In real life you have to fend for yourself. You have to walk to the station, and get on with your day. That huge culture shift is almost too much to bear.

Max Rushden
Quotes of the week

I was at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Sky have a prawn sandwich executive box. Very occasionally no-one important gets invited and I end up going.

I took my football skipper Dom, he's a Chelsea fan, and that guaranteed me 90 minutes the day before (and hopefully a place in the cup final team - he reads this, so hopefully that'll guilt him into it).

Cambridge invited me to an executive box over Christmas. So I thought I'd do a compare and contrast. There are subtle differences between the Chelsea corporate experience, and the Cambridge one.

Well one main difference. At Cambridge, there isn't actually a box.

Problems

I'm not looking for sympathy, but there are two big problems with being in a box.

1. The football actually gets in the way. You have to go OUTSIDE, in the cold! Inside, there's fancy food (see picture below). I don't normally eat spring rolls before a game, certainly not followed by Lamb chops.

At half time, we were welcomed back inside by the most corporate pudding I've ever seen. Sky have helped me a lot in life, so who am I to argue with a fruit moose emblazoned with our good name. Still funny to put it on a pudding though.

2. The other problem is that after four hours of being cosseted and looked after by hundreds of identical, beautiful women all in identical blue outfits, all with identical, far too happy to be there smiles - and plied with whatever you want to drink, a three course meal, cheese and grapes afterwards - you start to take this for granted.

You start to imagine that they'll be outside to carry you to the tube, massage your head on the journey home, and then cook you dinner.

But in real life, you have to fend for yourself. You have to walk to the station, and get on with your day. That huge culture shift is almost too much to bear.

Cold

The game itself wasn't great and it was so cold that I made my "wearing a blanket at a football match" debut. Until Sunday, the only time I would allow myself to cover myself in a blanket was on a long haul flight.

Anyway Chelsea dug out a victory, as they tend to do. The travelling Stoke fans were brilliant, and sang one or two hilarious songs that I can't really write.

After the game, it was interesting to see the unused substitutes being taken for a sprint session with the fitness coach on the pitch. Can you imagine anything more galling?

You've trained all week. You're not in the team. You don't get on the pitch, and then when everyone else wanders off the pitch, has a bath and goes off to do whatever the Chelsea players do after the game, you have to run up and down the pitch they've just churned up.

But there they were, Joe Cole, Deco and the rest, just running up and down the pitch. Back and forth. For ages. It makes sense I suppose - they didn't do any exercise that day, and it's probably a good idea to stay in shape. But I'd never really thought about it. I just thought if you didn't play, you just went home. I can't help feeling if I was an unused substitute, I'd go and drown my sorrows rather than go for a big run.

That's probably one of the (many) reasons, why I'm not a professional footballer.

Have a good week...