Watching my team Cardiff City you expect to be up and down in a matter of weeks,like a bi-polar bear one moment surfeiting on salmon, the next walking on thin ice ready to crack.
   So it has  been recently, with a welcome victory over Aston Villa (who've spent a lot of money on their team) : our crowd spurred into responding by 3000 Brummies, the return of Sol Bamba excelling as a defensive midfielder and big Ken Zohore causing all kinds of problems for their defenders.
   Welsh international James Chester , captain of Villa, did one over-the-top tackle and I joked ' You Welsh bastard!', to which my friend added ' Same ol' Welsh.....always cheating!'
    It seemed like a crucial turning-point in our season : Joe Ralls back to his best and we played with more pace without Whittingham ( though he's still a key player after a decade of loyal service).
   Typically, it was all dashed less than a week after with an FA Cup defeat v. Fulham and a mere 5000 attendance and only Ralls and Bamba emerging with any credit.
  It was sad to see the Cup treated with such disrespect by most of the players and , to a certain extent, our otherwise passionate manager Neil Warnock, who had issued a warning that he'd be selecting almost a reserve side which , together with live tv coverage, ensured that only Wembley dreamers like myself and my daughter would turn up.
  Then, away to Brizzle City in the Severnside derby we produced a great result, twice coming from behind to win 3-2.
   Warnock may well have got both team selection and formation wrong from the start but, unlike the Cup game he made bold changes which altered everything.
   Who knows what will happen next when we play lowly Burton. Everyone's expecting a win, so knowing us.........
     Despite all this, I sometimes envy my local club Merthyr Tydfil FC.
   When Cardiff were playing in red under the decree of megalomaniac owner Vincent Tan a few years back, I was on the verge of swapping allegiances completely.
   If Tan hadn't given in to fan power (because that's what occurred despite his claims to the contrary) , I would've done so.
   Now he's too preoccupied collecting football clubs on a global Monopoly board , places where he's greeted with the idolatry he thinks he deserves.
   He doesn't come to see us at all, though if we drew a Premier club in a Cup match......
   In many ways Merthyr are the opposite of Cardiff, as they're owned and run by the fans themselves.
   I know a number of these highly dedicated and loyal fans : ones like John Strand, whose financial acumen has proved invaluable ; Mark Evans who has a wealth of footballing experience and has run the fanzine 'Dial M For Merthyr' for years (long before Rachel Tresize used it for a book title!) ; Phil Howells who still writes match reports for the 'Merthyr Times' free newspaper and Benji, who drinks a fair share of their ale.
   These fans are special, as is my friend Roger Lane, once Head of English and an Adviser, now retired and such a fanatical Martyr that he travels to almost every away game.
   He seems to know everyone at the club, from fans to ex-manager's dad, to parents of younger players.
   He's also an ex-Bluebird, who I used to bump into on the way to Wembley, when it became a yearly pilgrimage.
   He became disillusioned with everything about CCFC and now even sponsors a squad player at Merthyr.
   With a new clubhouse, 3G pitch and young , local manager in Gavin Williams, it seems like the glory days could return.
   I really like the idea of a fan-owned club, even is it's the 51% which most Bundesliga teams ( including the incredibly successful Borussia Dortmund) stipulate. It brings a degree of involvement which a distant owner cannot and takes away the crazy system of huge loans which has pushed Cardiff City to the brink in the past, especially with Sam Hammam.
   Swansea, with their new American owners, are finding it very hard to reconnect with supporters who feel they have been let down.
   At long last, the Bluebirds have a manager to match the fans undeniable commitment and , I believe, a future one in Craig Bellamy, who has been given responsibility to develop young players.
  While I love chatting with friends at Penydarren Park, I would always miss the atmosphere which a game like the Villa one can generate.....one which live television cannot imitate.

   My poem tells of the present mascot of Merthyr, Martha the Martyr, who replaced Shaggy the Sheep,whose name was deemed to be a bad influence on younger fans.


                                 MARTHA THE MARTYR

Let me tell yew
Martha the Martyr's in honour
of no ordinree zebra.

It int the crossin
down by Caedraw flats,
or any other f' that matter.

It's coz of an excaped one
back when-a Martyrs begun
before even I woz born.

Coz yew're my gran'son
I'm tellin yew this, see,
it's all part of ower istree.

Got out of a circus,
wen' on the run,
ended up in Pen'darren.

Somebuddy seen it grazin
on a football field :
thought they wuz allucinatin!

So if yew think it's weird
tha Merthyr got a zebra f'r a mascot,
instead of a squirrel or pijin,

jest remember tha first one
the original Martha,
not a striped donkey, but genuine.
      
