There wasn’t many times Bonzo got it wrong on stage with Zeppelin but you have to say describing that football was a load of bollocks at Earls Court on May 24 1975 was one of them.

For how can this beautiful game be thus described when it produces nights like Tuesday down at the Lane. Being a Spurs fan carries with it a certain inevitably of disappointment – not so against Arsenal this time around and that remarkable Carling Cup semi final 5 -1 victory will long be remembered, and for me was the best football result since England triumphed in Germany by the same score line in September 2001.

Of course it may end in tears against Chelsea in the final (though on current form who would bet against a very close contest), but as Robert commented after Bonzo’s outburst “I’d like to say soccer’s a wonderful sport….the best”

On Tuesday night around the Lewis household we all certainly agreed with that sentiment.

Can it last through the weekend against Man United in the FA Cup?…Here’s hoping.

Aside from that inspiration, it’s been encouraging to receive some excellent feedback on TBL19 .The text that read “Great coverage of the O2 gig – made me feel I was there and had a tear in my eye’’ makes is all absolutely worthwhile.

By the time you are reading this I could well be recovering from a rather large hangover. For tomorrow (Friday 25th) I travel up to London on the annual day out with former team mates of the local football team I played in during the 70’s and early 80’s. Shame I’m working on Saturday which will be a bit of a test.

The team was known as Wallbangers FC after the famous cocktail drink we all got hammered on one night in 1974. I have to say we were rather a Keystone Cops affair at times (I played in goal I kid you not and Pat Jennings / Gordon Banks were my role models) but it was never dull on a Sunday morning round these parts when we took the field.

We normally have this Wallbanger reunion day out in late November but a certain gig got in the way. So tomorrow the public houses of Islington will resound with talk of former soccer glories and healthy debate on subjects such as how come the transfers on our Earls Court T shirts which we paid £1 for came off by the following August?

For three of my likely companions tomorrow (Dec, Phil, Tom) were part of the Earls Court 6 that travelled from Bedford to see Led Zeppelin perform the second best gig I’ve ever seen (you can guess what number one is now) on the evening of May 24 1975.

During the day the aforementioned Phil will at some point in between the flowing ale mention as he does every year, if I’ve found the three Phillips C90 cassettes he recorded the entire show on – having loaned them to me a good few years back. Those cassettes I’m sure are in the loft somewhere in amongst about 700 other such items and I really must go up there and find them – yes an uncirculated Earls Court tape source exists!

As I recall the sound quality is somewhat overloaded being recorded in block AA, row B seat 9 and interspersed at regular intervals with your TBL editor screeching ’’Woooooooooow!’’ and ’Awessssooomme!’’. But as I remember the recording is pretty good at times. When I find them I’ll let you know the results.