The simple reason why David Sullivan is not Norfolk-bound. Not now, not ever.

Weds 25 Nov 09

I once spent nearly six hours in the back of a Bentley with David Sullivan's partner, Eve, and that is why he probably won't buy Norwich City. Perhaps I'd better explain.

It began with an interview Sullivan gave to the Sunday Times in which he complained about all the time he spent schlepping along motorways from his home in Epping Forest to Birmingham City and back.

I wrote a critical column for the Daily Express, saying that his remarks were a slap in the face for ordinary fans, who travel in considerably less comfort in support of the Blues.

Sullivan emailed me. It was not a polite email. It assumed (like Pink Un message board posters) that I only go to matches when I am paid to do so.

I put him right about that, and our internet exchanges became more civil. Eventually I persuaded him to let me go to a game with him for an article.

The idea was that I'd travel with him to and from a fixture at St Andrews and write a piece about the loneliness of the long-distance owner, or something like that.

It all went pretty well, until the journey back after the game. After the dreaded M6 and the hideous M1, we were cruising around along the grotesque M25 – Sullivan in the front with the driver, me in the back with Eve and her spectacular décolletage – when we came to a halt, as you do on the M25.

It was approaching midnight. A little way ahead of us, a lorry had accidentally and unhelpfully deposited its load of gravel on the carriageway. We were there until nearly 4am.

The driver's supply of toffees ran out long before that, and so did our patience. The worst journey I have ever suffered rather made Sullivan's point for him.

And that is why he and David Gold want to buy West Ham. Failing that, they'll buy Charlton. It is not because they don't like Norwich; Gold, in particular, has a very affable relationship with Delia Smith - it is geographic. Norwich is just too far away.    Part 2 >>