We are trying something new on Football Focus this Saturday - a live audience for the very first time. We've been thinking about doing this for a while and the BBC's Celebrate Sport initiative has given us the perfect platform.

 Dan and the Focus team recreate the Smiths' iconic image outside Salford Lads' Club

We'll be live from the iconic Salford Lads' Club on Saturday, a venue steeped in sporting and musical history. It was opened by Robert Baden Powell in 1904, featured in a couple of Smiths videos (Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before and There is a Light That Never Goes Out), while its famous members include Albert Finney, Allan Clarke (lead singer of the Hollies) and Manchester United's Eddie Colman, who died in the Munich disaster.

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I have no idea where to start this blog, what to say in the middle and how to finish it. This will probably be a stream of consciousness.

I spent four hours with Gary Speed on Saturday. He was our guest on Football Focus and was in great form. I've met and interviewed him on many occasions. I always found him to be kind, funny, intelligent and insightful.

On Saturday he was cracking jokes with Gary McAllister, his midfield partner from the title-winning Leeds side of 1991-92.

Off-air we talked about playing golf, how good his boys were at football and his dreams of taking Wales to the World Cup in 2014.

He was always interested in what you were up to. He would say: "How are you finding Sheffield, Dan? Are you and the kids settling in OK?" That was part of his charm - he cared.

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Hello good people. There was a distinct lack of bloggage last week, which I know caused havoc in some parts of the country (well, one person asked me where it was). I'll let you know what's happening this week on Football Focus in a bit but I wanted to tell you about last week's trip to Lille to see Joe Cole.

It was a while in the planning but eventually we settled on a date and booked our tickets on the Eurostar. Three of us made the trip across the Channel - I was asking the questions, Graham was producer-in-chief and West Ham fan Stu was our cameraman.

Stu was the only one clever enough to check the weather in France before we left.

Graham and I weren't quite in Bermuda shorts but I think we both expected it to be a little warmer than the freeze-your-face-off conditions that met us upon arrival. Graham and I had 20 minutes at Lille station waiting for Stu to arrive. We spent that time cuddling a hot beverage and standing half a centimetre away from the only heater on the platform.

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