I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. This Sunday, as Rochdale Hornets take on Featherstone Rovers at Post Office Road, I’ll be in Pinner. Pinner? I don’t even know where it is - other than it’s South of Watford Gap and definitely not on the way to or from Featherstone.

I’ve been dreading this Sunday for weeks. The visit to ‘friends’ in the Home Counties has been creeping up the calendar for months - and now it’s here, I’m sorry.

The trouble with Summer Rugby is that people have a nasty tendency to arrange other stuff that isn’t Rugby League. Day trips to the seaside, holidays, buying a carpet - even lovely weekends with ‘our-friends-not-in-the-North’ that include Sunday bloody lunch.

I mean - I don’t miss games! (Well, apart from the two in May... but I did have the perfect excuse. I was in Australia; and I did go to Cronulla v Parramatta and Souths v Canberra to make up for it; and I did wear my Hornets shirt at both games.) But this weekend...

Months ago, the idea seemed fine in principle - The Law Cup, 28 league games, plus the Buddies Cup, plus the Challenge Cup (including final), plus the trip to Oz, plus the odd ‘A’ team fixture, plus the New Zealand tour: a couple of games wouldn’t make that much difference.

But Sunday afternoon = Rugby League. Preferably of the Rochdale Hornets kind (but alternatively of any kind as long as there’s a team I can throw my support behind). And without it my equilibrium just goes, the week doesn’t ‘feel’ right. I don’t feel right. The world doesn’t feel right.

And it doesn’t really help having a girlfriend who really doesn’t see why the big fuss over missing a game. Or two.

Only this morning I casually mentioned that if we perhaps left an hour or two early we might possibly just catch the last half hour at Post Office Road (as it is on the way home along the M1 and several B-roads). All that got me was an icy blast and the stone cold silent treatment.

What she fails to grasp is that if Hornets are playing and I’m in the same hemisphere, I have a duty to be there. Well, that’s how it feels. She really doesn’t appreciate that supporting Rochdale Hornets isn’t a ‘hobby’ or a ‘pastime’ - it’s a lifestyle decision. Like Buddhism, Mormon, becoming a monk and vegetarianism, Rochdale Hornets shapes your life. It’s a commitment that you make at a young age and don’t back out of. The fact that I don’t have a calendar, but a wall-planner with the fixtures on it, should be a clue.

So I’m sorry. Despite last week’s appaling performance at Barrow, I should be there to show that this club matters to me and to show the team that I can give it 100% through thick and thin. I should be there to support my mates too - all for one in a common cause. The following week when they’re all talking about it, I’ll be hovering on the periphery having missed out on a shared experience. Bugger.

Come three o’clock on Sunday I’ll be nervously pacing the floor - or drumming the steering wheel - in my Hornets shirt; unsettled, mobile phone at the ready; wishing with every fibre of my being that I was in Featherstone with you. I just hope that I miss out on a win.

Sorry.