Rotherham 1 Aldershot 0

Rotherham 1 Aldershot 0

This evening, in a miasma of boredom, I find myself watching the above match on the telly.

It's a critical game, and victory will result in the winner going to Wembley for the Division 2 Play Off Final (Division 4 in pre-Sky TV old money.)

The winner will get the chance, Quixote-style, to play Dagenham and tilt at the windmill that is promotion to Division 1 (Division 3 really - but only men over 35 will understand this detail.)

There are about 400 TV channels to watch and still I choose this.

Here are the highlights, which I've helpfully also posted on Facebook.

45 mins: Rotherham are leading 1-0 in a tight game.
51 mins: 2-0! Kevin Allison's 50th career goal. It's quality according to the commentator.
53 mins: Aldershot miss a 'glorious' chance. Kirk Henderson is looking lively.
62 mins: Don Goodman is concerned that the Rotherham fans may be celebrating too early. Rotherham are playing on adrenalin, and certain players are 'flying close to the wind.'
70 mins: Ryan Taylor's got the 'hook.'
84 mins: Ronnie Moore is concerned about the 'needless afters' that may lead to a yellow card and rob someone of their Wembley chance.

Rotherham hang on for the win and they're dancing in the streets of the Don Valley...

...Rewind 35 years to Steven Herrington's house on a midsummer morning. The 6 week holiday stretches endlessly before us and we are in the middle of what promises to be the definitive Subbuteo competition of our lives.

For the uninitiated - girls and anyone from any gender under 40 - Subbuteo was to my day what FIFA2010World/Euro/Manager/Championship/NintendoWii/PS3blahblahblah is nowadays. The basic premise was that you each had a team of 11 little men on tiny plinths, whom you would flick or nudge to 'kick' the ball - which you can see was scalewise about the size of a London bus compared to the players (they hadn't invented perspective then.)

I would imagine my sons would find it just about the dullest thing ever invented, but to us it was reality. We re-enacted entire cup competitions, game-by-game, round by round. It took weeks. Each game could be played at its full 90 mins length, so we're talking about serious commitment here on the part of a young boy. From the age of about 8 to about 14, when I didn't play Subbuteo I played football, and when I didn't play football I played Subbuteo.

You had a green beize sheet in the shape of a football pitch, which you smoothed out to billiard-table levels on the living room carpet. No dog, mother or small child's toy could come within feet of the hallowed arena. Some of the more enterprising hammered their pitches to a large bit of chipboard to keep them flat. Then you just slid it under your bed to put away until game on the following morning. Of course, Nicky Pond and any of the nouveau riche in my area were able to afford some of the accessories it was possible to buy - referees, World Cup 74 footballs with black panels (see above - the normal balls were orange) corner flags, floodlights and even stands. I believe there was even a record you could buy that made crowd noises.

But we didn't need them.

Because we could provide our own crowd noises.

In my area, there were some talented crowd-noise merchants, at least 3 of whom could do a surround-sound-dolby-stereo-bang-and-olufsen quality impression of a live game. By now, Sportsnight With Coleman had popularised football on TV (still at that time a very rare occurrence) but also the art of commentating. So now we didn't just play Subbuteo we commentated on it, to give it the excitement of the games on the telly we'd been allowed to stay up to see.

Steven Herrington did a very passable impression of ITV's Hugh Johns, whose catch phrase 'One- Nothing' was stock-in-trade to all 12 year-old boys. I preferred the effortless authority of the BBC's David Coleman (catchphrase 'One-Nil') but I couldn't cut it with my impression of him, so I ended up not making much noise at all during a game.

But the Crown-Prince of the commentators was Mark 'Sledge' Liversidge. Mark had perfected a way of manoevring spittle in his cheeks and keeping it inside his throat for minutes at a time which was an absolutely perfect copy of the crowd noise in the 1974 West Germany World Cup.

The stadiums in that competition were so large, and the fans so intent on a constant barrage of claxon blowing, plus the sound on tellies had evolved so much, that the overall impression was like a kind of Eno-esque white noise. This, Sledge did to perfection. He had even perfected the art of running with a football and doing it, shouting 'Rivelino.. to Cubillas.. to Beckenbauer' as he went along, with each touch pretending to be a different player. It was impressive.

To this day, given half a chance to play football with my kids in any park, I still do this. My kids look at me as if I am daft. But they know, for a moment, as I run with the ball, mimicking Gerson for Brazil in the 74 quarter final from Gelsenkirchen, I am exactly the same age as them.

I am also The Most Talented Footballer On The Planet And Certainly Way Better Than Them. I roll and cuss, fake and faint, Cruyff turn and generally ponce around like any Dad worth his salt would do in this situation.

I am 'Dad'alinho.

And you have the nerve to wonder why I watched the Rotherham game.