Eugh. It's that time of the season again.

As soon as the words 'Cup Final' come around, 'lifelong' supporters crawl out of the woodwork ready for their share of the glory. You can always spot these ones at the big occasions, as they're generally the bewildered little souls sporting scarves with price-tags still hanging from them, and refer to every player as "mate", or "my son". Or worse still, they actually turn up to a showpiece Final wearing a Man United top (season 93/94, naturally).

FA Trophy Final tickets went onsale yesterday with the news that Ebbsfleet United (sell-outs themselves by changing the name of their club and its historic roots to cash in on the local Eurostar stop) had sold over 6,000 tickets in a day for their clash with Torquay United. Pretty good going considering that's four times their average league gate this season, and there are still six weeks remaining until the Wembley showdown.

Ebbsfleet are also the club owned by 30,000-odd internet nerds - that's a lot of corporate seats at the home of football.

Sadly, the 'woodwork crawlers' have long been associated with our fair game, and will be around for many years to come (how else could Gretna explain a bumper SPL crowd of 501 against Dundee United this season?), so the best thing is to sit back and accept this dirty evil.

By all means, start a chorus or two of "where were you when we were shit?", but be secure in the comfort that this scourge of our game will be long gone by the time those bitter Tuesday nights in December roll around. As winter sets in, normality returns, when you'll be able to stretch out across massed rows of empty seats or along barren terraces as far as the eye can see with not a "my son" in earshot, and you'll think 'yes, this is more
like it'.

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