Sunday’s match with Kerry was one of the NFL fixtures I’d pencilled out of the appointment book, what with it being Paddy’s weekend and with the Vins’ All-Ireland final date on Monday already in the diary (more on that later on, providing all this pesky work doesn’t impinge too much on available time), not to mention the fact that the sight of the Green and Gold tends to bring on a murderous kind of nervous twitch in me, my colour blindness notwithstanding. So, deferred coverage on TG4 seemed an eminently sensible alternative.

But then yesterday my shiny new Club Mayo Dublin membership card arrived in the post (that’s it in the pic – note the oh-so-clever masking of all personal details), along with a very nice “Dear Member” letter from club secretary, Mary King. This piece of pristine plastic will afford me free entry into all home league games, as well as all senior club championship games. It does seem a shame not to use it as the earliest possible opportunity, even if she said I’ll have to wait a little longer for my “unique” fleece to turn up.

At the heel of the hunt, there’s no substitute for being there at the action.  I’ll try not to think about the 280-mile round-trip to this “home” fixture and I’m sure that my usual Kingdom-induced convulsions will be much milder than normal due to the fact that we’re going to kick their holes. That’s not just me bragging: it’s what a clear majority of  respondents to a poll in the Mayo News think as well.  Oh, go on then – count me in for Sunday.

No further news to report at this stage on team selections for Sunday’s match. No other news, at all at all, in fact, apart from David Brady explaining his reasons for calling it quits.  Nothing for it, then, but to do some work, I suppose.