Some quick memories.

1. My dad taking my brother and I to Oxford United in 1969 (what a trek from the station to the Manor Ground!), no trouble at all at the match, but then the City fans wrecked the carriage next to ours on the train coming home. We then had John Reynolds (?), the guy who still cycles to games from his Western Avenue house, telling us all about the rucks he'd been in that day as we waited for the bus home and the night ended with my Dad telling us he would not be taking us to any more away games.

2. I'm not sure what it says about what he thought of me, but my Dad was still prepared to let me go to away games with friends at the age of 13! So, about six months later, I went to Swansea to watch the Welsh Cup Semi Final replay in which Ronnie Bird missed his only penalty with City, we went by bus that day and there was trouble all the way from the station to the Vetch Field - I knew it already really, but that day was the final convincing I needed that I was in no way a fighter when it came to watching my team.

3. My father relented in 1971 when the family spent the weekend with friends who lived in the Midlands and we went to the game at Birmingham which drew a crowd of over 50,000. I won't go into the details now, but we got to the ground late and there were large queues at the turnstiles, so we missed almost all of the first half an hour and ended up right in the middle of the Birmingham nutters - an interesting experience!

4. Went to Fratton Park for the game when I saw us play in mauve and yellow in 1972 and things could have got very hairy at the station after the game if a small number of coppers hadn't been able to keep the two sets of fans apart, so the Pompey supporters had to make do with singing "back to school on Monday" at us - needless to say, I had the last laugh because it was the summer holidays and I didn't go back until a fortnight later.

5. Was on a week long training course by myself up in London in 1975 and was getting bored stiff in the nights, so I went along to watch a game between Fulham and Millwall which ended in a dismal 0-0 draw. I'd barely ate all day so decided to have a pie and a pint in a pub close to the local tube station after the match and sat at a table by myself, only for half a dozen "lairy" Millwall fans to come in and sit around me. They soon started asking me questions, detected I was Welsh and asked me if I had been at the City v Millwall match a few weeks earlier - for some reason, I said that I had been. I soon thought I shouldn't have said that and their leader stared hard at me for what seemed minutes, before saying "Nah, you're not a challenge are you" and offered me his hand. I soon learnt they were definitely the genuine article so to speak, but I had a great time with them to such an extent that I went along to a chippie with them when the pub closed which explains why, by the time, we'd finished our meals, I ended up down in a tube station at midnight with a bunch of Millwall hooligans.

6. After years of successfully avoiding trouble at away matches, my brother, a friend and I were walking to the game at Eastville in 1983 in which Jeff Hemmerman got the injury which more or less ended his career. There was plenty going on in the streets around the ground, so we decided to get off them and walk along a narrow track I'd used when I'd been to the ground before. There was no one else around until one big bloke came walking towards us - you could only go forwards and backwards along this track, but there were three of us to his one, so we weren't too concerned until we saw he was carrying a yard long piece of metal scaffolding which he started swinging about as he got closer. He asked us where we were from with an accent I couldn't recognise, but when we said Cardiff he said that's okay, can you tell me how I get into the home end please, I want to introduce myself to the Rovers fans. I told him how to get there, but was surprised when he started to walk in that direction and didn't stop. I assume and hope he never managed to get to his destination - for me, after a long time of not really feeling too threatened at away matches, that day all round was a real throwback to more scary times.

The truth is, that I've come closer to being attacked by opposition supporters at home matches, with Chelsea fans twice getting close to catching me and the only time I've ever been punched at football was by the Ely based City supporting school bully who a few of us had the misfortune to come across his gang as we walked back home to Fairwater after a match. .