FIVE hours of cheerleading and pom dances followed by a long drive south to watch Freddie play at Northamptonshire.

Don't ask why. It's a story longer than 465 words to explain. But an odder sporting weekend will be hard to find.

If you're thinking cheerleading, you're probably thinking pitch-side dancers - usually pre-pubescent - shuffling along shoop-shoop style at your common or garden football/rugby league/extreme dodgeball event. At best they're cute - in an "aw, bless" sense. At worst they're inspiration to get down in the queue for the drinks.

They're not cheerleaders. They're what you call dancers. And there were hundreds of teams doing their thang at the Manchester Velodrome last weekend trying to impress judges into giving them the UK Cheerlead-ing Association title.

As for cheerleaders... go to the video shop, hire Bring It On and watch. Forget your dancing to top 40 tunes with pom poms in tow. This is serious acrobatics.

Catchers group together to propel the skinnier types - the flyers - into the air where they do somersaults, stack up in towers and then leap down with more trust than a knifethrower's assistant.

It's breathtaking stuff that leaves you oddly euphoric after absorbing hours of 'We are proud of you, say we are proud of you (clap-clap)' chants. Plus the Southampton Vixens Elite - my raison d'tre - took the blue riband university cheer trophy after Leeds Celtics literally crumpled. Quality.

From there to Northamptonshire and a first ever day at county cricket where I realised the horrible truth - I've been institutionalised by top-flight football.

For starters, there were people wandering about the pitch like it was a piece of common parkland which threw me from the off.

Where were the aggressive stewards reliving the exotic past life of a park warden with their £200 for trespassing threats?

The public address man was seriously in love with the sound of his own soporific tones as he delivered his Cholmondley Warner requests for children playing on the outfield 'and we do so love to see you playing but you're hindering the groundstaff' to clear orff during a rain break.

A quick trip to the refreshment stall manifested itself into its own adaptation of War and Peace. Ten minutes before play was due to restart I was no more than 20 people from the front.

But a ridiculous system of taking food orders and waiting for them to be processed one-by-slow, lumbering-one with as much logic as Lance Klusener's later allergy to running, kept me in line for my Sprite, Diet Coke and cup of tea for more than 40 minutes - missing two wickets.

But it wasn't until Dominic Cork toppled three batsmen in four balls that I knew for sure I'm not cut-out to be a cricket watcher. I missed all three wickets.

Updated: 11:03 Saturday, May 13, 2006