My son’s passion for football has reawakened in me a deep sense of belonging

My nine-year-old's curiosity about the place I grew up and where generations of my family were raised has made me look at it with new eyes

Why don't we live here? Why did you ever leave?" This is Solomon, nine, one of my sons; and these are familiar questions he enjoys directing my way. We've just left Goodison Park, the ground of Everton, our football team; and we're walking back to my parents' home, not far away. Everton won the game (never a given, recently), and Solly is on a high; he wants to linger in the streets around Goodison, as he does whenever we visit. He likes all the ways the area is different from our home. That it's rougher, not as pretty - poorer, to put it plainly - than our bourgeois patch of Kensal Green, in London, is all upside to him. He likes the shop we've just popped into for sweets with its Haribos behind caged wire like so much precious cargo. He likes the cheeky lads on their bikes, larking around as if auditioning for a documentary dedicated to life on the street".

If it were a pal alongside me, I'd be teasing him for romanticising my old home, for taking a walk on the wild side. But it's my boy and I can't help but smile at how much he's enjoying himself.