Right. I've just read that some fella has spent 54 years visiting 2,000 football grounds across 48 leagues and honestly I don't know whether to shake his hand or have a little cry in the car park of a retail estate in Accrington.

Fifty four years. Two thousand grounds. Forty eight leagues. Let those numbers sink in for a second. This man has been doing this since 1972. Since before I had my first proper pair of boots. Since before anyone thought it was acceptable to charge nine quid for a pie.

In my day, this is what football was about. Not xG. Not expected threat maps. Not some bloke in a studio in Stockley Park drawing lines on a screen to prove your toe was offside. It was about getting on a bus at half six in the morning, arriving at a ground you'd never heard of, standing on a terrace that was basically just a hill with a railing, and watching football played by blokes who had real jobs on Monday.

This groundhopper. This absolute hero. He's seen things we can only dream of. He's been to grounds that don't even exist any more. Stadiums that got turned into Lidls. Pitches that are now car parks for business centres where people sell printer cartridges. He's walked through turnstiles that have since been melted down. He's eaten pies from tea huts that have been condemned by health inspectors. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.

That's the problem with modern football. Nobody does this any more. Kids today think football starts and ends with the Premier League. They think if a ground doesn't have underfloor heating in the press box and a prawn sandwich menu then it's not worth visiting. Don't get me started.

I managed in the lower leagues for twenty years. Twenty years of portakabins and pitches that sloped. Twenty years of changing rooms where the shower was just a hose attached to a radiator. Twenty years of boardrooms that were actually just the back room of a pub. And you know what? Those were the best years of my life. Every single one.

Two thousand grounds. Think about the logistics. Think about the planning. Think about the arguments with the wife. "Where are you going this Saturday, Derek?" "Barrow." "We went to Barrow last month." "Different stand." This man has sacrificed everything for the love of the game and I respect it more than I respect 90% of what happens in the Premier League.

I'll tell you what gets me. The BBC called it an "odyssey" and for once they're not being dramatic. It IS an odyssey. Homer wrote about a bloke trying to get home from Troy. This fella has been trying to get home from Blyth Spartans away since 1978. Same energy. Same suffering. Same heroism.

And he's done his last one now. His final ground. His final match. Fifty four years and it's over. I'm not going to pretend I didn't get a bit emotional reading that. I've stood on enough crumbling terraces in the wind and rain to know exactly what drives a person to do this. It's not madness. It's love. Pure, stupid, freezing cold, overpriced Bovril love.

Meanwhile some twenty three year old in London is watching football on six screens simultaneously through an illegal stream while tweeting about how Erling Haaland's touch isn't good enough. Get yourself to Barnet on a Tuesday night, son. Stand in the rain. Eat a dodgy burger. Talk to a man called Keith who's been coming since 1961. That's football.

Two thousand grounds. Forty eight leagues. Fifty four years. One flask. One notebook. One absolute legend.

In my day, we had thousands of men like this. Now we've got millions of men who've never been to a game but have very strong opinions about formations.

God bless you, sir. You're the best of us.