By Paul Evans (no, not that one!)

How should a Reds fan make sure his son grows up supporting Forest rather than a Premiership club? Paul has the answer... blackmail.

"It is an unwritten, though binding, law of life that one does not change one's boyhood sporting allegiances..."

For some reason, it is important to me that my seven-year-old son should follow in his father's footsteps. I don't care if we live in London. I can't face him nagging me to go to White Hart Lane.

It will be hard for the boy to obey his father on this. Following Forest was easy for me. For one thing, I lived in Nottingham. And I was ten years old when God (Brian Clough) appeared to many at the City Ground. I still wonder if what followed really happened. I sometimes expect to wake up and find my teenage years ahead of me.

It would be fair to say that no other British team has ever enjoyed the kind of fairytale that Forest enjoyed in the late 1970s.

Living in London, with the temptations of Chelsea and Arsenal, I've placed a heavy burden on the little lad's shoulders.

I've had to take drastic steps. He needed to be lied to. Lie after lie after lie. The first step was to seize on the wonderful news that my namesake had been signed. Then, when the tooth fairy made his first visit, he didn't bring a sixpence. He brought a kit instead. With 'Evans - 8' on the back. For a while, the poor boy actually heard radio reports in which his dad played - and scored - for Forest.

Obviously, this wouldn't be enough. A carefully chosen introduction to the City Ground backfired. Cardiff were inept opposition as expected, but Forest failed even to match them. The rest of last season was spent explaining that the Championship was upside down and Forest were to be promoted with Rotherham - to the First Division!

Relegation was followed by defeats to Woking and Yeovil. A near miss at Weymouth, and now, my namesake is training with Rotherham awaiting a permanent move there.

Still, the boy tells the kids in his school that he's a Forest fan. But I wonder how long it will be before he's old enough to read the papers. How long before he learns that his dad is a liar?

So there's no time to waste. With a tape recorder, I now have all of the blackmail material I will ever need. Tomorrow morning he will be told that he is on The Internet - singing. He'll be so proud of himself. Here it is:

Listen to Martin Evans pledging his loyalty
Link requires Realplayer

But for the rest of his life, he will know that he has sealed a pact with cyberspace. There is no going back. He will never be able to pretend that he always followed Arsenal.

Maybe I should have gone the whole hog and named him Sue?

To visit Paul's blog site click here