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Jamie Yeo

Fact: Everybody loves taking a break to travel.

Fact: Travelling for work can be tiring.

But as a football presenter, my month-long assignment to cover every city in England with a Premiership team for STAR Sports' Soccer Cities was a priceless experience.

Although, I can't say if it was a blessing given the guerilla filmmaking conditions, and the blisters I suffered after all that exploring around.

But it was certainly an eye-opening assignment visiting iconic football stadiums, witnessing time-honoured traditions and taking in the famous sights and sounds that make each city unique.

Three big towns that are home to the biggest football clubs that left a strong impression on me. Liverpool, Manchester and London were memorable not just because of their reputation, but also the unique football culture that adds to each city's unique personality.

The thing that was I found similar across these towns is that you can't have too many roosters ruling the roost, and the same can be said of these cities with divided loyalties with two or more clubs in the same town.

Football allegiance in the county of Merseyside is famously split by its Red and Blue camps of Liverpool and Everton respectively. However, what really impressed me about this part of Liverpool were the down-to-earth, warm and friendly people - popularly known as "Scousers".

When I was at Goodison Park, I met several generous Everton fans who gave me bags of toffees the moment I entered the stadium.

Word has it that there was an establishment near the ground called Mother Noblett's Toffee Shop sold sweets on match days, including the Everton Mint. This also started the 'Toffee Lady' tradition in which a girl walks around the perimeter of the pitch before the start of a game tossing free Everton Mints into the crowd.

I doubt the ones I had were the same ones they gave away during Premiership matches, but they were mighty tasty with a hard and minty candy on the outside and soft toffee in the middle. Yum!

And I have to say that the Evertonians I met have a strong sentimental streak about them. With their cross town rivals Liverpool harping about their new stadium moving to Stanley Park, one would expect Everton to aspire the same or better.

However, with news about Everton building a new 50,000 seat stadium in Kirby Town Centre, many Toffee fans whom I met fervently expressed their fight to keep Everton where it is instead of keeping up with their more glamorous neighbours.

I suppose I can understand their passion to keep traditions alive, given that Goodison Park was the first major football stadium built in England way back in 1892.

Other than football, the other thing that Liverpudlians love is their rich history in popular music, given that Liverpool is internationally known as a cultural centre - most notably The Beatles - with a museum dedicated to the band and a celebrated pub called the ‘Cavern' where they first performed.

And the city certainly was brimming with plenty to do for shoppers with plenty of high-end shops for WAGs (Wives And Girlfriends) of big name footballers here. I even bumped into a local football hero at a shopping stretch called Cavern Walks in the form of former Liverpool legend and English international midfielder John Barnes, who was out shopping with his wife and daughter. It was a real treat for our producer who got a chance to chat with him, and his megawatt smile certainly made our day.

The same city buzz could be felt in the city of Manchester - a modern, sleek and very clean city with a nice mix of new and old architecture. But the one most memorable tourist site here was, you guessed it, Old Trafford.

You immediately get the sense that you are at a huge club the moment you see the Theatre of Dreams. Of all the clubs I visited across England, none drew so many tourists, and we quickly noticed hordes of Japanese, Malaysians and Singaporeans (mind you, this was during the off-season) packing the grounds with massive tour groups moving from location to location like clockwork.

The unique (and odd) thing about the club was that the locker room had cardboard face cutouts of the players hanging on the pegs of the walls. I wonder if that offered a glimpse of who has the power seat and who are locker-buddies in the room.

Besides the Wembley Stadium, Old Trafford has the largest capacity of any English football stadium at just over 76,000, and is the only UEFA 5-star rated facility in England. This stadium is as huge as the Coliseum! I literally couldn't see the seats on last row from the pitch! I can't imagine how anyone could watch a Manchester United game from that height and distance.

Over at the blue side of town is the City of Manchester Stadium, which is a very modern stadium as well with plenty of bells and whistles, having won a number of building design awards. The City of Manchester Stadium has the widest pitch in English football and is the centre-piece of an area known as ‘Sportcity' that includes several other sporting venues.

The reason for this is because it was originally designed as part of Manchester's bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Eventually, the stadium was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and after which, was converted for use as a football ground, and became the home of Manchester City in 2003.

Although it was not sprawling with global fans compared to its much richer cross-town cousin, the place had a grand feel to it, to go along with its ambitions to be a top club like its more illustrious cousin.

Over in London, football fans will be spoilt for choice for Premiership matches with Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham and Tottenham situated in the area.