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   A visit to west Wales is always a return to the past, though not always nostalgic.
   Memories can be fruitful, funny and puzzling, but also disturbing.
   Some ( like the one in the poem below) followed me constantly for the first time, asking to make sense of them, never finally answering.
   The simple sight of Penparcau - the village near Aberystwyth where I spent my first seven years - inevitably conjures many.
   There's the road through it where I had a minor accident when a car clipped my ankle ; my fault for not looking both ways.
   The school I attended is still standing and my last recollection is the teacher taking out a large map and asking me to trace the journey from Aber to Cambridge my family would soon make.
   I think I fell for maps at that very moment and later, in another Junior school, my favourite project was creating my own island and mapping out all the features on it.
   (Eventually, I wrote a book for young people called 'Question Island' which features an island which could be real or imaginery).
   Also,  there is still the small, white village hall which was the hub of our annual carnival ; my favourite fancy dress being an American Indian and my worst a Pixie!
   Thinking about leaving Penparcau for a very different life in an English city I'm reminded of our grey tabby Zeebee, who'd never been further than the vets down town.
   Travelling across country , the cat became very agitated and, when we stopped for lunch in Banbury, was allowed out of the basket. As I tucked into chips and sausages, he proceeded to do one on the cafe floor!
   Seeing the council estate on Pen Dinas hill where we lived, brings back conflicting emotions.
   I belonged outside its walls on the hillside, fields ,dens and tunnels made by generations of kids in the gorse country ; on the storm beach at Tanybwlch with its spent cartridges and terraces of thrown boulders.
   Now there are too many walls and fences and few children are allowed to wander anywhere.
   Inside our house were troubles and worries ; many barely heard, yet rising like damp and seeping into bones.
   They were games, but our shed was more of a home, with its dark safety.
   I recall my father, during one of his 'episodes', ripping off his clothes and standing on the kitchen table in his pants yelling and screaming.
   Yet it was him, not my mother, who came when I cried at night, too early to bed with the voices of our newly-purchased tv rumbling and straining up the stairs.
   Wind off the sea  invariably takes me back to my own bed and how, aged five, I'd imagine sailing through the air over the Bay towards Consti Hill, over the caravans of Clarach towards the long strip of Borth beach full of jelly-fish and on to the dunes of Ynyslas and games of leap and roll.
   There are so many memories in Aber itself they come at me like tributaries in flood moving towards an estuary, carrying the debris of child- and studenthood.
   I can't look at the curious half-pier without thinking of the Ceilidh there where I actually danced ( normally I needed a bottle of Dom Cortez...... and then fell over! ) with a certain young Irish woman who I'd marry.
   I was clumsy as someone with two left shoes. 
   (She probably wishes she'd assessed me on my dancing skills !).
   By the Great Hall in Aber Uni the many concerts come back to me. 
   David Bowie himself ,on his Ziggy Stardust tour, appeared there and seemed to change costume with every song. Though I liked his singles I never became an avid follower, as I did lesser-knowns like Derby bluesy singer-songwriter Kevin Coyne.
   But, with Bowie gone last year, it just seems amazing I was able to witness the magnificence of his performance and, a few years later, again at Cardiff Uni.
   Going down Llanbadarn Road I can't help think about my grandparents who'd made Aber their home after my grandad lost his shop due to financial difficulties.
   They were a gentle, caring couple who loved children ( particularly my Nan) ; the very antithesis of their daughter, my mother, to whom we were seen as 'responsibilities'.
   My Nan would spoil me with sweets and I spent for too long in the dentist's.....the same building which features as the police station in 'Y Gwyll/ Hinterland'.
   Memories can creep up on you, catch you unawares and then, refuse to let go.
   As I walked the beaches of nearby Aberaeron over Christmas, I kept pondering about my ankle problems when I was about 3 years old.
   Now my parents have died there's no-one left to tell me the truth and , anyway, it was hardly a serious complaint.
   Yet it still insists.

   Aber : the mouth, constantly reminding.
  Aber : the confluence, rivers of past and present converging. 

                         CRUEL  STONES

On the storm beach at Tanybwlch
leaping from rock to rock
like a mountain goat ;
over pebbles which hurt soles
and shifted constantly underfoot.


Learning to swim in the freezing Bay,
the breakers knocking me over,
shingle's undertow pulling
the ground from under me,
a brother and sister's hands supporting.


Then the clinic on the hill,
my mother explaining 'Orthopaedic',
I repeated it, at first proudly,
but afraid when she explained
about the small bone in my foot.


Back to a push-chair like a baby
I felt humiliated, leg in plaster ;
a wild child, mountain roamer
suddenly strapped and leaden-legged,
friends at the door turned away.


Learning to walk all over again
as if my brain had clocked back ;
I blamed those beach stones
smoothly bone-like but untrustworthy,
cruel as the word's sharp end.