Granddad manages to get us a spot by one of the blue railings on the Kop, right behind the goal and we lean there and just take it all in. The Town End already going mad with balloons and drums and newspaper confetti. Someone is throwing whole bog rolls out onto the pitch. The Torquay fans look puny, all hemmed into their bit of the stand, surrounded by fences. I can’t hear them over our chants and the horns and the trumpet. Then it’s the announcements. Birthdays and mascots, a reminder that it’ll be the last game ever played on the plastic pitch. A cheer goes up.

‘About bloody time,’ Granddad says, clapping, ‘about bloody time.’

I look down. The edges of the pitch look like they’re coming loose. Like a faded carpet. The last team in the whole country to go back to grass. It’s a joke. An embarrassment. But none of it really matters now. The teams are running out and it’s all come on you whi-ites. Our lot looking smart in their plain tops and navy shorts. And the Torquay players in fussy yellow shirts with black stripes.

‘Like fucking bumblebees,’ someone shouts from behind us. And we’re laughing and whistling while their names are read out. We’re drowning them out one by one.

The drums start up as soon as the whistle blows for kick off. No one keeps possession for long. One of the Torquay players falls and rolls around on the plastic grass holding his knee and gurning with pretend pain. It starts from the other end of the stadium. Soft southern bastard, he’s just a soft southern bas-tard… over and over. The medics run onto the pitch but he’s up again before they can open their bags.

‘Put your stretchers away!’ Billy shouts, ‘there’s nothing wrong with him.’

And I’m watching the fans in the Town End. Never still. Always the loudest, the first to start the rudest chants. I imagine Dad over there standing near the trumpeter and singing at the top of his voice. His face like it is in the photograph I found in a box Mum was getting ready to chuck out. I swiped it and hid it somewhere she’d never look. Slipped it into the middle of the Bible. Somewhere in the New Testament, between Jesus being born and resurrected. In the photo his eyes are red. He looks like he’s about to punch whoever’s holding the camera. I never let onto her that I had it. I asked Nan about him and she told me he was long gone and not coming back. ‘He wasn’t cut out for it,’ she said once, ‘he loved you but he just wasn’t ready to be a father.’ And then she ruffled my hair. I knew I shouldn’t talk about it anymore.