Home games are great for the fans, but win, lose or draw, a football club can always rely on those die-hard supporters who will stop at nothing to follow their team, home or away.

I applaud those Reading fans who will be making the trip of more than 300 miles from Reading to Carlisle on Saturday.

It takes me back to what was a pivotal day early on in our record-breaking 2005-6 season. I was honoured that Brian McDermott attended my recent event at Blue Collar Corner and, during the Q&A session, he asked me when I knew we could be on to something special that season.

We had bounced back from an opening day defeat at home to Plymouth with a 2-0 win at Brighton, before facing the long trip north to Preston – and that’s the day I think the penny dropped for all of us that we were capable of achieving something memorable.

Leroy Lita and Glen Little – my guests for events two and three at Blue Collar Corner back in January – were the goalscorers as we won 3-0.

We made it 10 goals for and three clean sheets in three games with a 5-0 home win against Millwall in the next game, but for me, it was that win on August 13, 2005 at Deepdale that gave us all the confidence to go on and make history that season.

I’ve previously said that I think Leicester have a very good chance of beating our record of 106 points this season, but they’ve had a wobble with defeats in their last two Championship games. They are stuck on 78 points – and need 29 points from 12 games to beat our record.

They need to win at least nine of those games to do that. Eight wins and four draws will equal the record, but to beat it they would either need 10 wins or nine wins and two draws from their remaining games – and that is a tall order after successive defeats.

So, I’m feeling a bit more optimistic that we might hold on to the record for another season – and we can still lay claim to being the most successful Championship team in terms of points won.

Back to the topic of long away trips and I wonder how many of you reading this column remember the 4-3 win at Crewe in February 2006? As with our win at Preston, it was a brace from Leroy that helped us to another important win on the road – and I enjoyed the 5-2 win at Cardiff late on in the season, which I’m happy to admit had something to do with me scoring in that game.

By the time our final away game of the season against Sheffield Wednesday came around, we knew we had an opportunity to equal Sunderland’s 105-point record that day and my first-half goal gave us a chance to achieve that before we conceded a penalty. I am sure you all remember who got the winner in our final game of the season, but can you remember who scored our first goal that day? Answers on a postcard!

For those of you who are travelling from Reading to Carlisle and back on Saturday, fair play to you as you are in for a very long day – and hats off to anyone who is driving!

But the journey to Carlisle is nothing compared to the longest-ever recorded away trip for a football match. In 2014, FC Trelissac made the 10,651-mile journey to Magenta Noumea for a French Cup tie – and the 21,303-mile round trip was worth it for the visitors from New Caledonia, a French territory in the Pacific Ocean, as they won 3-0.

Staying on the subject of long journeys, I was surprised to hear that a youth team striker from my former team Arlesey Town would be visiting the Reading area for a one-to-one coaching session with me.

Milton Keynes to Reading and back is not in the same league as a round trip from Reading to Carlisle, but after his first session last week, he’s coming back for more. A few more sessions and Cameron will be getting close to matching the 600+ miles any fans travelling to the game on Saturday will be clocking up.

I’m still doing a fair bit of travelling, with one-to-one and group coaching sessions this week in Henley, Newbury, Fleet and Farnborough – and I’m booked in for a talk at my former club Cambridge United soon.

I’ll be the guest of a number of Berkshire clubs in the summer and will be helping those clubs with their fundraising. If you would like my help with raising funds for your club, please feel free to contact me via our new enquiries email address: hello@davekitsonacademy.co.uk