Tally-ho and merry new beginnings to you all! What grander way to spend those final few hours of the year 2011 than in unchartered, unfamiliar and altogether more foreign waters. Swan infested waters, you might say?

Hmm?

*silence*

Oh alright, maybe not- but there's no need to look at me like that.

I consider myself lucky. I have a Dad who has helped guide me and shape me throughout my time here on Earth. That alone is enough. But he's also someone who absolutely lives and breathes through sports and has instilled an emotional attachment - one I consider as important as air - to Philadelphia sports franchises in me.

There was once a time when this Croydon-born, Sierra Leone raised central midfield dynamo was captaining West Ham United into the FA Cup final of 2006 to face the might of Liverpool. Reo-Coker, a former England under-21 captain, was the lynchpin in a midfield containing talents such as Yossi Benayoun and Matthew Etherington, yet Reo-Coker still stood out as the main force in the West Ham side.