This is DM’s Raspberry Pi – it’s a little teeny-weeny pooter that he’s put to use as a media centre so that we can watch things other than the crap Sky beam at us if we choose. One of the things we can now do is watch i-player etc if we miss something we wanted to see when we didn’t notice it in amongst the aforesaid crap.

Take today. It’s FA Cup Final day and if everything in the world was where it should be, Daws would have been leading out the Super Spurs at Wembley at 3pm, we’d be watching it on BBC TV and the sun would be shining. We have recognised that we gave up our right to be there by letting our season tickets lapse but I’ve been there myself and seen us win two cup finals in person and, although I’d love to do that again some day, I’m not sure how likely that is. As DM said, there were four things wrong today – firstly Spurs weren’t there, secondly the kick-off was at 5.15pm – a REALLY stooooooopid time, the cup was swathed in Bumwiper (Budweiser to the masses) ribbons instead of Wigan colours when it was handed to the captain and the Beeb no longer have the broadcast rights to our biggest domestic football competition.

Anyway, that aside, we watched the match as “honorary” Wigan fans as we have a very special man who is very close to us who is just that so we mustered our support for his team. I have to say that even without having a Dad who is a lifelong Wigan fan, I would have been moved to support the Latics this afternoon after hearing Dave Whelan on the Today programme this morning talking about what the day means to him. It’s rare to be moved to the point of tears by someone in the footie world but he did it for me this morning.

BUT when we came to watch the game, we were caught out by the time and missed the teams coming out onto the pitch with Dave Whelan leading his team. So, the little pooter will be pressed into action tomorrow so that we get a second chance to see this bit of beautiful cup final magic. My Mum also tells me that the whole "leading out of the team" thing was pretty wonderful.

We did watch the game, loved it, and we both jumped up whooping when Wigan scored in the 90th minute. I then spent four minutes pacing around the sitting room, hands over my eyes, taking every defensive kick myself and hoping against hope that the Latics could go on and win. They did. I phoned my Dad who was more than a bit thrilled to put it mildly.

For anyone out there who is not in the UK – Wigan are a Premiership (top tier of English football) team, just. They are fighting for survival at the bottom of the table at the moment as they seem to do every season. Their story is rags to (moderate by PL standards) riches if ever there was one. They were not even in the Football League when I was a girl. I remember my Dad’s utter delight that they were promoted from the Conference to the league. They battled it out in the lower divisions for a long time then got successive season promotions to the Premier League and suddenly this little club from a little town near Manchester was toughing it out with the big boys week-in-week-out. Until then, Wigan had only been known for “The road to Wigan Pier”, northern soul and latterly the Verve. The team has managed to hang on in the Premier League now for 9 years I think. Their owner, Dave Whelan, was once a pro player himself and the special magic of today is that his career as a player was ended in an FA Cup Final in 1960, when his leg got broken. He then made his fortune as a business man and bought Wigan Athletic and today he has “finished the business” started in 1960. Do you know what? The circle goes around - the boy who scored the winning goal is newly back from injury having broken his leg in November - he came on for a total of 14 minutes and did the business for the team. What a man (Whelan and Watson both) and what a result. Now all they have to do is win their last two and hope that others around them slip up along the way. Go you pie-eaters!

PS - Having spoken to my Dad this evening, he tells me of his journey home after the match when he went into Asda in High Wycombe wearing his Wigan scarf and the check-out assistant said "great win today - can you please give a good thrashing to the Arse on Tuesday" - turns out the lad was a Spurs fan! I second that emotion.