Scalpers outside Twicks were asking three hundred quid for a single ticket. Almost resolved to watching the game in a pub and trying the scalpers at half time I was lucky to find a group from a club where someone hadn't turned up. My cash went into club funds and the beer I bought them in gratitude went into club members, immediately.

They insisted I stayed with them - insurance I wouldn't re-sell the ticket to a tout, and the delay in the pub nearly meant we missed the start. On the way in a drunk shoved past me, and a cop on horseback called out 'stop'. She reached down to grab his collar and knocked him over. Three other cops appeared from nowhere, leapt on him, twisted his arms and cuffed him. Don't mess with me, sucker.

We couldn't get inside the stand in time for the anthems, so I was stuck with a couple of hundred poms hollering 'God Save the Queen' in my ear. They can keep her, thanks. Then we charged to see the haka. I saw someone report the haka was booed - not where I was. It's a part of the game everyone wants to see. Everyone was anxious to get in and watch it.

There is a peculiar joylessness about English spectators. At the Wellington Stadium we roar support for our side. Abuse is mostly vented as wisecracks. The ref gets a bit of curry but it's not relentless and tone is unimpeachably good natured. The poms lose just as much as the Canes but for the nation that invented irony the crowd is witless. They booed the All Blacks and the ref like their team plays football: Vigorously and without creativity. Tana and the Canes backrow were special targets of some horrible abuse. Most of it was just boorish. 'Kiwis are wankers' the bloke next to me chanted throughout the game.

Earlier his buddy asked him, 'where is New Zealand. Is that down by South America somewhere?' Maps aren't his strong point, he explained to me. No, mate, never mind geography - I'm impressed a simian can function in society at all. These are people whose chants indicate some belief they are racially superior. On the basis of, uh, what?

There are no good All Blacks - just cheats, and English players who are rubbish for not being able to get past the cheating rubbish ABs who are nowhere near as great as they used to be. The English insisted during and after the game the ref was cheating throughout on the side of the ABs, even when he sent three of them off.

Why would you bother paying to see sport when there is so little pleasure in it for you?

The game was not the greatest spectacle, but it was tense and tough, a classic test match. The All Blacks were skittish and seemed over-awed at first, maybe by the venue or the nearness of a Grand Slam. The English forwards are useful, especially their locks. In the last twenty minutes, when the ABs were a player down, there was never concern they could lose the game as long as the poms kept giving the ball to their backs.

So I can say I was there at Twicks for the Grand Slam. It is a damp, dark stadium in a damp country, it was cold, the game spluttered along, the yobs were menacing.

And for all that, it was perfect.

Go them blacks.

Post-match happy. Scoreboard behind.