As a town, you can well understand where the “Grim” bit came from – a bit like Scunthorpe, but more politely stated. Our trip here was one of our more recent, during last season’s glorious charge towards the Premier, so many of you may well share our memories. It was also a family affair – two blokes, three sons being taught the ways of the travelling Mackem, like the apprentices we were back in the 70s. Our first lesson to them was what to do if you lost your ticket - never a problem in the 70s, as all away matches were pay at the gate jobs. Anyway, a nameless adult member of our party (choose any one from two) managed to lose the important half of his ticket, so our first port of call was the ticket office. While one of us had a discussion in the car park with Gatesy, centred on the perils of trying to outshout the bingo caller in the Working Men’s Club in Shields, the other managed to negotiate a free replacement ticket with no hassle at all. Full marks to Grimsby ticket office for that one.

Once that little problem was solved, we headed over the railway and, on reaching the sea, turned right for Cleethorpes (some of the Shildon lads turned left, and found Grimsby harbour not too picturesque). We voted the promenade the most dog-turded place in the world – our bracing stroll along the seafront passed through a mile long doggy-jobby minefield. There was also a mad dog, that barked at and chased every passing train – what would it do if it caught one? We headed for the big wheel, guessing that the shows would be near the town centre. This big wheel, however, got smaller as we got closer to it, and turned out to be no more than ten feet high. In fact, the whole fairground was in miniature. The ghost train was a man shouting “boo!” at puzzled three-year-olds in a go-cart. Cleggy itself was a trip back in time – stand-up comedians were on every corner, gaining inspiration for their next seaside landlady gag.

We passed up a pint in the shocking pink Barcelona tavern, well out of place adjacent to the Victorian railway station, and found the Irish pub to be the chosen meeting place of the Red and White army. Prices forced our second pint to be in the Buccaneer (cue terrible Captain Morgan jokes) across the road, before we passed the mad dog on our hopscotch back up the prom to the ground. If Cleggy was possibly a timewarp, then Blundell Park certainly was. The “garden shed” song could have been written specifically for it – it actually looks like one from the visitors’ turnstiles.

Handy Andy kept us in the game long enough to get our act together, and second half goals from some ex-mag and Superkev prompted some weird celebrations, in the form of a number of soft toys being lobbed onto the pitch. This bemused the stewards to such an extent that they allowed the perpetrators of this crazy event to walk onto the pitch and collect Sooty and co. Twice. It was also the game where “we’re on our way” really took off, but the best songs came from some 70s throwbacks. They gave us timeless classics like “you’ll never take the Fulwell”, “from the banks of the river Wear”, and of course, the Vic Halom song, before moving into the 90s with “you’re shite, and you stink of fish”. Which was nice –and true.

This was no way to build character in our young apprentices – we always had to endure away defeats, not enjoy victories – that’s what made us the fair-minded folk that we are today. We did show them where to get chips on the way back As usual, Whetherby was awash with Sunderland boys, and the kids looked on in amazement as lads filled lemonade bottles with vodka to bypass the “no drinking on this coach” rule. We didn’t have to worry about that one in our apprentice days, when a trip to Humberside would have been at least a ten – crater, with a couple of crates of Lamp Oil in case of emergency (that is, the part of the return journey before we stopped for a night out in Northallerton).

I hope our young charges appreciate the future, with such a soft upbringing, although childline has already been notified of the number of young Sunderland fans at Goodison on Boxing day.