I'm sure you readers would have visited or heard about the shopping and clubbing scene as well as the sights in London. But what immediately struck me most was the stark difference how visitors were treated at two clubs that said a lot about how diverse the social strata is in this metropolis.

There was an air of snobbishness at Chelsea, located smack in the middle of a posh neighbourhood, which was unusual given that clubs are commonly located at more unassuming parts of the city and land has a higher premium within the famous Moore Park Estate.

Just to give you a sense of the kind of people staying around the area, we had another celebrity sighting at Chelsea in the form of Hugh Grant striding across the road beside the stadium, who left our crew utterly star-struck.

But you could see it all around Stamford Bridge, with exclusive boutiques, hot residential properties, and the two hotels within the complex, posh apartments, snazzy bars and classy restaurants. The Stadium also has an exclusive "Armani Lounge" - designed and styled by famous the Italian designer Giorgio Armani to host the club's directors on matchdays.

The club staff certainly carried themselves in a snooty way, and treated their guests in a rather 'business-like' manner. I guess you can if you know you're bank-rolled by a billionaire who buys yachts with his spare change.

Over in North London at White Hart Lane, where the stadium is situated in a rather humble part of town, the staff from Tottenham Hotspur was way more hospitable to us. It was a decent and modest stadium with lots of history, but the warm and friendly way we were treated by our bubbly female club tour guide made the club visit really memorable.

Here are a few tips to note should you make plans to travel to England:

- Don't go anywhere in England with the intent of scrimping and saving because you won't enjoy yourself. Everything is expensive, given the stronger currency, so make sure you're not stingy about money when you go

- Go knowing that English people are generally warm and friendly. But if you come across a grumpy or curt person, understand that they are like that to each other. I've seen how rude they can be to each other because to them, what you see is what you get, so don't take it personally.

- If you're not pleased with something, don't be afraid to ask, because you might get something better. So if you'd like to have a better hotel room, don't keep quiet and hope things will get better - let the staff know and be vocal about things because its part of their culture.

Without sounding like a Mastercard ad, there's some football experiences that money can't buy (like witnessing your team clinch the Premiership title on your home ground). For everything else, a fan can always take a football sabbatical.

Just make sure you don't break the bank while you're at it.

Catch Jamie Yeo on Soccer Cities every Thursday at 8pm, starting on 29 May on STAR Sports.

There's something uniquely different when you visit cities outside the bright lights and bustle of London town.

Time ticks slower, the air is fresher, folks are older, kinder and generally, life is unfussy and a lot less complicated.

But during Premier League Football weekends, the township is turned into a major soccer circus when visiting teams come to take on the home side.

This is what I gather from most cities during my month-long assignment to cover cities in England with major football clubs for the show Soccer Cities on STAR Sports.

In these municipal cities, football plays a major part of the lives of the locals. And although they don't go about things as extravagantly as the ‘Big Four' from London, Liverpool and Manchester, it was pleasing to see how football is celebrated in their unique and sometimes quirky ways.

Some of you may know that I was a radio deejay before, and while I was visiting these cities, part of me felt I could somehow compile a music-themed soundtrack to sum up the trip. You'll know why as you read on.

Newcastle has a strong football tradition with Premier League football team Newcastle United based at St James' Park since the club was established in 1892. The stadium is so impressive that it dominates the view of the city from all directions. With a football spectator capacity of more than 52,300, St. James Park is the third largest Premier League stadium in England.

Located in the North-East area of the country, people from Newcastle and supporters of the club are commonly called ‘Geordies', who speak in a rather peculiar way. In fact, I was told that a large amount of vocabulary is not heard elsewhere in England.

And peculiar was an apt description of the singing stadium tour guide who we met during our walkabout. While describing historical moments and features of the stadium, he literally did his song-and-dance and broke out in Rod Stewart songs.

Given how Newcastle finished the season in the bottom half of the table, I was anticipating him belting out "It's A Heartache".

But he kept our spirits high with hopeful tunes like "You Keep Me Hanging On", and "Reason to Believe". I'm sure he was singing those songs at the top of his lungs when manager Kevin "Messiah" Keegan came in to take over the reins of the club.

He even got cheeky entertaining us with overtures of "Do you think I'm Sexy", which kept us tickled throughout. No doubt, despite the cold winds in the middle of summer, his humour certainly warmed us throughout our visit of the ‘Toon Army' home base.

Over to the other end of the country, we visited the largest city in the southern coast of England, Southampton, which is home to Southampton Football Club - nicknamed "The Saints". They used to feature in the top flight, but they are now struggling in the Football League Championship, and play at St Mary's Stadium.

