IT was a day Josh Winnan is unlikely to remember, but one which his father, Andy, is unlikely to forget after taking a starring role with his son when visiting London to take in a top Nationwide Football League match.

Andy, who is a fervent Ipswich Town supporter, took the opportunity of watching his favourite side play when they visited The Den to play Millwall. It's about as near as you can get to seeing them play without having to travel all the way to East Anglia.

The main reason for the trip was to celebrate a 60th birthday for Roy, Gerry Munden's brother, who is a well-known soccer referee, so the entire family travelled from Cornwall for the occasion.

On the Saturday afternoon the women took in some shopping and the men, including 21/2-year-old Josh, headed for the big game. Andy takes up the story: "I thought it would be a great opportunity to take Josh to his first big football match. We were walking around the side of the stadium ready to queue up when a club official stopped me. I was carrying Josh on my shoulders, so I suppose we stood out a little bit.

"He said the parents of the little girl who was going to present the man of the match award had just telephoned to say she had gone down with flu and he asked whether Josh would like to present the man of the match award for Millwall's winner from the previous game.

"It was a bit of a shock," said Andy "but having been asked, I didn't want to offend the Lions fans by not presenting the award. He asked if we were members of Millwall Supporters Club - which we were - because we joined several seasons ago in order to be able to get tickets for Ipswich's games because we intended to make it an annual visit. Before I had time to think about it the official whisked us away, but I did eventually tell him that we were Ipswich supporters. I thought that might change things, but fortunately for us he told us not to worry about it.

"We were taken to the dugout area about 45 minutes before kick-off, so when the players came out for their warm-up several of them stopped to have a word. I had quite a chat with manager Joe Royle who also spent time with Josh, spoke with assistant manager Tony Mowbray, and had a chat with goalkeeper Gavin Davies.

"Of course, they also wanted to know why an Ipswich supporter was presenting a man of the match award to a Millwall player!

"When we had to present the award there must have been at least 10,000 fans in the ground, so I took the opportunity of taking off my coat to show my Mawnan Football Club shirt and even that brought a few comments from the players."

The man of the match award was presented to the young flying Scot, Peter Sweeney, for his performance in the previous game against Norwich City and Andy and Josh had a photo taken for the next home game programme.

"For all of this to happen on Josh's first visit to a big game was incredible, but now he will expect it each time that he goes," quipped Andy.

It had been a memorable day although Andy was disappointed that Ipswich lost. It was also the first time he had ever picked up a man of the match award - and it wasn't his.