Following the demise of (ex) Prime Minister Blair, I travelled down to London last week from my Cardiff office, at the rate of one Cabinet change to every 8 miles.


No, that was unkind. I’ll start again.


Following the appointment of Mr Blair to the role of Middle East Peace Envoy, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced his new Cabinet last Thursday (June 28th 2007) at the rate of one Cabinet change to every 8 miles.


And I wonder if the excitement I felt about the appointment of Baroness Ashton of Upholland to the position of Leader of the Lords (Lord President of the Council) was shared by others?



Anyway, well done, whatever your real name is; how is it that Politicians deal with real improvements and real issues but can’t have a real name? Yes, the Baroness has done well, because as Constitutional Affairs Minister she had such a hard time over freedom of information rights, which for some offbeat reason the Government wanted to restrict.


Furthermore I’m sure Tony will be a great success, if he ever gets out to Palestine….such a shame he didn’t think about accepting the job before he sent the troops into Iraq.


That’s enough of the ‘real’ World, using political speak for just a moment, and more about Aldershot.


We moved to Wales just a few months after Aldershot FC played their last Football League match at Ninian Park Cardiff. Yes, it was in March 1992 that Aldershot FC became the first club since Accrington Stanley, in 1962, to fold during a Football League season…..


Leaving the suffocating grip of London and the south east for the beauty of the Wye Valley was not a difficult choice. After all when the Club reformed in the summer of that same year I wasn’t desperate to check how my diary clashed with the scheduled trips to Clapton, Horsham, Flackwell Heath, Royston, and Cove (despite Cove being my birthplace). No I was more than happy to simply enjoy the odd nostalgic trip to the Rec…. the burning obsession, so damaged by the events of 1991/92, would take a little bit longer to reappear.


From our house high up on the Kymin dawn appeared as if for the very first time. In the distance the shimmering Black Mountains - Sugar Loaf, Skirrid Fawr and Blorenge- and through the haze created by the weak early morning sun, just the faintest glimpse of the majestic Brecon Beacons.


And far below the dark and sequestered valley of the Wye.


Discovering the valley is special at any time of the year - pretty and fresh in spring, green and leafy in summer, ablaze with red, yellows, purples and gold in autumn, haunting and cold in winter.


Natural beauty is not the valley’s only memorable attraction. Tintern Abbey, established by the Cistercian monks in the 12th Century is glorious in its setting. Perhaps the most serene and faithfully preserved ruins in Britain. And hidden away among the trees, traces of the valley’s industrial heritage.


At the southern end of the Wye, mighty Chepstow Castle overlooks the river, guarding the important crossing. The Normans started to build this in 1067, their first stone castle in Wales, as a stronghold for William the Conqueror’s conquest of south east Wales.


Despite having moved much further west it is still here, at the Severn, that my journey home always begins.


M4 East, London…..M4 West, Newport and Cardiff.


M4 Tolls, westbound only…£5.10 since January 2007 or for me, more than £150 a season. William’s original business plan to suppress the Welsh replaced in the year of World Cup Final glory over West Germany, by the Severn Bridge ‘Sharks’.


Shortly after the opening of the Severn Bridge, in September 1966 Harri Webb wrote an Ode on the Severn Bridge:


Two lands at last connected
Across the waters wide,
And all the tolls collected
On the English side.

Originally, tolls were charged in both directions, but the arrangements were changed in the early 1990s to eliminate the need for a set of toll booths for each direction of travel and the potential for traffic waiting to pay the toll backing up onto the bridge itself.


And then with the construction of the Second Severn Crossing devolution drew a step closer; toll booths were established on the Welsh side of the bridge.


And so back into England and the long drive up to London.


I gave just a cursory look left at the Reading ‘exit’. It seems that every club in the land wants to build a new stadium…..the Madejski at Reading no different to the Liberty in Swansea. The Stadium of Light no different to the City of Manchester Stadium.

But Elm Park, the Vetch Field, Roker Park and Maine Road; now they were proper grounds. And how splendid the ramshackled collection of stands at Layer Road, Colchester….the club’s evolution dated by the sporadic addition of a new stand.


So there I was, en-route to the RIBA with my thoughts turning to design v function and Archibald Leitch, whose legacy on death in 1939 included Anfield, Ayresome Park, Celtic Park and Roker Park.


And by 8.30pm I was in my Brother’s local, a pint of Adnams in hand……‘The Lads’....our ritual completed with the clink of glass on glass.


Pre-season training was under way at last.