In my experience, the world really is a football that goes round and round. When my beloved Baggies have a week with local derby bookends, then like any loyal fan anywhere, I'm not too focused on the daily tasks at hand.

Or am I?

My "fanhood" took a hit to the old onion bag this week. And the trauma still lingers. I confess, I just didn't see it coming.

As I may have mentioned before, I've been a West Bromwich Albion fan for more years than I care to count. It's actually easier than you might think. You never have to worry about keeping your passport up to date or that visiting tourists might beat you to the last ticket on match day. Keeping the "Boing, Boing" tempo right is sometimes a challenge, but nobody up the "Brummie Road End" minds too much if you fake it -- as long as your heart's in the right place.

Once, when I told a Chelsea-besotted ESPN anchor that I was an Albion supporter, he couldn't stop from blurting out, "Why would you do that?" A fair question really. Let's face it, the dear old Baggies have always been more "Theatre of the Absurd" than "Theatre of Dreams." Nevertheless, over the years I've followed the fortunes of my hometown team from near, far and very far away. I once borrowed a colleague's Slingbox at the Beijing Olympics so I could watch the Albion play Arsenal at the Emirates while everybody else watched Michael Phelps in the nearby Water Cube.

Until this week, I'd have felt comfortable listing "Albion fan" on the occupation line of my income tax return. But then the phone rang Sunday morning, and it's been an internal audit ever since.

It was my sister calling from England. She was just back home from the Hawthorns, filing her match report as only she can -- fashion notes about Peter Odemwingie's new hairdo, lamentations about "that lovely Zoltan Gera" still being injured and scouting notes on the two new players inserted into the lineup by the sainted Roy Hodgson even though she couldn't remember their names or their positions. All this heartily punctuated by chants of two-nil, two-nil every 30 seconds or so.

All was well until I made an unfortunate confession: I didn't know the game had kicked off, let alone was over. The giddy moment of triumph over Wolves was rent asunder with one piercing, pertinent question dripping with repugnant venom: "You call yourself a fan?"

I used to.

The East Coast-U.K. time difference, a busy schedule and much effort all week to figure out the square root of 9-9-9 provide no defense. Even worse, I knew the kickoff time for the Liverpool-Manchester United game the day before and was positioned in front of the television long before Ian Darke offered to buy Steve McManaman a mansion if the game produced zero controversial moments.

This probably wouldn't be a good moment to admit this, but as rivalries go, I don't harbor much animosity for Wolves. I still think "the Doog" is one of the all-time great nicknames in soccer, and somewhere in the BBC vaults I can be seen as a little kid sitting on the wall behind the goal at Molyneux in a snowstorm as Mike Bailey & Co. hosted Arsenal.

On Saturday, it will be different. It's the first game I look for when the fixture list comes out. Yes, the Villa is up next for the Baggies. The soccer world can get worked up about the little Manchester shindig on Sunday; my laser focus will be on the weekend's really big game.

And this Villa derby is more important than ever. The three points are important, but for this one I'll be trying to earn my stripes back as a fan. Is there anything more important? Absolutely not. My alarm clock is already set … and the phone is off the hook.