AS I sat perusing social media over my Sugar Puffs the other morning, I had to chuckle to myself when a team had posted that they were planning to endure a 'long ol trip to Leiston' for a match.

Was this Telford? Or perhaps, Stourbridge? No, it was a club in Suffolk.

Now, I might be a bit misty-eyed about Suffolk, but surely you couldn’t ask for a more scenic journey within this fine county than to dear old Leiston. Perhaps that particular club should put themselves into Leiston’s shoes.

In the past 10 days we've (and that includes yours truly, I did take a lieu day for last Saturday) have racked up just shy of 800 miles. And none of us have electric cars, either. That’s as far as a road trip to Berlin, which admittedly would be a nice away fixture though!

There are of course several clubs making very long journeys throughout the non-league world, and in our current league Leiston travel far. It’s a shame other clubs often moan about coming to beautiful Suffolk. They only have to do it twice a season, us and Lowestoft have to travel to the Midlands and further five times more.

In saying that, I do however, remember a trip to Haughley back in the 70’s that seemed a long ol journey. We even had to consider whether we needed an overnight stay.

My old Ford Cortina struggled navigating around them old roads via Old Newton and beyond, we took a spare full can of petrol in case we had misjudged the time it took. You try finding a garage out there back then, petrol shortages 'n all.

There were no Sat Navs or mobile phones, just a good old paper map and a compass for direction, folks don't know they're born today. And when the gas lamp-posts switched off, we just followed the stars to guide us home.

Halcyon days!