Sparta Prague are the most successful, Slavia have the best kit and Viktoria Zizkov have a nice little stadium in a great part of town for drinkers. But for me, the only Prague club to follow is Bohemians.

They’re untrendy, languish in the third division, have a ramshackle ground and their badge features a kangaroo. They did a tour down under in the 1930s, were presented with a kangaroo, which promptly acclimatised to the Prague climate by dying.

Reason enough, you’d think, to enthuse my girlfriend that, yes, we did need to take a tram out into the bleak Prague suburbs so that I could buy a green and white scarf with a marsupial on it. The shop was poorly stocked, although we did get to climb onto the rickety main (only) stand and watch the groundsmen trying to clear the pitch of snow. One rarely gets the opportunity to stroll in off the street and gain such access to football grounds back home.

That was whimsical insight enough for me. Personally, I didn’t need to know that the Bohemians physio room adjoins the club shop, and has bigger windows, although these are facts which became inescapably evident on the appearance of a group of players, stark bollock naked, strolling around the treatment tables. I still haven’t managed to wipe the grin off my girlfriend’s face although she at least stopped cooing long enough to agree with me that, crap ground or not, that’s a bonus not generally afforded the casual shopper at the Man Utd Megastore.

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