Welcome to transport, basketball style.

I'm on the Reading Rockets' coach going up to the National Trophy Final in Newcastle, to be held tomorrow afternoon. We've got the Rockets squad on board, plus a group of the team's most loyal supporters, and of course the Rockets' coaching and backroom staff.

This is not your ordinary coach. When I booked my place on it I had visions of it being one of those outwardly quite swish but inwardly knackered and boring coaches you get lumbered with on school trips - lucky if you've got a TV at the front, no creature comforts, don't go near the toilet if such a device even exists.

This coach has a toilet and, though I haven't been near it through years of training to avoid such things, I'm sure it's fine. Because this coach also has an oven. And a microwave, a sink, and fridges in between the seats. Every seat has a table, and there are four DVD flat screens. My laptop has its own power point and my headphones are plugged into the table, which is giving me the Five Live commentary on the football.

I'm told the coach company involved narrowly lost out on the contract to supply transport to Reading FC, and you can see why. This makes travel by train, formerly my preferred method of travel if someone told me to go to Newcastle, look like an amateur, painful, expensive form of self-harm.

We've just stopped for a very welcome KFC - another surprise since I hadn't expected Britain's top sportsmen to partake of the Colonel's Secret Recipe on the journey up. However I'm told the players do bring pasta and other such sporty foods, they just don't worry too much the day before a game. This is an attitude I applaud. It's certainly difficult to lose the Reading Rockets team in the crowd at the services, since most of them are upwards of 6' 8" in height.

We're around 30 miles away from Sheffield so there's a while to go yet. I've got Shaun Goater's autobiography, the radio, the laptop and possibly one of the best basketball teams in the country to keep me occupied. Time should fly.