The relationship a football fan has with their club is unique. There are few other sports that can directly influence the moods and emotions of its followers like football. Weekends are made or broken by the result. The outcome of a local derby can make work on Monday morning joy for the victor, and misery for the loser, with no end of a ribbing to come. Also, who else would travel hundreds of miles to stay just a couple of hours before turning round and heading back? Would the average supporter make the trip from Southampton to Sunderland to see a boyfriend or girlfriend, for example? It’s a topic that fascinates and intrigues.

I am of the opinion that you do not choose who you support, your club chooses you. There’s a certain feeling you get when watching your team. You just know that these are your boys. It can make you look up with pride when they are mentioned on the TV and make the most tepid goalless draw an edge-of-the-seat thriller.

How does a club ‘choose’ you? It could be the team nearest your home, nearest your birth, the team your parents support. It could even be one particular match that captured the imagination. For me, it’s all four. I was born and raised in Norwich – the best city in the world, of course. My mum stood at the Barclay End of Carrow Road in the 1980s, and my dad skipped school to see City play in the FA Cup semi-final of 1959. It was already nailed on, then, that I would be a Norwich City supporter.

The match that ‘got’ me was the play-off final in May 2002. I was a few months away from my tenth birthday. Norwich had been grinding away in division one since being relegated from the Premier League eight years earlier, and at last they had the chance to get back to the big time. The fact it wasn’t automatic promotion made it tremendously exciting. We had to get past Wolves over two legs before we made it to the final where we would play Birmingham City at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

My dad rose in the middle of the night to travel to Wales on a minibus with some friends. I was to stay at home and watch the match on TV. Iwan Roberts put City a goal up. Birmingham equalised. The match ended 1-1. There were no goals in extra time, and it went to penalties. When Norwich lost the shootout – which was apparently always going to happen anyway – I knew I was a fan for life. I knew because I bawled my eyes out. To be fair, I was nine years old!

I love the feeling I get from supporting a football club so strongly. There’s a great sense of unity every other Saturday, when I go to Carrow Road and there’s 26,000 other City fans there. Having had a season ticket since 2008, we all know each other well by now.