London is a city in the love, yes truly, madly, deeply in love with football!  We are of course talking here of the game us Brits know of as football. Not futbol, not association rules, and absolutely, definitely, 100%, not soccer. In our game the ball is round, the officials are referees, the offence is the attack, periods are called halves and the fans eat pies with brown sauce, ketchup and scolding-hot meat of mysterious content. And yes, London loves it!

London, has (or had) a reputation for housing members of the international awkward squad. One exile was the French writer Émile Zola who arrived at Victoria Station on 19 July 1898 without any luggage or knowledge of the English language. He spent his first night at the Grosvenor Hotel and later moved to the more modest Queen’s Hotel in Norwood.