My 100th blog post – my favourites from the last 13 years

In the game of cricket, a century is a significant milestone. Compiling one hundred runs with the bat is very difficult to do and the greats of the game are measured against each other by how many centuries they made. Sadly, despite it being my favourite sport, I have never been good enough at it to get anywhere near 50, let alone 100.

I have made a century of a different kind, though. This post, the one you’re currently reading, is the 100th I’ve made on my blog! When I started it I was 17 and coming towards the end of sixth form, which feels a very long time ago now. Often several months have passed between entries, but it has always been there as a place to write when I’ve wanted to get something out there. The vast majority of them have been almost entirely ignored, which is par for the course, but a few have unexpectedly gained traction.

To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the previous 99 posts and pick out a few that mean a lot to me. Yes, I know it is self-indulgent, but my name is literally at the top. I’m not forcing you to be here!

Click on the heading to see the post.

15/3/2010 – The first post: Beckham’s World Cup heartbreak means he must rethink his retirement plans

The post that started this blog off was a piece of football writing. This was five years before I began writing a regular column for the Eastern Daily Press but it has always been sports journalism that has interested me. Published on 15th March 2010, it strikes me that the style of my writing has not actually changed that much. I think it has just developed to be a bit looser – that first post comes across as a tad uptight (not unlike me really!) and while I appear to be quite happy to express my opinion on the injury David Beckham had suffered playing for AC Milan, putting not only his participation in the 2010 World Cup but also his entire England career at risk, I get the feeling I’m trying too hard to sound like I write for The Guardian. I’ve definitely developed my writing so I can adapt to whatever publication I’m writing for.

A couple of things about this piece: Beckham never played for England again. My choice to replace him, James Milner, did indeed go to the World Cup that year but (spoiler alert) it did not go well for England and they were knocked out by Germany in the Last 16 – that match that contained Frank Lampard’s ghost goal, hastening the introduction of goalline technology. I also note that my radio station of choice back in 2010 was BBC Radio Norfolk. Not long after this I discovered Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and my life changed. Why, oh why, did I not get into that sort of thing sooner!?

22/5/2015 – Part of my Norwich-mad dad will be with me at Wembley

I have written about it in various places before, but my dad died in 2014. Six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 69. On 22nd May 2015, I wrote this piece about wearing my dad’s old Norwich City shirt to the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dad was a lifelong Norwich fan and when my mum and dad split up the main thing we did together was go to Carrow Road with our season tickets. To this day I sit in the same seat, but I sit alone, with my dad’s to my left now taken by somebody else. In May 2015, Norwich had made it to the play-off final, having beaten arch rivals I***ich Town in the semi-finals, and were one game away from promotion to the Premier League. 40,000 Norwich fans made to the trip to London for the occasion, me included. I thought it would be fitting to wear dad’s shirt in his honour on the day.

My dad in his room in his care home, a Canary from beginning to end.

Having shared the story on social media, it proved popular and gained the attention of a journalist from the EDP, who contacted me to write up the story for the paper. I can’t seem to find the article on their website, but I promise you it happened. Norwich beat Middlesbrough 2-0 and made it to the top flight.

14/9/2015 – It’s time to start talking about Wes in the same breath as the Norwich City greats

I picked this one because I like the way the writing flows and because I’ve plenty of use of this piece over the seven years since I wrote it. Wes Hoolahan, a diminutive Irishman, was my favourite Norwich City player for most of the decade he spent at the club. Full of skill, he could always make something happen and was there at some really good moments for Norwich. I was inspired to write this after he was the star in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the Premier League. He was 33 at the time and I felt I wanted to write about him while he was still around.

I was able to bring this back out again when Hoolahan announced he was leaving Norwich in 2018. It got a fair number of readers and is a piece I’m pretty pleased with.

15/10/2015 – My Durham holiday photo treasure hunt

Looking back, I was churning out writing pretty well in 2015. I’d had the successes of the dad’s shirt at Wembley story, Hoolahan and I’d also been chosen to write for the EDP’s new Fan Zone page. In October of that year, I went up to Durham to visit my former landlady, who was working there at the time. She set me a photo treasure hunt challenge – she gave me a list of things that I had to find and take photographs of. This was a great way to explore a city I didn’t know very well. As you can see from the post, I completed the task. This was my first real foray into personal blogging, something that I’ve done more of since and it has always proved reasonably popular – much to my surprise, as I’ve always felt I’m incredibly boring!

3/12/2015 – In search of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs

2015 again and another attempt at personal blogging. The dinosar sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in South London had always fascinated me and I had read loads about them but I had not visited them until December 2015. I spent one of the days I’d got off work to visit them and I blogged about my trip. I have been to see the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times since.

25/10/2017 and 26/10/2017 – The pain at the Arsenal and Walking the line

A two-parter. In October 2017, I made a solo (’twas ever thus) trip to London to watch Norwich City play Arsenal in a League Cup match at the Emirates Stadium. I blogged about the trip, with the first part being all about the football match and the second part being about my walk along a disused railway line the following day. Reading it you can tell I enjoyed myself and it makes me want to do something like this again.

