Merry Sven

The appointment of serial pay-off trousering horndog Sven-Goran Eriksson as Notts County's director of football has focused an unprecedented level of attention on the world's oldest professional team. God only knows how Colin Slater, BBC Radio Nottingham's famously prolix and hammy County correspondant, is coping with thrill of it all given how excited he usually gets about disputed offsides against Macclesfield Town. There has also been much speculation about how the famously urbane Eriksson will cope with the deprivation of living in Nottingham, a city noted more for its eye-watering crime statistics than for being a hotbed of chi chi metropolitan comfort.

Having grown up in a village near Nottingham and gone to school in the city centre, I feel it is my civic duty to suggest a few ways for him to spend his leisure time. True, I haven't been a full time resident since 1999 save for a few desperate post-university months working in a call centre, a period so distressing I had to go into exile at a North Wales woodchip factory for six months to get over it. But that's a subject for a different, much longer post. And some things never change, so here it goes:

Don't believe the rumours

A very popular myth is that Nottingham has a girl/boy ration weighted heavily in favour of the chaps. This has been often repeated in the media coverage of Sven's arrival given his reputation as a swordsman of some considerable prowess. Unfortunately, it's bollocks. On a Saturday night competition for the ladies is as fierce as in any other provincial town (and the ladies are considerably fiercer).

Don't go to The Tales of Robin Hood

This may now be a multi-media extravaganza where the sensation of wearing wool tights, eating nettles and getting inappropriately touched by Friar Tuck in your sleep are beamed straight into your cerebral cortex. Or, more likely, it's still a piss poor tourist trap where bored students in fancy dress listlessly mime child-friendly renditions of the Robin Hood myth. I had a friend who spent a summer as a merry man, and I can confirm that they spend far more time bonking each other than they do worrying about historical accuracy.

Go to Rock City

Ah, Rock City. Sticky floored, sweaty and dank. Like I'm sure thousands of others, blagging into student night with a phoney NUS card was my introducton into the world of clubbing, and aside from the even stickier Ziggys in York there's nowhere else that's come close since. Getting in was always a moment of pure elation, as my May birthday meant I was behind most of my friends in turning 18. I spent many an evening out nursing a mounting tide of panic that my baby face and amatuerish ID would ruin the night for everyone. But buoyed by Flaming Lamboughinis and Alien Test Tube Babies from RKOs next door I somehow always brazened it out. And then we were in, surrounded by goths, shabby student wankers and tons of other furtive school agers, all united by the the desire to hear Britpop played hideously loudly. They always had someone dishing out temporary tatoos, and a little cafe area to eat cheesy chips and make appallingly clumsy advances on girls in. That's where I imagine Sven would be - if he phoned ahead I'm sure they'd stock some Swedish meatballs. He and Tord Grip could have a snack, get matching Notts County badges etched on their forearms and go and jump around to Smack My Bitch Up.

That should be enough to see Sven through these nervous first days. Let's hope he turns County around and gets them in the same division as Forest so there can be a decent rivalry for the first time in years. As a Forest fan I'm bored of the rivalry with Derby and don't subscribe to it at all. After all, it's nobody's fault that there are so many lonely fans and sexy sheep in Derbyshire.