For the past six years, or at least since he could speak, my son has given the straight bat to all my requests to come to a football match. The attractions of staying at home, eating chocolate and playing video games have always proved too great. But then, last week, I finally broke his stubborn resistance. With no fanfare whatsoever, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “Yeah, OK then.”

Rarely before have three words given me such joy.

There have been hints that he might cave in, to be fair. A passion for playing FIFA 12 has been growing and our Fiorentina team currently sits top of Serie A (Milan and Juve already defeated). And he has clearly recognised the pleasure this gives me.

“Daddy,” he said recently. “You must be happy that I am as cuckoo about football as you now.”

Never have truer words been spoken.

For there was a fear, rarely expressed, that he might - whisper it - not like football. I am still not entirely convinced how much he will enjoy the regular experience of sitting through a game. But, at least, he has shown a hint that he might not sidestep it forever. And that father and son at the football experience is a very special one for me.

It was handed down from my own father, of course. I don’t remember our first game together but it would almost certainly have been at Palmerston Park for a Queen of the South game. Those afternoons and evenings together are still a treasured time for me.

There is, as there should be for a Catholic boy, a little lacing of guilt to this bonding with my son. I have a daughter, too, and my offers to take her to the football have always been, at best, half-hearted. She has never shown much interest but I have never really tried to generate any. Despite myself, I have treated my children quite differently. Which came first - her coolness towards football or my expectation it would be so?

My wife has absolved me of blame, thankfully. She reckons any daughter of hers was bound to be happier shoe-shopping than sitting in a blustery stand watching 22 men chasing after a football. That was a big relief to hear my bias vindicated.

So we ventured off to Galabank for the delights of a Ramsden’s Cup tie between Annan Athletic and Livingston recently to get a test run for Palmerston Park. We had a little chat on the journey about what to expect and why he could not wear his Queen of the South scarf at this game. He agreed, a little reluctantly, that there was no need to buy anything from the club shop.

We found a seat a few rows back in the main stand in order to shelter from the rain and settled in. He was impressed with the new 3G playing surface - so was I - and once he had it clear in his head which team was which there were remarkably few questions. Saturday afternoons don’t get much better.

A half-time hot dog that looked far too big for him to finish was scoffed down with great gusto but a goal for us to celebrate stubbornly refused to come. It was only when Annan stalwart Graeme Bell came off the bench that we got our wish. He thumped home a long range belter and we leapt to our feet in unison.

Is there any feeling to surpass that reflex joy? Somehow it must have been programmed into my son as he waved his arms in the air without any time delay whatsoever. If anyone has football fanaticism in his genes, it is probably him. My own father and father-in-law follow the game with a passion that still burns with admirable intensity.

His attention drifted in the closing stages of a long day but Annan held on for the win and we went home happy. There was another simultaneous cheer when the radio confirmed that Queen of the South had progressed in the same competition. Next week, I promised, it is Palmerston Park to see them in the flesh.

It opens the floodgates to merchandise demands by the dozen but also to so much precious time to spend together. He already seems to have intuitively understood and approved my personal pecking order of priorities - Fiorentina and Italy first, then Queens and then anything else. Indoctrination doesn’t get any sweeter.

I still have a fear he will come to his senses. Maybe he will not share my obsession fully and quickly start to prefer other pastimes to the one being pushed by all my paternal powers. There are a lot more distractions out there, after all, than there ever were in my day.

But, nonetheless, there is a flicker of confidence that our bonding can go from strength to strength. He may well come to question whether watching football is the best way to spend his Saturday afternoons, but the ancestral indicators do not point in that direction. If his father, Nonno and grandpa are still as daft as ever, why on earth should he ever show any signs of sense?