I've never felt a bigger sense of déjà vu than when I was watching the England vs France game at Euro 2004. I hate Manchester United with a passion and was busy counting down the last 60 or so days of confinement in Singapore when I was cajoled into taping the 1999 Champions League final. It was highly illegal inside the jail so they needed somebody who was either mug enough to do it, or who didn't have too much to lose in terms of time being added on. I fitted the bill on both counts!

With the exception of me and one dyed-in-the-wool Liverpool supporter from Geylang, everyone was supporting United. Look-outs were posted, the yard was deserted and we all crammed into one tiny area to watch the contraband video. For 88 going on 89 minutes I was winding everyone up big style, loving every minute of it - surely Bayern Munich would hold on. Well, they didn't, and neither did England. I was absolutely gutted. Eriksson has to go! Every time we have a big game - France, Portugal, Brazil - we are found wanting by more tactically astute opponents.

Caution is not really something I had much time for, back when I was dealing myself deeper and deeper into trouble, or mooning in bars in Singapore, but I'm now older and wiser. After Portugal lost in the first game of Euro 2004, I thankfully bought them back at the 19 points offered by Paddy Power. Sensible, I thought, very sensible. I thought that I had turned a corner, but do any of us who have a gambling instinct ever really curb it? I was doing a bit of filming that evening for an Irish TV channel with a friend of mine, Hector O'Heochagain - a well-known television personality here in Ireland - at Kilbeggan. He talked my wife into giving me €50 to bet with. We talked a lot on camera about what we were going to do with it, examining the odds, the form, the going and the draw. Then we stuck it all on the favourite, which of course lost. My cautious streak had lasted about an hour - it's lucky one of us in the relationship understands risk and its rewards!

Pony and trap
I've mentioned before on this page that my knowledge of horses - the form, the weights and the claimers - is virtually non-existent. I was turned off the sport of kings when I was younger, because it was the only thing that my dad would watch on the television on a Saturday afternoon. In the past, I've struggled to even read the Racing Post, but that is about to change with Hector's help - bookies beware!

Hector made a television programme here in Ireland last year that was called Only Fools Buy Horses. He's always had a mad passion for the horses, watching them, studying them and betting on them. He thought it would be a good wheeze to try and buy one and ultimately race it, and it made for excellent television. Hector started by recruiting a bloodstock agent, Eamon O'Reilly, and a trainer, Pat Flynn, and going to the sales at Newmarket to buy a horse. They had €5,000 to spend and regularly bid over it but always failed to land a horse, the price rising too high. On the third and last day of the sales, with only three horses remaining, they still hadn't managed to buy one, and without a horse there wasn't going to be a television programme. Well the third from last horse wasn't attracting too much interest other than from the Irish boys and they bought it for €800. A racehorse for less than £550 - how's that for a bargain! Traverse, as they named it, ran twice last year at Ballinrobe and Down and won both of them. The luck of the Irish! Hector has since started a racing club on the back of it (onlyfoolsbuyhorsesrc.com), which has attracted a lot of interest from his mates in the Irish television, music and sports industries. He reckons he could sell me a leg of Traverse for €25,000 but I have neither the money nor the Peter Baring-like absence of brains to do so! I am considering taking up a share in the racing club - there are 50 available.

Traverse is the original star of the club but they have also a two-year-old gelding by Alzao and have plans to purchase a dual-purpose horse during the summer. The club runs for two years, at which stage all winnings will be shared equally among the shareholders.

I'm looking forward to it and will keep you informed over the coming months.