Cathy MacDonald's weekly blog

The football season is officially underway. Apparently. Don't for a minute imagine that I have undergone some sort of conversion, even if I was rather vocal about my support for Argentina during the World Cup - that was purely for family reasons and frankly I was captivated by Mr double-wristwatch Maradona, until they lost spectacularly to Germany one wet Saturday afternoon.

My reason for broaching the topic of sport, or more especially football, is by way of explaining my trip to Manchester earlier in the week. My youngest was given a ticket to see Manchester United hammering Newcastle by three goals to nil, although he wasn't to know that at the time. He has now switched allegiance from Messi to Scholes or so it would appear from his shirt.

Frankly I cannot understand what all the fuss is about - I was much more excited at broadcasting from our Manchester studios. It's rather nice to have a kind of oasis, a place which feels comfortingly familiar, in a city where you're a stranger and that's how I see the BBC when I'm on my travels.

So while I don't understand the rules of football, or the individual competitions or tournaments, and most certainly not the irrational off-side one, I am happy to say that whether or not Man U have another trophy winning season, as I suspect they might, this weekend, if you look at the attached photo closely, you'll see that I was the one who won the Cup - well a "mug" really, with Mum on it. Kind of says it all really, as far as the family is concerned.

The Greetings Programme Sunday 0700 or listen again on iPlayer.