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Tommy Mooney

"There's not much I miss about not living in Britain" says Tommy Mooney

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Marbella's number 9 tells us about eating dinner at midnight, driving on the other side of the road and why Spain will get maximum points from their first two World Cup qualifiers.

It's strange really, after living in the UK for over 35 years you'd think there would be things I'd be missing but I can honestly say that there's nothing I want that's not out here in Marbella.

I've only been away six weeks, to be fair, but there isn't anything remotely British that you can't get here. That's not to say me and my family want to be living in some sort of little England. Far from it, we're embracing the Spanish way of life as much as we can.

They reckon there's over 30,000 ex-pats out here. So there is a mix, no doubt. But it's a minority who are still having English breakfasts in English cafés and shopping for Heinz beans or HP sauce! The vast majority of people who have chosen to live out here because they want something different for their lives.

The majority of food that's eaten in the UK is in keeping with the climate. So the last thing you'd want here is a big Sunday lunch. You eat at different times; the busiest period for restaurants is between 10pm and midnight. We've fitted into that already - breakfast and lunch are later and, without trying to hard with it, for the last few years the family's diet has become a lot more Mediterranean.

One item I'll admit to bringing with me is the family Range Rover. I drove it down when I first came out here getting on for two months ago. Obviously it's English-plated and right-hand drive so we needed something for getting around the town.

I asked my wife to go out and choose something and she came back with a Smart car. No offence, but I'd never have been seen in one of those in the UK, but here it's just about the ideal car for the journeys we need to make in Marbella. It's a left-hand drive little runaround - and I reckon it would just about fit inside the Range Rover!

When you get in a left-hand drive car it feels fine because you're on the right-hand side of the road. People out here have said you can easily slip into old habits when you're in your English car and I know what they mean. Particularly with familiar, short journeys, I've seen tourists driving on the left and going the wrong way up one-way streets as they don't understand the signs. It does take some getting used to, especially in the livelier streets in the town.

As much as Marbella is a holiday resort, it's as busy as London in the business district of the town, with the same parking problems. It's a very cosmopolitan place. You can be 500 metres from the beach in roads you'd like to somewhere like Bond Street in central London.

That's why the football club are working hard to attract people to our games. There's such a split of backgrounds yet the area is a thriving place so I know they were disappointed to only be getting a couple of thousand locals in a ground which holds about 9,000.

As I've mentioned before, the new English owners are trying to appeal to the ex-pats here to come along. At the moment, there's only me at the club from an English background so I think it'll take time for it to happen. It'll be interesting to see how many we get for our first home game of the season, against Roquetas on Saturday.

Perhaps the style of play has a bit to do with it. It was very cautious during our 1-0 defeat to Guadalajara last weekend - a game we should have had sewn up before the break - but we're expecting Roquetas to be a stronger side which might well make for a livelier match.

Whatever the result of that one, I don't expect Spain to have any such troubles in either of their World Cup qualifiers this week. They've got two home games - against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Saturday then Armenia on Wednesday - so my tip for this week is to do Any Unquoted in the Correct Score market for each of the two games. That will make sure you're not worrying about whether they hit four, five or six goals - which I fully expect them to.

I have to admit I've gone a bit native already, so I'm not bang up-to-date with England's latest news. They should take care of Andorra no trouble, but Croatia's a different matter and perhaps The Draw in that one might be the selection.