The tell-tale signs for me began to appear when I was in my 20s, from the scarily familiar way in which my hairline started to recede to the sudden realisation that Songs For Swinging Lovers by Frank Sinatra actually might be a better album than the Buzzcocks' Love Bites.

By the time I got to my 30s the process was accelerating at an alarming rate. I found myself defending the right to be cranky at the breakfast table, my tolerance threshold when it came to certain socio-economic groups (students mainly) plummeted to worrying levels and hair started to sprout in places I once mocked.

I still haven't reached the stage made famous by Robbie Williams, and neither dance nor dress "like me dad" but increasingly I find myself talking a bit like him, often in a way I would have found abhorrent just a few years ago.

The onset of fatherhood has had a profoundly retrograde impact on my vocabulary, which now includes phrases I swore I'd never use such as "If I have to tell you one more time," "Put that down, you don't know where it's been" and "Not so fast, I'm not as young as I used to be."

Only last week, when asked by an acquaintance in my local if I knew which clubs had secured the 14 Super League franchises, I replied that I didn't and explained that the Rugby Football League had somehow managed to keep a close lid on the subject before hearing my dad's voice say: "But if I had my way..."

I stopped myself there and then, fearful that the sentence might end with a call for Richard Lewis and Nigel Wood to be given a taste of national service. But I haven't been able to stop myself wondering, as most rugby league fans are wondering, who the 14 might be.

So here goes.

For a start, if I had my way there would only be 12 Super League licences because, as Castleford have proved this summer, there simply are not enough quality players around to sustain 14 clubs.

But, if 14 it is, if I had my way the 14 would be (in no particular order) St Helens, Leeds Rhinos, Catalans Dragons, Warrington Wolves, Bradford Bulls, Wigan Warriors, Hull, Hull Kingston Rovers, Castleford Tigers, Wakefield Trinity, Harlequins, Huddersfield Giants, Celtic Crusaders and Widnes Vikings.

After long and deliberate consideration, I just can't find a place for Salford, Featherstone, Halifax, Leigh or Toulouse. And I had a job persuading myself that some clubs, most notably Huddersfield, deserved a licence.

With Salford it came down to a straight choice between them and Widnes and, for all the misgivings about the way in which the Vikings went belly up after claiming to meet Super League criteria a year ago,
the facts are that they have
more fans and a better stadium than the hell hole that is the Willows.

Huddersfield's record in player development since their promotion to Super League 11 years ago is woeful – of the Giants team beaten by Leeds last Friday just three were products of the club's Academy – and but for the Galpharm Stadium they would be out.

Castleford, St Helens and Wakefield are also on borrowed time because it would be a pity and a personal tragedy if in three years' time I surveyed the sites where all three clubs are proposing to build new stadiums and couldn't utter the legend: "I remember when all this was fields."