We were top of the league

So much for my apathy towards Saturday’s match. By 15.10, I had even forgotten that I’d had to leave the march to save Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium early, as we went two up and soared to the top of the league – and in glorious sunshine.

Even IBM (idiot behind me) was full of early-season optimism, although he did blot his copybook when he declared that Dean Ashton’s substitution was to save him for Wednesday night’s England match. It was a conspiracy theory that ranked alongside Neil Armstong’s moon landing being filmed in a studio, bearing in mind that Ashton had just pulled up sharply after striking a free kick into the upper tier of the Bobby Moore stand from about 15 yards in front of us. He then went straight to the bench to receive treatment. You hardly needed to be Hercule Poirot to deduce that he was injured.

But it proved to be yet another false dawn and by 16.50, we were clinging on for an undeserved three points, as Wigan ran rings around us. Suddenly, that 15 minutes of believing that we could really achieve something this season seemed ludicrously unrealistic. And I remembered that 24 hours earlier, I had been looking forward to eviction night on Big Brother more than I had to my first visit of the season to the Boleyn Ground.

Not that I was the only one who was hardly enamoured of the start of the new season. The crowd of 32,758 was 1,000 fewer than for the corresponding game last season. But with the cheapest tickets in the ground costing £35 – and the cheapest offering a decent view £45 – the swathes of empty seats at the back of each stand was hardly surprising. But it was only Wigan. You won’t be able to get a seat for love nor money when we play Stoke, Hull, West Brom, Fulham, Bolton, Blackburn…