The Italian Job.... kind of.

"We should leave at 10 past, at the latest" I mutter to Simon, to which he nods in agreement while we sip our herb teas like the hardcore students we are. 

Half an hour and a lot of faffing about later, it's quarter past and we're grabbing every potentially useful item in sight and running out the door.

Still a slim chance we can make the train that would allow us to avoid the rush hour, but we'll have to speed-walk. We manage said activity in bursts of about 10 seconds before realising we're not cut out for it. That Half Marathon in 2 hours and 27 seconds seems like a hell of a lot longer than only four years ago. We accept the consequences and realise we'll have to just put up with the London commuters. 

Arrive in Paddington 90 minutes later. Our journey is further delayed by us both having to spend a penny - thirty to be precise, before staring at the tube map for a long period of time and hoping the answer will come to us. It's over a year since our last trip and it's safe to say that we're a bit on the rusty side.

Arrive at the Seven Sisters station half an hour later and emerge into Tottenham High Road straight into a crowd of away fans. Good start. Find our usual pub and be faced by the logic that if you introduce an ale called 'Hopspur' (which I'll add is very reasonable) the barrel will need changing every 10 minutes, and the guy in front of me did the honours of having the final dose of the current one. I settled for the pump next to it, which was only 3% but very tasty and despite the fact that it was virtually non-alcoholic, the price of our first round still left me wondering if I should ask if they do mortgages.

We drank up and got back into our usual routine of stopping at the next pub along for a cheeky whisky to ease us into the atmosphere.

Took our seats in the stadium. Decided it probably wasn't a good idea to see if we could make our newfound chant "you're just a sh*t Margherita/Pepperoni" catch on.

The game started at a moderate pace, which was surprising considering it's the knockout stage of the only cup competition we're still in. But we looked the better side from the off, and after half an hour, a Dele Alli flick-on sent Ryan Mason through on goal, and the local lad opened up his body and smoothly slotted into the corner. First blood Spurs. The momentum seemed to spark us into action, but we couldn't capitalise on the goal and went in 1-0 up at the break.

Fiorentina came out fighting in the second half, although after some slick footwork in the build-up, Federico Bernardeschi had a go from range, which ended up so far wide it went out for a throw in. Cue jeers from the crowd and the guys in Park Lane, below us, requesting if the player in question would kindly provide an explanation for what he had just attempted.

After a prolonged period of attacking we finally doubled our lead as Erik Lamela swivelled before smashing in a rebound. We now had a decent cushion, which began to show and as the last 10 minutes approached, a Kieran Trippier cross was turned into his own net by the away skipper, signalling game over and half of our stand deciding it was time to jump on our bikes.

We grabbed a bite to eat and legged it down the High Road, getting to Paddington in plenty of time for the last train home at half 11. The train in question took ages to show any sign of life, before we were told the service had been 'failed' and we needed to make our way onto another platform. We finally got going just after midnight, and I suddenly came over with Fan-boy-itis after checking Twitter and noticing one of my favourite sports writers, who happens to be bath-based, was on the same train and live-tweeting the whole event.

We made it home at 2am, having to wade through the mass of drunk students in town.