Rob Shepherd on the joys and despairs of being a football reporter, and why anyone backing England for the World Cup in 2006 must be barking mad.
I have a bit of reputation for being a Stanley Unwin type when abroad. I would describe my attempts to utter a universal language as more desperado than Esperanto. With no more than a smattering of French, German, Italian and Spanish I tend to construct sentences in several tongues when on the continent in a bid to get understood. As in: ‘Por favor garcon. Ich bin ein fussball journalista. O
