I KNOW just how John Noakes must have felt.

It’s never occurred to me before, but Noakesy and me have so much in common. He had a bonkers, hyperactive, over-exuberant and restless companion, and I have the Other Half.

In John Noakes’s case, the catchphrase was: “Get down, Shep!”). In my case, it’s; “Oh no! Not ANOTHER sport!”.

This week, it’s cricket. My back was turned for no more than a weekend as I popped over to see my mum, who’s recovering from an operation. When I came back, the box, bat, ball and pads were all but on order from JJB Sports.

He’d decided to pop over to help his mate’s Sunday team out because they were a bit short-handed. By the time I got back home, he was the next Freddie Flintoff.

“I got two wickets!” he cried, bouncing around the house like a pent-up puppy.

“They said I was a really good bowler!”

Which means the following: • The five surfboards, three full wetsuits and fourth shortie wetsuit currently cluttering up the spare room will have to shove up to make room for cricket whites and the rest of the necessary gear. They should just about be able to squeeze in between the snowboards, the golf caddy, the acoustic guitar and the Fender Stratocaster and Vox amp quietly gathering dust there at the moment • I have another reason to nag the O.H. about watching himself so that his glass ankles and crystal wrists do not end up snapped again, with the pair of us spending yet more merry hours in casualty waiting for him to get “plastered”

• Summer Sundays will be added to Wednesday nights as off-limits to any kind of non-sports-related enterprise I may wish to propose.

That’s in addition to the two weeks that fall either side of my birthday, which I have the poor taste to have organised in January, the middle of the peak snowboarding season.

Oh, and then there’s the random chance of a large Atlantic depression creating a wrap-round sea swell and offshore winds, which indicate all bets are off for at least a week in order for the O.H. to drive to the coast and find out the sea’s already too full of other surfers for him to enjoy it anyway.

It would shock me to my boots if I got home one night to find him already flopped on the sofa, saying: “Let’s get some fish and chips and see what’s on the telly.”

What I generally get is the equivalent of a boisterous collie with a lead in its mouth and an expectant gleam in its eye.

“Let’s go swimming/walking/ cycling/gardening”, he says as I drop my bag in the hallway, thinking about New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Stephen Fry and Alan Davies in Q.I.

The trouble is, I know his way is right. He has a resting heartbeat of something like 50 beats per minute. Some days, I reckon I could squeeze that many into a second.

And when I cave in and do what he wants, I generally enjoy myself.

I should just bite the bullet and get on with it, rather like those dog owners that you see wrapping umpteen scarves around their necks as they prepare to take Fido out into the bleak mid-winter.

After all, Noakesy loved Shep to bits, really. And I can see his point of view.