If you know London at all, you’ll be aware that its citizens – particularly those who were born and bred here – tend to divide themselves into North and South Londoners; the Thames has always been so much more than the physical barrier that it so clearly represents. Which I guess makes me something of a cosmopolitan, having been born north of the river, before emigrating to the south courtesy of the GLC’s hard let scheme in 1979.

As a youngster growing up in Kentish Town, basically you either supported Arsenal or Tottenham – end of (alright there was the odd Chelsea fan, but odd was very much the word for them). My older brother was firmly in the former camp and always dismissed me as a ‘Glory Hunter’ because Spurs had achieved the double when I was an at the impressionable age of six.

He could well have been right. Then again, it could just have been that Jimmy Greaves played for them. Perhaps if George Best had appeared a few years earlier, I might well have ended up following Manchester United; although the idea of supporting a team at the other end of the country (which is where I would have imagined Manchester to be when I was a kid) was unheard of in the early ’60s.

The 1967 FA Cup was the first time I ever saw Spurs playing live and that was on a black & white TV. I’ve always been certain about the year because I remember that as soon as the referee blew the final whistle, I took my school trumpet to the top of my six storey block and blew it loudly and triumphantly! (I also blew it very badly; that’s how I know when it was because I only ever ‘studied’ it in my first year of secondary school and I guess I always had better things to do than taking time out to practise).

The 1971/72 season kicked off the year I started work and I got to watch every home match plus half a dozen or so away games, including both legs of the EUFA Cup Final against Wolves. However, by the time I made the big move to Peckham on the south side of the great divide in 1979, it had been over a year since I’d been to White Hart Lane; and by the time I moved to Selhurst – just around the corner from Crystal Palace’s ground – three years later, my loyalty to Spurs was no more than nominal.

I was at Wembley for the 1991 FA Cup Final; but that was only because my brother had promised before the semi that he’d take a client’s son, when he had assumed – wrongly as it turned out – that Arsenal would beat Tottenham and when they didn’t he was so pissed off, he really couldn’t countenance the prospect of sitting through Spurs possibly lifting the cup with a punter’s brat; so I was given the tickets and we travelled there on my motorbike and had a great time.

The following year I moved to Crystal Palace, directly opposite the site of Paxton’s original palace, which is a couple of miles from the Eagles stadium; and that’s where my two youngest sons went to primary school and grew up. So it was that in a world where I didn’t practically support anyone anymore, that CPFC became the beneficiaries of my South London loyalties and the consequently the co-representatives of my footballing fantasies, which recent – or long term in Palace’s case – history suggested were unlikely to produce any trophies.

And then suddenly, within the space of four sunny May days, both of the teams that represent my split London personality dusted down and polished up their trophy cabinets and came to terms with the prospect of European football next year!

Never say never!