Close Season? You're Having a Laugh!

Let me see, how long is it since Charlton's dramatic late equaliser condemned Crystal Palace to the second tier next season? About a month, maybe? Or is it six weeks? Wasn't it around 15 May? Or was the weekend of 15 May when the Championship ended? And then there were the play-off matches, carefully rationed to one per day, until the three separate finals over a bank holiday weekend, That must have been the end of May, so three weeks ago.

There was also the Champions' League final, and the attendant ballyhoo about whether Liverpool's rather fortunate victory was to be translated into their returning to the competition next time. This took up a good week or so.

And then, for me, there was the question of whether Forest Green, the team I favour in the Conference, would be reprieved from relegation over The Strange Case of Northwich Victoria's Ground. (They were, eventually, though it's hard not to feel very sorry for Northwich, all the same).

And then the Spanish Second Division (or Segunda (Second) A, as it is known, the third tier is called Segunda B - but that is a story for another day) was still running until last Sunday, and my favoured team here, Cádiz, a team I have supported ever since I had a very enjoyable stay in this beautiful city back in the mid-seventies, were in line for promotion to Division One after an absence of twelve years or so, but they had to win their final match just up the road at Jerez (the club's name is now Xerez, for some reason or other) to be certain of achieving this. So last Saturday evening I was glued to Livescore, just as I was on Charlton's behalf during the winter months, frantically pressing F5 to update the thing, until it became apparent that the scoreline of Xerez 0 Cádiz 2 was going to be the final result, which in the end also gave Cádiz first place, on goal difference from Alavés and Celta de Vigo, both of whom have featured in European football in the past few years, and both of whom were returning upwards after one season below. (Well Celta, certainly, maybe Alavés went down two years ago). All three sides ended with 76 points from 42 games.

So, on Monday, when I was beginning to get over my delight in the Forest Green situation and the Cádiz result, I was contemplating a few weeks without football, apart from keeping a keen eye on the transfer market, and then my eye was caught by the announcement, which others might already have known about, but I didn't, that the English and Scottish fixtures would be published at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 23rd.

So instead of thinking about finding a decent web page that might give the county cricket scores and catching up with the doings of Lancashire now that football was off the agenda (can't get too interested in tennis, I'm afraid), I found myself wondering whether Charlton would have to start the season against Wigan, a possibility I irrationally viewed with distaste - though as a Burnley supporter as well, my distaste does have an explanation, though this, too, will have to wait for another day.

Well now we know. Charlton visit Sunderland, a team now commonly referred to by the BBC Website, and quite possibly by others, as the Black Cats. When did this start? And is there a rational explanation? Mind you I have just discovered that Bristol Rovers, a club whose existence I have been aware of for nigh-on 50 years, are apparently called The Pirates - this from a headline on the BBC page about where Barnet (no snappy nickname for them), back in the league after a sojourn in the Conference, will be playing their first match.

So, just as last summer when, once I knew Charlton were going to be away at Bolton on the first day, I couldn't stop being mildly apprehensive (and with good reason as it turned out), I know I shall be constantly aware of that opening fixture at Roker Park The Black Cats' Home The Stadium of Light (!). And of what the curiously-named Nyron Nosworthy, one of the Cats' summer signings from... well I have no idea, I had never heard of him before, might do to us if we're not careful.

So, no close season at all in the sense of a period of time when I don't have to think about football, dwell on the next match(es) coming up and so on.

And I've just checked back; the Championship (tier two) actually ended on 8 May, while the Premiership finalised on the 15th, but with all these tail endings and codas, even without any kind of Euro Championship or World Cup, there is going to be little peace for the wicked.

And bloody Wigan are the first visitors to The Valley, on 20 August!