I go out of my way to avoid all influence of the colour red in my life. The extremes I take it to amaze, bemuse and probably scare some people. Maybe it’s irrational. Maybe it’s childish. Maybe it’s paranoid. But I can’t help it. It’s in me, burned into my soul. My old man doesn’t understand it, but has grown to accept his son’s weird ways. My mum seems to enjoy it. I think she likes seeing that one of her boys is so passionate about something. My brother (although afflicted with the sad desire to follow West Ham) gets it, and is greatly amused by it. So are my mates, those that are cockerels, that is. But I get the impression that they all think I take it a bit too seriously.

You want a few examples? I don’t own a single item of red clothing. Not one. And that includes underwear. I had a very nasty moment a couple of weeks ago. I went to my wardrobe to get my replica shirt, and was horrified to find it was on a red hanger. I won’t eat red jelly babies. I won’t play with the red piece when playing Pictionary. I was delighted to discover recently that Plax mouthwash are now doing a green version. That red one was bang out of order. See what I mean?

It’s quite a source of irritation to me that I have red blood coursing through these veins. Can’t something be done about this? In these days of limb transplants, multiple organ transplants, and open-heart surgery for babies still in the womb, surely medical science has progressed to a level where you can choose the colour of your blood? Some kind of dialysis/sheep dip combination perhaps? I’ll leave the details to the medical community - they’re the experts after all. But know this. When it happens, I’ll be there at the front of the queue, ready and willing for an appointment with a syringe the size of Saudi, if that’s what it takes.

My attitude seems to be rubbing off onto the family too. My mum was in the bakers recently, buying some pieces of shortbread. She spotted some that were cut in the shape of footballers and decorated in coloured shirts, and bought one of them for me. (I’ve just passed my 30th birthday. Mums – don’t ya just love ‘em?) The girl behind the counter produced a red and white one, and gave my mum a funny look when she said, “Oh no, can I have a different colour? My son won’t eat that. That blue one will do.” Nice one mum. I’ll make a Tottenham fan out of you yet.

My mate Lee, who is a Tottenham fan, had a lovely bit of luck a couple of years ago. He was over Lakeside just before Christmas, and came across one of those “win a car” raffles. The ones no-one ever seems to win. You know the kind of thing. Well, he bought a ticket, and a few weeks later, got a phone call telling him he’d won a brand new Ford Mondeo. Naturally suspicious, he asked what the catch was, but was told there wasn’t one, just come and get it. So he did. It was red. I knew there had to be something wrong with it. Now he’s hardly going to turn down a brand new motor just because of the colour, I understand that. But if it had been me, I would have invested in a navy blue respray by now.

Filtering the red out of my life comes naturally to me. Maybe my glasses have special lenses or something. They can spot red instantaneously, and alert the brain in microseconds. Then the brain gets the body moving and the process is started. The process to get the offending item as far away from me as possible in the shortest possible time. But why does it happen? What can I say? The proverbial red rag to a bull I suppose. I see shit and I have to react. Instinct.

So what does the future hold for me, going through life with this peculiar version of colour blindness? That I can’t say. But I will tell you this. The future’s bright. The future’s navy blue and white. And not bloody red.