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I have been to some amazing places since I started presenting Football Focus. Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Barcelona spring to mind. This week I was asked to go somewhere very special... Grimsby.

Before you Grimsbonians out there get too excited, the visit had little to do with the club. I am sworn to secrecy about the reasons for our trip but let me just say that it was of historical significance and involved some snazzy filming down on the beach.

Cameraman Keith Wade and I had left London at 0745 GMT on Thursday, the day after England's painful pummelling by the French, and picked up producer Stu Hutchison in Watford. Stu has a deep love of the Hornets and mentions them at least 16 times per day in conversation. He is also editing the show this week, so if Focus starts with a montage of , you know why.

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I wanted to give you a bit of an insight into an event I was at last week. It was the re-opening of a renovated NikeTown in London and they were inviting down as many of their big names as they could.

Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott were all there, along with the likes of Mark Cavendish, Paula Radcliffe and Peetu. A little internet research told me that is from Finland and one of the best snowboarders on the planet.

Also there was the great , who must have one of the heaviest mantelpieces in the universe. He has endless Olympic and World Championship gold medals and was also named as Sportsman of the Century by the International Olympic Commitee.

Personally, I felt I should have been on the shortlist for my enormous cricket-ball bung that took the 'Long Throw' title at Three Bridges Middle School in the early 1990s but no-one on the panel agreed.

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We always knew taking Football Focus from Old Trafford was going to be contentious. It seems there are quite a few football fans out there - you could be one of them - who have a deep-rooted hatred of all things Manchester United.

We had a similar polarised response when we went to Arsenal and Tottenham last season but the whole point of these shows is to give you, as a viewer, a bit of insight and access to a club that you very rarely get.

Yes, one of the guests is normally associated with the team and about three to four of the pieces will be about the club we are visiting but I am not going to make any excuses about that. After all, that's the whole point of being there.

The best thing to do is park your prejudice for 45 minutes, take off the spectacles of rage and pretend you are having a nose around someone else's house.

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This week's Football Focus programme comes live from Old Trafford. Our on-the-road shows tend to divide opinion but we've already been to Arsenal, Spurs and Manchester City so it's about time we dropped in at the home of Manchester United.

And it is an appropriate time to visit for several reasons:

The ground witnessed its 1,000th Premier League goal last weekend;

In the meantime, I thought I would give you an idea of what a typical busy Friday is like for the Focus team. Last week involved a morning of filming, an interview in the afternoon and an early evening of script writing and tweaking.

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