ANYONE who knows me, or for that matter anyone who has even just randomly bumped into me in the street, will know that football and in particular Blackburn Rovers is a bit of a passion of mine.

Last night I tried to canvass a house called Ewood simply because that is the name of Rovers’ ground (sadly the owners weren’t in). It is not unknown for me to be seen on my phone during meetings just checking to see how we are doing in some match or other. Mind you given the tragic position we are in at the moment, checking scores is currently a bit of an unrewarding experience.

This partly explains why I am really looking forward to a day ahead which involves playing three football matches with young people at various pitches around Kendal.

However, the reason why we are doing this is not to pander to my enthusiasms but as a way for me to find out what the young people in the area are concerned about. I strongly believe that I should be the local MP for the whole community, not just those who can vote. As we play we will chat about what we can do to make things better for young people around here. I tend to play in goal so I am still able to speak a bit during the match.

This is the 12th year we have run these 'football surgeries' for young people. I would like to say that over that time my footballing skills have improved but I rather suspect that my abilities have mirrored those of Blackburn Rovers and followed a steady decline. However, I like to think that the facilities available to young people in the area have improved. For example we have seen the building of new skateparks and multi-use games areas across the area, many of which we will be playing on today and which do seem to be appreciated by those I meet.

The sessions are there for them to speak to me and give me their thoughts much more than for me to speak to them. Everything they say is duly written down and thought about when we get back to the office. If there is anything we can do, either directly or by raising it with our local councillors, we try our hardest to get on to it.

The fact that places to get outside and play has been an issue that has come up lots of times won’t come as a surprise to you but we also chat about many other things. We talk about everything from what is going on at school to big international issues. It can be really inspiring to hear how engaged many of these young people are with the world around them. I am interested to see how often they mention our impending departure from the EU and what their view is of this.

It really should be an interesting day.