THE Football Channel regulars, including me, are a fairly diverse bunch.

From the irrepressible Budgie to the vertically challenged Trevor Sinclair via the 'not being funny' Carlton Palmer, are all different.

In fact I am often asked if I get along with John 'Budgie' Burridge off camera. Well, sorry to disappoint you but I'm not going to tell you.

But after spending one of the Sunday nights talking gibberish with Alan Shearer (he was the one talking gibberish) I wondered now that he is retired if he was still in close contact with his team-mates from the various clubs that he has played at such as Southampton, Blackburn and Newcastle.

Rob Lee is a close friend and he still keeps in close contact with Gary Speed (now at Sheffield United) as well as his on-air colleagues (and golf partners) at the BBC in the shape of Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Lee Dixon.

But do you remember when you were at school? Well I bet you could have divided the class into rough thirds and they would look something like this: A third of the class would be your best friends, you would hang out together on a regular basis.

Another third would be acquaintances, people you would associate with but not close friends and the final third would be people you simply didn't get along with.

I could probably also ask how many of your close school or university chums you still keep in contact with.

I had a really good friend called Ravi at school whom I lost contact with 18 years ago only to find him recently in Singapore of all places!

So what has this got to do with football? Well, I would put money on the fact that you could apply the same principle to every team in the Premier League.

Firstly there are age divisions, then there are wealth divisions, and finally divisions in mentality. Like what?

Well let's take the golfers, yep every team has a group of usually senior players who can't wait to finish training so they can get out on the course and get their respective handicap's down.

'The bruvvas'

Then there are what Carlton Palmer calls 'the bruvvas' who like nothing better than to go round one another's houses and lay down (excruciatingly bad) tracks in the purpose built studio in the back room.

There are also the young players who although mentally immature seem to have limitless energy and either waste it playing Wii or eating burgers much against the wishes of the nutritionists and finally a segment I almost forgot, the loners.

Please note I have not included the slightly weird such as Bolton defender Andy O'Brien who has never bought a new car in his life and only traded in his Saab Turbo when it blew up on the M1 motorway.

For what I hear you ask? A Porsche 911, but not just any Porsche 911, an eight-year-old Porsche 911!

So which category does the The Football Channel team members fall into?

Well Trevor and I fit into the golfing category. Budgie, even though he is pushing on in years, is in the mentally immature category, but then again he does also fall into the weird category.

Carlton Palmer is in a category of his own.

In fact, come to think of it, he is in a world of his own!

The writer a presenter with the Football Channel.