This football obsessed fanatic was born in Manchester, raised in Stockton-on-Tees, educated at Sunderland University and then returned to Teesside as a civil servant.
I bought my first house (which is coincidently on George Stevenson Boulevard - the inventor of the Locomotive)and moved in with my fiance in March 2010. We got married on 7th May 2011 the same day Darlington were at Wembley lifting the non-league FA Trophy! Then in September 2012 we were happy to announce the birth of our daughter Emily who will no doubt try to distract me from SOS. And my walking talking toddler is doing just that although bless my mother-in-law, but she's managed to get her to try and say 'Goal for Darlington!' when kicking a little ball about the kitchen. She's now 2yrs old and will still shout Goal! but without the Darlington bit. I need to work on her defending though as it's much too easy to nutmeg her... Her TV watching is slightly inflencing my player name choices with Frozen now imbedded firmly in my head.

One of the first things I did when I received my first wages was to buy a season ticket for my local football side Darlington. C'mon Darlo!
Darlington were in the Football Conference in season 2011-12 having been relegated from League 2 of the football league (ye olde Division 4) a few seasons ago, however after some financial mis-management they finished at the bottom of the Conference and were officially wound up.

Darlington 1883 was then started up as a phoenix club and started life 3 divisions lower in the Northern league Division 1. Three promotions in four seasons have the club going in the right direction and a move back into town is expected some time this year. We currently groundshare with Bishop Auckland and I've only been to one game there so far.

Darlington FC have had such illuminaries as Gary Pallister, Robbie Blake, Bobby Petta, Arthur Wharton (the first black pro in British football), some guy called Jason De Vos and the one and only Marco Gabbiadini! Recent Darlo alumni have included Dave Wheater, David Stockdale, Dan Burn, Danny Graham and Matthew Bates who I used to play against when he was a kid. 

I've recently been watching The Expanse on Amazon Prime. Loved the What If? Marvel series on Disney+ And obviously watched The Mandalorian, Andor and Ashoka. 

They cancelled The Expanse after season 6! I've started reading the books now. Whilst I prefer paperbacks, the first volume available at my local library was an e-book and the next one an audiobook. Haven't watched The Acolyte yet.

My daughter started secondary school this week and my son his second year at primary. He's also started 121 swimming lessons. Work is busy and the summer holidays have also been busy. I've recovered from my feet injuries now so hope to start playing 5aside again,

Season 46 update - Have started the next series of What If? Watched the Acolyte which was ok but also quite boring and irritating. 

I'm up to the final book in the Expanse series and will be taking it on holiday next week to finish off. Haven't returned to playing 5aside yet as I had a chest infection over xmas and now I can't get a spot in the XI. 

Season 47 update - I finished the Expanse book series and it's short story collection which rounded off some storylines. I thoroughly enjoyed the series. I have a collection of books from birthday/christmas to read. Started Mr Norrell and Jonathan Stange but it's a bit of a trek getting going.

What I have enjoyed over the last few months is a podcast called the Adventure Zone - it's based on D&D but it's more story driven by an American group of brothers and their dad taking the mick out of each other. 

Still haven't returned to football. Time just hasn't allowed it with my MIL spending the last few weeks in hospital.

Season 48 update - I gave up on Norrell & Strange and moved onto to Patrick Rothuss' Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy. Loved the first 2 books then picked up the 3rd and found it was a solo story and the final book hasn't been written yet. So I've moved onto the Book of the New Sun trilogy. 

I found another online D&D podcast called Critical Role to watch whilst doing the washing up - american voice actors playing D&D. I'm already up to eipsode 33.

Season 49 update - Well I'm now up to episode 60 of Critical Role, I've also been chatting to a couple of people from work about Warhammer and fantasy - bringing back memories of painting figures when I was younger (not really playing though). I had a dig around in my parent's attic and found 100s of magazines and models gathering dust. At some point they may be worth something on eBay. 

But I did buy the new version of Heroquest and have started painting some of the heroes. Will have to see if the rest of the family can be tempted to play.

Still working on my fitness