You can offer a football supporter anything in the world but the thing he will always want to take first is a side.

After all, taking a side is what it's all about.

I've never really seen the point of watching a game of football without first taking a side. A match on the telly between, say, Everton and Derby will always be of limited appeal, to be watched only if it's raining or dark, preferably both, and there's a pile of newspapers to tide me through the boring bits.

If my granny was a Rolls Royce warehousewoman I would be able to take a side and all would be enjoyable. As it is I have to sit through tedious minutes waiting for someone to commit a dreadful foul so that I can then start supporting the other side.

And a friendly match? The very expression is an oxymoron. If a game of football is friendly then it isn't a match, it's a kickaround. Or a training session which someone is charging you to watch. Or a charity exercise where the real point is to put some money in a tin. Worthy no doubt, but passionless. No side you see.

A friend of mine, an expat Mancunian who occasionally trollies along to Old Trafford to stare at 90 minutes of precision passing, can't understand why I prefer to watch the slightly less beautiful Nationwide game. He feels sorry for me. And I for him.

I once met a bunch of his fellow supporters in Wales. Real supporters, been going for years. They were just about to win another championship but were a bit brassed off.

The prawn sandwiches were taking away their club and they were envious of the passion then being shown by Albion supporters as they rushed around the country protesting about Archer and Bellotti and the FA. We might not have had much of a side to follow in those days but boy did we have some sides to be against.

A side to be against is not as good as a side to be for but it is a bonus, which is why we pretend to dislike Brentford and Gillingham and Leyton Orient, and stand up if we hate Palace. We don't really hate them but it gives us a nice warm feeling.

And nothing excites a died-in-the-wool supporter as much as a new chance of taking a side.

Danny Cullip leaving. Could the board be to blame? (Answer: probably not). Argus publishing photo of a near-empty block J at Withdean. Could this be an example of misleading photo journalism? (Answer: probably, and one that will be seized on by the Falmer militia.)

The players' strike offers a cracking opportunity to take a side. The PFA's public relations department can't quite offer photocalls involving starving children but, in Sussex at least, have managed very well with Kerry Mayo. Their skill has been in linking the need for player welfare with the size of their claim. I am not sure the link is there: they've been offered £100m over six years and that's no piffle.

Secretary Gordon Taylor (salary: £400,000pa) is demanding £27m a year for the union and some of the PFA members now proposing to go on strike are on an hourly rate of £1,000 meaning that it takes them under five minutes to earn their annual subscription. All of which reminds me I must remember to get the Monopoly board out this Christmas.

Even second division players could afford to pay rather more than £75 a year and Andy Crosby and the Albion squad are living in a parallel universe if they think their hard-pressed supporters will support a strike. Just this once, my side isn't theirs.