The local pubs were heaving last weekend, a combination of the bank holiday weekend, fine weather and a little matter of who would be relegated from the premiership!

I’d organised to have my first tattoo done, and with an eleven o’clock start, I thought I’d have plenty of time to watch the match.

A friend of mine is over from Thailand, and since he does traditional Thai tattoo techniques, (Bamboo) I fancied giving it a go. ‘K’ (that’s his name, honest!) is a master at what he does and assured me this was the least painful way of having a tattoo. My wife Diane doesn’t care for them much, and thinks I’m having a mid life crisis, but SIX hours later it was jobbed. Needless to say I missed most of the Villa / Newcastle match, but from what I did see, I didn’t miss much.

Cockfield has a good mix of Newcastle, Boro and Sunderland supporters, and by six o’clock it was a strange mood in the Bottom House. By ten past most people were resigned to the fact and decided to join in with the Sunderland supporters and enjoy what was left of the bank holiday!!

Michael Pattison (Big Newcastle fan) was stood outside the Middle House looking totally downhearted. “That’s it then” he says, “No more Premiership”.

Then with a glint in his eye, he smiled and said, “Mind you Nige, we’ve got Blackpool away to look forward to!”

Sat outside the Bottom House I got chatting to Robert Close.

He was telling me his brother Trevor is coming over from Australia next week. I’ve known Trev all my life and I’ll be sure to get a few tales off him for the blog!

Anyway, back to Rob.

Rob’s always got some ‘interesting’ crack, and he was telling me about how ‘The Flintstones’ TV program had been sold all over the world, with great success, except in the middle east.

“They just don’t understand the humour of it in Dubai” explained Rob. “They just don’t get it……………………… But ABU DHABI DO!”

Should have known!!