For newcomers to this blog, Route 66 is the predictable title of the book I hope to publish in the summer featuring my travels round the Ryman League this season. My plan was to visit all 66 clubs and it has gone far better than I could have imagined. I've now banked 41 of them which, as you mathematical experts out there will have realised already, leaves only 25 to go.

I've even worked out a provisional itinerary for the last 25 and am due to finish at Fleet Town on April 10. That's just to prove to myself that it can be done. I've included no midweek games after Christmas, since there were none on the original fixture list.

It's all been thoroughly enjoyable and I'm beginning to suspect that, for the first time since I started watching football, I will get through the season without watching a single 'first-class' game.

I can't say I miss it. The hysteria surrounding the Thierry Henry handball sums up everything that is wrong with the game at the higher levels, and particularly the way it is covered by the media. The bloke handled the ball instinctively and got away with it. So what? Can you honestly tell me that the reaction would have been the same if an Irish player had done it?

Replay? You must be joking. But, since other instances have been quoted, let me clarify the position since very few other people have bothered. It's true that another World Cup tie was replayed because of a refereeing error. A successful penalty was disallowed for encroachment and play was restarted with a free-kick to the defending side. The problem there was that the ref didn't know the law which, of course, states that the kick should have been retaken. If the ref makes an error in his knowledge of the laws, a replay is possible.

But if he just makes an error of judgement, forget it, and quite right too. Should we replay the 1966 World Cup final now that technology has proved that the linesman got it wrong (allegedly, though I have always thought that in the original full-speed film the ball looks well over the line)? And would you replay every match where an offside goal was allowed or an onside one disallowed?

There was a famous case at Spurs back in the '50s. Eddie Baily, I think it was, took a corner which hit the ref and bounced back to him, whereupon he crossed and the winning goal was scored. Now, as the ref doesn't count, Baily had played the ball twice from the corner and the opposition - Huddersfield, I think it was - asked for a replay on the grounds that there had been an error in law. And, if the referee had admitted that he didn't know that you couldn't play the ball twice at a corner, a replay it would have been. But he said that he hadn't realised that Baily had played it twice. Therefore a judgement call and the result stood. It's not that complicated.

But the relative peace on Route 66 has brought lots of pleasure, a few surprises (well, did you know that former prime minister Clement Attlee used to play for Fleet Town?) and a lot of laughs.

Among the latter - the ground bearing a notice assuring punters that they are safe from unwanted intruders because the fence is treated with anti-climb paint. Will anti-climb paint really stop the next-door neighbours? The next-door establishment is, after all, a graveyard.

Then there's the club puzzled by the number of youngsters who bunk in over the fence. They let in kids for free.

I have also learned that the longest-serving member of the Metropolitan Police force is the commissioner's valet.

One club told me of the cheque for £5.03 they had just been given as their share of the gate from an away cup-tie, another proudly displays one for £42,819.71 which they received many years ago for a similar reason.

I saw a goal scored after just 14 seconds at Kingstonian, then beat it by a second at Merstham, where I also saw the visitors hit the woodwork four times from 25 yards or more.

I've seen some great goals and some hilarious misses (though nothing to compare with the one by Harrow's Rocky Baptiste last Saturday, now showing on the web).

And I've heard the aggrieved tannoy announcement "Someone's ordered a hot dog, then gone off and not taken the hot dog".

It's been fun. And it's not over yet.