The seven-year glitch . . .

This is the farthest post of the Far Post: the last of 365 columns on this page since the spring of the Year of Our Lord 2007. That means I am personally responsible for more than 182500 words of total football bollocks.

Being a fan of quantity over quality, I'm proud to reveal the above tally is five times as many words as George Orwell's underwhelming total in Animal Farm, and roughly a third as many as the 544406 words that Leo Tolstoy managed in War and Peace.

I think you will agree that that is more than enough.

And recently, that cursed cursor on my usually empty screen has mutated into a raised middle finger: The essence of football's haunting mysteries, all merged into a blinking, spectral zap sign.

There are just too many questions about this game that I still cannot answer, even after seven years of hard Googling.

These range from subtle phonetic problems (why is Dr Khoza's first name pronounced "Ivan", when it's spelt Irvin? Heh?) to sartorial ones (why does Arsene Wenger wear a sawn-off sleeping bag to work, when he can afford a really nice coat?).

Then there are deeper psychological questions. Why does that Ashley Young keep diving, when all the world tells him to stop? Why does Jogi Loew eat his own snollies? Why does Doctor Khumalo say "alluded" 10 times an hour?

Other mysteries are a little more pressing and upsetting. For instance, why is Sepp Blatter still the boss of world football, when he is as rotten as water is wet? Why is there no action yet on the Safa match-fixing scandal, nearly three years after it came to light? Do not know. Angazi. Ek weet nie.

I clearly have not learnt much since the first edition of the Far Post, which was bashed out in Athens. The assignment was the European Cup final between Liverpool and AC Milan. It was fun. The Scousers were all over Athens like calories on a schwarma, and my hotel was red territory.

It was a couple of years before the Greek economy segued from comedy to tragedy, but even then, the Omonia neighbourhood was ropey: a urine-infused urban jungle prowled by 50kg stray mongrel dogs, badly peroxided hookers and wild-eyed Balkan vagabonds.

Soon after breakfast, I was press-ganged into slugging a double ouzo by a middle-aged trio of already vrot Liverpool fans - an insurance assessor from Bootle, a runty engineer from St Helens and a fat Irish ambulance driver from County Derry.

The trio had travelled to every away game in Europe since the turn of the century, from Lodz to Trondheim to Boavista.

No town was too distant or crappy. No game too inconsequential. If Liverpool FC asked them to, these men would catch a Ryanair flight through the fiery gates of hell.

"I'm off to climb the Acropolis," I announced.

"F**kin' steep walk, innit?" said the engineer.

"Do us a favour, pal," said the ambulance driver. "Take my camera with yer and snap some shots I can show the wife, eh, ta?"

He produced his pocket Olympus, and I reluctantly accepted it.

Inspired, the ambulance driver and the insurance assessor went up to their rooms and fetched their own cameras. Soon I was out in the roaring spring sun, ouzo-tinted specs on, marching across town and straight up the Acropolis, clutching a plastic bag full of mik-en-druks.

At the top of the hill, I took some shots of the Parthenon, with the hot chaos of Athens behind it. One pic with each of the three cameras, thus hoodwinking three long-suffering old birds in St Helens, Bootle and Derry.

Their three blokes would do anything for their team. But they would not step out of the hotel bar for anything else.

As I clicked each shutter button, I thought: Ja, that is football for you. Stupid, beautiful football.

• Thanks for reading. I'm on @CarlosBAmato and amatoc@sundaytimes.co.za