I WENT to Wigan and the JJB Stadium on Monday night with Commuting Mitch, a friend from New Brighton.
He's a Bitter Blue and so it was a far from happy 93 minutes for him - watching an off-form Everton get beat one-nil.
Actually, he left the stadium early for a consoling pint in the Brickmakers - an old-fashioned local that nestles in the terraced backstreets of my home town.

I waited till full-time brought a much needed win for Premier League strugglers Latics - despite a nerve-wracking late rally by the Blues.
Mitch had been sat with the away crowd. I'd been in a great seat, right by David Moyes' box, with my sister, Princess Stephanie of Wigan, her daughter and her daughter's pal. Steph's a passionate Wigan supporter.
On leaving the fine modern stadium, we followed in Mitch's footsteps, through the bitter cold night and across a corridor of industrial wasteland, heading for the 'Brick'.
On the way we crossed the congested footbridge over the Leeds-Liverpool canal right by the spot where (40-odd years ago!) I'd floundered in the water on a canoeing event with the 12th Wigan (Sacred Heart) Scouts that went wrong.
Going to Wigan to see the match was a proper nostalgia trip for me. Prior to kick off we'd had a couple in the Springy, where I used to shoot pool as a gawky 17-year old.
My sister had joined us, but she scurried off to the bogs when we were approached by her former husband, Nick, who's a regular.
Though I haven't lived in Wigan since I was 18, I remember as sharply as if it was yesterday being waved off by my family as I boarded a train for university 'Down South' in October 1975.
And Wigan still feels like my town; to a very large degree it made me what I am.
Anyway, Mitch hooked up with a workmate from Manchester in the Springy. That fella is a Wiganer who, it turned out, lived in the same street as my mum.
Another Wigan lad joined us and we started talking, finding out which local secondary school we'd each attended - Fisher or Gidlow - instantly identifying who was Catholic and who was Protestant.
Then the talk turned to nightclubs, and the magical Pemps, a now sadly defunct Gnostic nightclub (Gnostic; oh, come ON, look it up!). Wiganers are divided into two camps. Those who LOVED Pemps (such as my sister and I) and those who were, well, scared to cross it threshold, frankly.
I miss Pemps very much. Many are the times I've danced away the hours there to Motown and Style Council tracks.
Anyhow, I enjoyed the football, and I think the Everton keeper - who I understand is American - deserves a medal for his services on Monday night.
And I've only one word of criticism for the JJB: the meat and potato pie I bought there was rubbish! The Latics' chairman Dave Whelan also owns Poole's pies, but judging by the one I sampled quality has nose-dived. It was as dry as dust and meanly filled. That's bad. Pies are taken Very Seriously Indeed in Wigan.
OK, enough with the digressions... When we'd finished supping in the Brick we went in search of a late bar, of which there used to be plenty in Wigan.
We did find one that was open on a Monday night. It was called the Boulevard - and no doubt the home of many broken dreams. I liked the place; it had character, lots of real ale and a pool table.
A group of Wigan wenches off the tills at Morrisons supermarket were in there to celebrate the 40th birthday of one of their number.
They were nice enough, but I think they were trying to chat us up (well wouldn't you, girls?), but we weren't having it and edged away.
I'm quite content with my Posh Boots, thank you. And Mitch has his missus Greta to look forward to - if she ever manages to fly back from her stint of voluntary service in strife-torn Thailand, God love her.
Posh Boots, I have to say, was very sweet when she discovered I was going to be at an 8pm football match on the coldest night of the year.
She bought me some new gloves, a thermal tee shirt and some thermal socks, which kept me quite cosy. She also dug out the ridiculous furry hat I used to wear when I was a reporter on the Macclesfield Express.
While we were in the Boulevard - which has a very efficient Birkenhead woman as bar manager, by the way - I also chatted to a youngish fella who was a Blues fan from Norwich, another of my old stamping grounds.
He was in company with two lads from Doncaster (also Blues fans) one of whom looked so young he could probably get a job as a singer with McFly. I think one of the Morrison's lasses wanted to have him for her breakfast.
It was a very good night, but I'm afraid I drank industrial quantities of red wine, so the next day I had to indulge myself with far too many Veganin tablets and Dioralite sachets That and some more pies; better ones this time, from Galloway's.

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