Sunderland 0 Arsenal 3 (Liam's first live football match)

When a colleague, Professor Timothy Clark, popped his head around my door at work and said he was thinking of getting tickets for the visit of the Arsenal to play Sunderland in May 2006, I knew that a defining moment in my life as a father had arrived... This was to be my son's first live game of footy.

I was nervous. If truth be told, Liam's obessive devotions in life to date had been his toy cars and Thomas the Tank Engine. On the rare occasions when he had deigned to kick a football he'd shown himself capable of wellying it with promising power and accuracy. But it hadn't captured his imagination to the exclusion of all other possible distractions for hours on end as I'd, naturally, hoped for...

So, as we set off I feared that he'd be freaked out by the whole experience (the crowd, the noise, Sunderland's hapless defending) and it'd put him off for life, and I'd never be able to live with myself, denying my own son the joys of being a football fan.

It was an evening kickoff. Arsenal arrived needing the points to qualify for the champions League the next season (we were 5th, behind our hilariously hapless neighbours, T*ttenham). 'Fortunately', Sunderland were already relegated so didn't much care. (As Wearsiders now - the river Wear runs through Durham - they are our favoured local team. And, apparently Sparta Rotterdam copied Sunderland's shirt colours...)

We were sat in the Sunderland family enclosure, a few rows up from the touchline. Liam settled on my lap quickly, content to gaze around the huge stadium and gorge on his biscuits. There was little point in telling him that that man there is the most ludicrously talented footballer ever to wear the red and white of the Arsenal so watch and learn... Liam had no idea what was going on, only a vague idea really of the concept of football, but he loved the atmosphere, so a big thankyou to all the Sunderland fans for starting up some Mexican waves which kept him royally entertained! Best of all, though, was that he would mimic the crowd's reactions a good 5 seconds after he first heard it, starting to clap only when the applause had died down, and going "Oooooh!" long after a shot had been skied into the terraces. It was hilarious.

I think he got through it unscathed, and I was a relieved man. Just need to upgrade his 'mild amusement' into 'lifelong, deranged obsession' and my work will be complete.

Arsenal won 3-0.