I mention this because I fancy that in the prevailing conditions (poor lights, heavy rain, unexciting match) even such a talented snapper as Gav might have struggled to get any decent pix apart from when the unhappy Mr Nelson walked past him. We shall see.

That was stop no.21 on Route 66 which, for any newcomers, is the attempt to produce a book on my visits to all 66 Ryman League clubs this season. Much interesting material has surfaced so far (I hope). The tally so far is eight clubs apiece in the Premier Division and One North, just five in One South.

The balance will adjust itself soon; as long as the Rye House speedway season continues I have to be north of the river on Saturday afternoons. Once that's over my evening attention will switch to ice hockey at places like Slough, Bracknell and Basingstoke, and Div 1S will come into its own.

The past few days were frustrating. I had planned to do Croydon Athletic v Walton & Hersham on Tuesday which, from what I've seen of both teams, could have been a scorcher of a game, followed by a pleasant outing to Eastbourne Town on Wednesday. But both games were wiped out by FA Trophy replays, as was every other league game this week apart from the aforementioned Enfield Town match. Why I decided that Route 66 had to be accomplished entirely in league matches I have no idea, but I'm stuck with it now.

It was, by the way, the fourth time I've seen Romford this season. P4 W0 D0 L4 F0 A16. And, Boro fans, I haven't done my Route 66 visit to one of your home games yet. Be afraid . . .

Anyway, 45 clubs to go with, by my reckoning, 35 full or fairly full Saturdays and Tuesdays left. It shouldn't be too difficult to finish the task. Should it?

This, I hope, will be the last long gap between blogs. Apart from anything else, Gavin deserves better for the time and effort he's put into setting it up. Considering I'm only working part-time, I'm still puzzled by the lack of hours in the day.

Apart from more Route 66 stuff, there will soon be a look back at what I found to be a fascinating speedway season, despite all the sport's off-track problems, much of them of its own making. This blog, after all, was intended to be mainly about speedway until events overtook me. And I'm still basking in the glory of correctly forecasting the first four, in the right order, at the recent National League Riders Championship - during which, incidentally, a few of us had a lengthy grammatical discussion. Should Riders have an apostrophe? I thought so but I was persuaded otherwise. We're not dumb, us speedway fans.