The wonderful thing about writing for a local newspaper is that you get to cover such a variety of different topics.

One moment you're reporting on a turnip exposition in Potters Bar, the next you're donning your deerstalker and sideburns to solve the latest hit & run murder mystery in the Cricklewood heartlands.

Admittedly, it is the intriguing vegetable formations rather than the bloodthirsty criminals that tend to be the norm. But even the most mundane of events can seem somewhat exciting if you've never had the opportunity of covering anything like it before.

Take Easter Monday, for example. With the option of staying at home nursing my post-ski-trip blues, I chose instead to venture into the tundra outside and cover my first official Hendon Times football match: the 115th Senior Challenge Cup Final between Hendon and Hampton & Richmond Borough at Uxbridge FC.

In fact, this was not only my first ever Hendon Times football report, it was my first ever for any publication - which is surprising, as I have always been very interested in sport. Between the tender age of seven and 17, I happily allowed myself to be whisked off to Adams Park or Loftus Road every Saturday afternoon by my father, to watch the Blues and Rs get alternately hammered (for all parents out there, a word of advice: there are few better ways to put your children off gambling for life than forcing them to put a weekly £3 bet on 3-2 to QPR).

In fact, my father has been a fierce advocate of my becoming a sports journalist ever since I voiced an interest in the profession, garnering contacts, brainstorming story ideas and occasionally stalking major golfing aficionados to a hair's breadth of a restraining order (Luke Donald... and your parents... my apologies).

As I am convinced all this effort had everything to do with my happiness and nothing whatsoever to do with my father wanting free golfing lessons, I admit I felt a degree of nervous anticipation as I arrived at Honeycroft, notepad and pen clutched in hand. I desperately wanted to do a good job, to justify all the gambling and court injunctions and lost pocket money. I also, of course, desperately didn't want to let the fans down - especially the ones who had chosen to avoid the the blizzards, snowdrifts, monsoons and tsunamis by staying at home, and who were therefore entirely reliant on my expert eye to bring the match alive in their absence.

As I sated my nerves with a few dozen free cocktail sausages from the county official's pavilion, I felt a little better. After all, how hard could it be? You watch the players, you jot down what number does what, you tally the numbers up with the players list, and Bob's your uncle: a comprehensive and accurate match report. Easy.

Or easy, perhaps, if you could actually make out the numbers on the backs of the shirts, and weren't wearing mittens the size of a pair of Shetland ponies that made turning the page of your notepad a Herculean feat equivalent to unlocking a door with a sausage. Every time my numb extremities forced me against my will into a particularly long and gruelling grapple with my writing material, I would invariably be jerked back into the moment by a sudden eruption of cheers from the crowd, just in time to witness a group of players dancing in jubilation and a dauntingly alien scoreline painted up on the board.

"Who scored?" I would cry into the crowd. "Did anyone see who crossed? And who made that error in midfield? Was it O'Leary? Or is he the one with the bloody brow on the sideline??"

Luckily, I was surrounded by a small but eagle-eyed posse who could do my job somewhat better than I could, and between the lot of us I believe we conjured up a fairly accurate representation of on-pitch events. What is truth in football, after all, other than the interpretation of those most intimately connected to the game? And what is journalism if not interpretation masquerading as truth? (And what are blogs if not amateur philosophising masquerading as journalism...?)

Yes, it was a steep learning curve. By half-time I had learnt many invaluable lessons about my job. Namely: mittens are almost always a mistake, and don't trust anyone not wearing a flat cap - especially when they are convinced a player yet to make it off the subs bench has scored the only goal of the match.

Saying that, however, it quickly dawned on me when I actually came to writing up the report for the newspaper that accuracy is not the most important factor for good sports reporting. It is a factor, of course - and an important one. But other elements must come first, and without them, all is lost.

Cliches, for example. Unless you hit the minimum 3:1 data-to-platitude ratio, the story will simply not be recognisable as a sports report - a bit like a Bobby out of uniform. The substance is there, but the power and impact is lost.

And the meandering circumlocution. There should be at least two of these per 500 words, ideally sandwiched between a cliche and a Colemanball.

And a small handful of abstract descriptions, preferably embedded around both the cliches and circumlocutions. These serve the very important purpose of disguising lack of observed detail with a general aura of profound consideration.

All of which should be liberally sprinkled with a number of redundant metaphors (in my case, weather-related) to convey a sense of place, and the occasional paradoxical contradiction, to reflect the intricate metaphysical complexities of the game.

For example, a few paragraphs like the following would be ideal:

"At the end of the day, the boys went out there, played their own game and gave it 110 per cent. It was, more than any other game, a game of two halves, and it is no judgement on their skill and determination that neither half could make a whole for Hendon today.

"Looking at it from a spectator's point of view, there's no doubt they would have scored a lot more if they hadn't swung so many wide of the mark. The problem is that it's a team game for team players, and a few of the players just weren't present today - literally and metaphorically - and the ones who were present were more intent on fancy footwork than hitting the back of the net. For Hendon, the icy chill was nothing compared to the icy Hampton defence, and this played no small part in Hendon's inability to hit a cow's backside with a banjo. But they mustn't make this an excuse to hang their heads. They did everything right, except score goals.

"It's arguable that Gary McCann needed to change players' positions, rather than just move them around the pitch - because, when the crunch comes to the crunch, it's not about a good team on paper, it's about a good team on grass, and you need more than balls to make it on grass: you need goals. And to get goals you need drive and you need focus and you need teamwork and you need balls. The team had balls in spades, but they just couldn't dig themselves out of the hole they got into and convert quality balls into quality football.

"But, saying that, at the end of the day, the boys went out there, played their own game and gave it 110 per cent... (ad infinitum)."