The German entry was plain dreadful but it still got some points.
We need to stop the rot by picking a decent song. After all we gave pop/rock music to the world (along with the USA of course). We must be able to come up with something better than we have littered the path of naffness with over the past decade.
Even if there is tactical/political voting we would have got a few points. The fact we scored zero just shows how poor that song was and James Newman's entry for last year was no better. Newman just isn't the right kind of singer/composer for Eurovision.
We had to endure Graham Norton almost in tears at the unfairness of it all. James is a good bloke, James is very popular with his fellow contestants, it's so unfair. Those were just some of his comments. Actually Graham I have news for you. We came last because we deserved to come last and being a damn good chap doesn't get you votes. Ok a number of the other songs were probably worse than ours but there was nothing in the UK entry that said originality or class. It was a hackneyed singer-songwriter's third class effort that was never going to go anywhere.
Mind you I didn't cover myself with glory when it came to picking a winner. My favourite song came from Norway and finished 18th. My other picks were Bulgaria (finished 10th), Cyprus (finished 16th), Portugal (finished 18th) and France (finished 2nd).