I should probably take this opportunity to thank my loyal readers for keeping up with the column over the last year, but seeing as all three of them are members of my family I can do the honours over the remaining Quality Streets without having to waste precious column inches (You just have – Ed).

Without further ado, I give you a few highlights from 12 months in the life of The Ealing (Road) Comedies. See you at Griffin Park in 2011.

Last Christmas...

On Saturday afternoon, without a football match to watch, I went to my local cinema to catch the recently released film, The Road. It tells the story of a father and son trudging through a post-apocalyptic world in which the majority of human life has been wiped out and all animals have perished. For some reason, my mind kept on wandering back to Gillingham on Boxing Day.

A trip to Leeds...

The Brentford contingent at Elland Road had a whale of a time and, when the Leeds fans left in their droves long before the final whistle, they were sent on their way with the chant, “Is there a fire drill?” ringing in their ears.

Franchise scum...

The McDons employed the kind of roughhouse tactics that would have made President Ahmadinejad proud.

The beauty of Swindon...

The pub that my friend Nathan took me to for a pre-match sharpener, The Kebab and Knuckleduster I think it was called, didn’t exactly show off Swindon in its best light. Thanks to a couple of small drawbacks, including the fact that there was a grown man having a fist fight with a rabid dog in the main bar area and the lovely touch of having the letters BNP scrawled on the blackboard by the pool table, my opinion of the place is now set in stone.

Birmingham City defeat...

As the seconds of normal time ticked away, gargoyle-faced pundit Iain Dowie predicted City would not score an equaliser and, right on cue, Kevin Phillips popped up to stick the ball in the net. Damn you Dowie!

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