Walking along an old railway line in London, 2017

5/3/2019 – ‘No one cares’ – the infuriating misogyny on the internet

When I’m on social media, I’ve never been able to resist arguing with people when I see them posting overtly racist, sexist or homophobic material. Basically, I will call out the arseholes. People tell me the solution is to ignore it, but I haven’t managed it yet. I just continue calling them out until I need to take a break from social media completely to get my head together.

Bored with seeing women-fearing blokey blokes taking every opportunity to be disparaging about women’s sport, I wrote this piece in 2019. I don’t claim to fight the feminist fight on behalf of women, I’m just a guy that likes sport and I don’t care whether those participating have willies or not. I wrote this so I could link to it when I was arguing with one of these blokey blokes, rather than having to write the same arguments out every time. It feels more relevant than ever now, with the England women’s football team becoming European champions last year.

8/5/2019 – One year on: Tranquility Base Hotel& Casino by Arctic Monkeys

This was the first time I had written about music and my love for Arctic Monkeys. The band changed my life when I discovered them, far later than everyone else had. They changed my hair style, they changed the clothes I wore, the way I saw music as an art form. I wrote this piece about the album they had released in 2018, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and according to my stats it still gets occasional views from the many Monkeys fans around the world. I enjoyed writing it so much that I have since written about their other six albums: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It And See (2011), AM (2013) and The Car (2022).

24/10/2019 – We walked 14 miles… because we wanted to

On the face of it, this is just another piece of personal blogging about walking 14 miles – Aylsham to North Walsham and back again – with my friend Katie. But when I read it back, I realised that it was actually about as gushing as I’ve ever been with the written word. It is really about friendship, and how the little gang that had taken me in when I’d been so alone (Katie, Megan and Sarah) had made such a difference to my life. Little did we know that the pandemic was just around the corner and our lives would change so much.

9.4.2020 – Stay-at-home pubs, Coogan films and GTA: what I’m doing to deal with lockdown

The pandemic was a strange time, wasn’t it? It all happened so quickly, and while it felt like it dragged on, it feels like a lifetime ago now. As supermarket staff, we were actually given letters to show to the police should we be pulled over and asked why we were out and about. Extraordinary stuff. And can anyone remember when Sainsbury’s was only open to NHS staff for an hour every morning, and they would play Captain Tom Moore’s charity version of You’ll Never Walk Alone over the PA system!? Strange times. Anyway, in April 2020 I decided to write about the things I was doing, watching and playing to get myself through lockdown. I think in years to come I’ll be glad I did this – it’ll be a sort of record of that (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event.

7/9/2021 – Looking through my box of comics and feeling old

A piece I wrote about an afternoon spent sifting through some of the many comics I keep in a box under my bed. Not much to say about it, but it got a decent number of readers and people seemed to like it.

27/3/2022 – I bought a 58-year-old football magazine

I don’t think I would have written this piece if I hadn’t done the comics one first. Last March, I went to a shop on the Dereham to Fakenham road called Corners (now defunct) and found this football magazine from 1964. I picked out some interesting things from it, most of which were along the lines of ‘weren’t things different back then?’.

4/7/2022 – I’m nearly 30. Where am I going?

I was full of angst about turning 30. I find it easier to write than I do to speak, so I blogged about it. Basically, I was about to hit that milestone and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I am glad I wrote this. Turns out, being 30 feels very much like being 29, but this did me good. I later chose 30 songs that had been the soundtrack to my 30 years and blogged about that too.

3/10/2022 – The theatre, the sights and the hilariously awful hotel – my 26 hours in London

If I was a musician, this one would be described as my biggest hit to date. Last September, I went to London for a couple of days with my mum, her other half and their two friends. The hotel we stayed in was so awful it was actually funny. I have just checked the stats and 213 people have read this so far – that’s a lot, considering I usually get 10 pairs of eyes on something I’ve written if I’m lucky. This encouraged me to document my own life instead of writing about sport the whole time. A rule I stick to is never to construct situations purely for the benefit of the blog – like the way people on TikTok (bah) who go to places only to show off to their followers. I simply go somewhere, enjoy myself, take a few photos and spend a while writing about it when I get home. It seems to work.

3/12/2022 – Christmas was better when I was a kid – and 12 years in retail might have something to do with it

Finally, my attempt to get into the festive spirit. This piece about my memories of Christmas as a child seemed to strike a chord with people, who were reminded of cherished moments from the past themselves by reading it. I loved that I was able to do that for them. Some I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch to say they enjoyed it, which was a really lovely way to round off the year.

There we have it then, my picks of the 99 posts I have written for this blog to date. I have pretty much decided that making a living out of writing isn’t going to happen, but I still get enough enjoyment out of it that I will carry it on as a hobby regardless. So, here’s to many more posts on this blog. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

If you have any thoughts about the posts I’ve shown you here, do feel free to leave a comment under this post or contact me. I’d love to hear from you!

All the best,

Lee

LEE PAYNE