The Saints' anthem is the popular sport tune ‘When the Saints Go Marching In', and since the club's official nickname is 'the Saints', they are one of the only teams who do not change the original lyrics of the song when it is chanted from the stands during matches.

Southampton is also noted for being the home of the ship Titanic, and I immediately thought of my colleague and co-host of Nokia Football Crazy Andy Penders.

As a die-hard Saints fan, I can sympathise with Pender's seeing his team languish in the Championship, given that he's even played in its youth squads before. But I can't imagine the anguish every season seeing his team sink (pun intended) lower and lower down the leagues.

But I'm sure he'll stick with them through thick and thin, and like the love theme by Celine Dion from the movie ‘Titanic' goes, his theme song would certainly be "My Heart Will Go On"

Jokes aside, while Southampton FC would only appeal to keen followers of the club, it was a great place to visit just for its historical value. In 1912 the Titanic sailed from there, and the city contains several memorials and museum exhibitions related to the Titanic, since most of crew are from Southampton.

We visited a post office where victims of the disaster waited in agony for news of their loved ones, and checked out the hotel where the guests stayed before the boarded the ill-fated ship. I felt a chill up my spine thinking about it, and James Blunt's album "All The Lost Souls" immediately came to mind.

Over in the industrial town of Sheffield, we met staff from the club Sheffield United at Bramhall Lane who were notably much older guys compared to the other stadiums I've been to, and look like they've been supporting the club since they were boys.

Not surprisingly, Bramall Lane Stadium is the home of Sheffield United Football Club in Sheffield, England and is the oldest major stadium in the world still hosting professional football matches.

Interestingly, the club has the nickname ‘The Blades' due to Sheffield's worldwide reputation of steel production. And there was a factory that housed a museum showcasing commemorative blades, plates and cutlery, and an elderly lady who was our tour guide casually commented there was one made for England when it won the 1966 World Cup.

I jokingly said that this would be the only one of its kind in the world, since they that was their only World Cup victory. To which, she said in the most innocent way, "Oh really? I didn't know that".

I'm sure any English football fan in the land who heard what she said must have felt her comment "Cuts like a knife" (song courtesy by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams).

And like all clubs, Sheffield United has a great range of songs and chants sung by their fans, including their most notable unofficial anthem, ‘The Greasy Chip Butty Song', which I thought was a really cute title. It's a rally cry sung before each half, and often after the game if the team has performed well.

To the tune of ‘Annie's Song' by John Denver, it goes like this:

You fill up my senses
Like a barrel of Magnet
Like packet of Woodbines
Like a good pinch of snuff
Like night out in Sheffield
Like a greasy chip butty
Like Sheffield United
Come thrill me again....!

Encore! Encore!

Catch Jamie Yeo on Soccer Cities every Thursday at 8pm, starting on 29 May on STAR Sports.

Australia have lodged a bid to host the 2009 and 2010 FIFA Club World Cup. Australia will face competition from this year's hosts Japan, who have hosted the event on the last three occasions, and the United Arab Emirates. A decision will be made when the FIFA Executive meets in Sydney next week ahead of the 58th FIFA Congress.

"It's a very exciting competition, with the best team from each of the six FIFA Confederations and a team from the host nation participating," said Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive Ben Buckley. "Australia has quality facilities; good systems and infrastructure and the capacity to develop more; stable governance; and football fans and all-round sports fans who are knowledgeable and passionate."

This is great news for all in this region. Any chance to see the best teams in this part of the world is good, right?

The clash billed the title-decider of the season that took place at Stamford Bridge over the weekend was heart-stopping and action- packed. It's what the Premier league at its best is. After Chelsea's deserved win, it's going to be down to the wire.

Interestingly enough, Arsenal can still win the league. Ha ha. If we win our last few matches, and Chelsea and Man United get a point or less in the rest of their fixtures, we can still lift the trophy. I know. Flighty dreams. Well, I'm just sayin'.....

Anyway, I'm already looking towards next season as I read with interest about football whizzes Arsene Wenger wants to buy. There's also Euro 2008 coming up in the summer. I'll be supporting Spain since Cesc is plying his trade for his homeland. So all to look forward to football-wise in the next few months.

Football Crazy's about to come to an end as the football season draws to a close. It's been a great year. We've had so much fun going out to you guys every Thursday and Saturday. I'm looking forward to a long holiday somewhere though. Haven't quite decided where. But it's anywhere but here. Will still be updating this blog though, so keep the comments coming. I appreciate and read every single one of them.