“I don’t know know what we were doing last night”, said the Spurs fan in the row of desks in front of me on Tuesday morning.
Yes, the new football season is back, a full half an hour since the last one ended. The gate is never really locked, only ever tentatively closed so that the transfer speculation and the friendlies can gain easy access. The Back to the Football signs have long since been dispensed with.
“I don’t how much longer he’ll last”, the Spurs fan moaned on, his team’s surrender of a one-goal lead at newly-returned to the Prem Leicester City placed firmly at the door of manager Ange Postecoglou, a man who found Spurs in the gutter last summer, saw their all-time leading goalscorer leave and yet still drove them on to 5th place and European qualification with a brand of To Dare is To Do football.
“When you’ve been watching the game for fifty years, you know it isn’t over” the Spurs fan added. Good to know that he’s picked something up from that half-century of hearing full-time whistles.
Once upon a time, the anticipation of a new season was heightened by the absence of any football news in the summer, when May-mid July gave way to tennis and cricket and when even a few paragraphs given over to the most popular game in the world would be treasured and probably re-read.
Eventually, the goals would go back up over the local park and then there would be photos of new signings in new kits, soon followed by some 6-2 wins over non-league sides in the west coast. I can still recall the thrill of seeing Viv Anderson, scarf aloft in Arsenal’s 84-85 number at Highbury, where the new youth team coach was Pat Rice, another esteemed right back. What excitement was promised. And when the season started, Arsenal went top in September, and then beat the unbeatable Liverpool.
“They might win something this year”, said my Spurs-supporting grandad.
You can’t hold back reality for ever, though, and League Cup embarrassment at Division 2 Oxford United in November was eclipsed by FA Cup humiliation at Division 3 York City in January. But at least I had the thrill of late summer and early autumn.
The new signings for Brentford this summer won’t have been captured in the club’s new attire, the west London side proving the exception to the Premier league rule by keeping the previous seasons’, a commendable move, but one perhaps offset by a gambling company being emblazoned on it. Star striker Ivan Toney’s future at the club is unclear at the moment.
Arsenal in 2024-25 have a black 2nd kit and a light blue 3rd one, and still wear Visit Rwanda on their sleeves while playing in the Emirates Stadium. But they will challenge Manchester City again this season, and the Abu Dhabi project may finally face the consequences of those actions that have led to the 115 charges that have become something of a cult worship around the Etihad.
You see how it gets you, these new seasons?
