While Arsenal were strolling into the Carling Cup final during the week, I was was more than half a mile from the stadium enjoying a pizza with two friends in one of Islington’s trendy Upper Street eateries. The usual suspects of topics were covered (football and football with a bit of cricket thrown in when we had exhausted all the football topics) and the main item on the agenda was around the issue of whether you can watch a game of football as a neutral.

I’m a passionate sort of chap (I hope the missus isn’t reading this because she could have me under the Trades Description Act), and I think it is not possible to go to a game of football (or indeed any other sport), and sit there without wanting one of the teams or players to win.

If I’m passing a game in the park on my way to buying a newspaper, I will stop for a few minutes and choose one of the teams I want to win; the catalyst for my choice could be anything from size of beer gut of the striker, the team that have the fewest number of different coloured socks or the furthest a player has managed to spit after running ten metres to chase the ball. I simply have to choose a team.

Sport is all about passion; which is the main reason why I detest the ethos and practice of the members’ pavilion at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Not only are women barred from this holy temple of class and privilege, but when you see those geriatrics bedecked in the bacon-and egg-striped ties and blazers, turning the pages of The Times and Telegraph like synchronised swimmers before engaging in a snoring crescendo loud enough to be classed as a new wave of classical music, you realise that they have no interest in sport or passion. I have little doubt that on their wedding night (those who actually had one), while the lucky bride was expectantly waiting for them to consummate the marriage, they spent half an hour laying out the striped hat, blazer and tie before reluctantly "doing the right thing".

Their "good sport" nature is sickening. So what if Ricky Ponting or Sachin Tendulkar have hit a glorious century at the Home of Cricket. Their polite applause is outrageous. They should be using the type of vocabulary preferred by the chauffeurs who drop them at the ground and calling these upstarts every name under the sun. That way, the England team might toughen themselves up a bit.

No, I like to see the Jekyl-Hyde fan who during the week behaves like a shipping clerk, holding the door open for a female colleague or folding his newspaper into a perfect quarter while engaging in the cryptic crossword, morphing into a trailer park Behemoth on a Saturday. I like to hear words that I didn’t know existed as he (or she) unleashes a tirade of abuse at the opposing team while hitting the G-spot when his team score. And when he (or she) returns to work on Monday and is asked, "How was the weekend, Mr Pilkington?" he replies: "A steady weekend, Miss Jenkins, thank you for asking. Have the dockets arrived?"