The new football season

 The new football season.

On the eve of the new football season in England, you can still hear the whispers, the advanced talks between agents, players, managers, the disgruntled millionaires who still think the world owes them a living and then the chairmen who just believe that they're always right anyway. It could only be the beginning of the new English football season which kicks off in its customary fashion, all bells and whistles going quite raucously and then the cavalry charge will arrive fitter, stronger, healthier and more controversial than ever, you suspect.

At this stage in proceedings the transfer window still looks as if its stained glass is in danger of being smashed if the prices of players are any indication at all. Declan Rice, now Arsenal's new £105 million signing from West Ham must be privately worried that if Arsenal do embark on a remarkable winning run from the start of the season that the gaskets, carburettors and engines don't blow up on them towards the end of the season. Besides they now know who the opposition are and there can be no excuses this time. When Manchester City streaked past Arsenal in the final furlong of the last Premier League season, some of us were inclined that maybe they were neither ready or conditioned for the Premier League title.

But tomorrow football makes its seasonal reacquaintance with the highs and lows, dramas and melodramas, triumphs meeting disasters, pitch side VAR monitor screens, cans of spray and a good, old fashioned abundance of goals from every conceivable angle. We're expecting a bombardment of shots from long distance, tackles from dangerous directions, passes from the sweetest feet in the land and nothing but heated arguments about debatable offside decisions.  We would though expect nothing less. We've seen it all before and we can sense the tension, the painfully delayed reaction when goals that had looked perfectly legal and acceptable are then chalked off because a player's shoulder blade or elbow had strayed offside.

In the old days - and still apparent in the modern game- every football pitch resembled a green baize snooker table and that first whiff of burgers and hotdogs has lost none of its pungency. You were introduced to your first match day programme of the season, the stands and terraces had retained a timeless charm and faded glamour. And you were there at lunchtime caught up in the joyful cacophony of it all. There was the industrial language, the ear splitting Anglo Saxon expletives and somebody in front of you with a hotdog that looked as if it was about to explode with tomato ketchup. It is the reason why we became besotted with the game, admired its traditional values and then just kept going back over and over again.

Normally the first day of any football season is accompanied with warm, hot sunshine but then nobody really cares about the weather because they're much more concerned with the game's urgencies, necessities, practicalities, the fight for survival, the inflated and sometimes grandiose ambitions. We never mean to take football seriously but when the first whistle blows and you're there in the middle of it all, there is an indefinable anxiety, a gnawing concern that worst case scenarios are bound to happen. So you settle down and hope for the best, not realising of course that your neighbour is going through the same kind of experience.

Then of course there are the kids who you were responsible for, the proud mums and dads, uncles and aunties who are there to offer warm reassurance that football is just a game and it isn't the end of the world should your team lose. Just after the Second World War attendances at some matches seemed so vast that fathers used to lift their sons and daughters onto their shoulders and allow them to watch the game in some degree of comfort. Charlton Athletic's old Valley ground used to accommodate almost 80,000 until health and safety intervened and over 70 years later the new Valley can barely struggle to make room for half that amount.

Tomorrow the turnstiles will creak metallically open and the orderly queues will form again outside grounds. Here the most prominent sight will be that of boisterous programme sellers, hotdog and burger vans and sleek horses gingerly stamping their hooves. Then the ever present police will usher everybody towards their respective seats in the ground and it'll seem as if the game had never been away. Ahead will lie the compelling spectacle, the often grim theatre as nails are bitten to the quick and then the whole spectacular paraphernalia that comes ready packed for all supporters.

We know that by 3pm tomorrow afternoon the chants and vulgarities will be oiled, the scene will be set and we'll then face the realistic expectations without any explanations. Tomorrow Luton Town, once supported by that masterful comedian Eric Morecambe, will be attempting to justify their existence as a Premier League team. But of course they'll make an immediate adjustment to the big time because the cynics will just assume that come the end of this season they'll be relegated back to the Championship. If only happy Harry Haslam, a former Luton manager was still around, he'd silence the pessimists. But where would football be without its inherent cynicism?

The supporters, forever the lifeblood of the game, will be huddling together, brand new scarves wrapped loyally around their necks, there will be new club home and away shirts that will probably cost a second mortgage on full display and then the pies, the savoury snacks, the yells and shouts, the red blooded virility, the male testosterone, the intriguing tribalism, Bovril at half time and then the second half. Oh  we can hardly wait for that. 

Tonight Manchester City will set out on that long road to what they must hope will become the promised land of a fourth successive Premier League title. Even the thought of such an extraordinary feat sets the heart beating. From this point it does seem almost unthinkable and yet why ever not? What did they say about Christopher Columbus? There are unexplored territories here as well but this one has almost miraculous connotations. Under Pep Guardiola the acquisition of last season's Treble has an almost romantic feel to it. We knew that one team would emulate Sir Alex Ferguson's hat-trick of trophies for Manchester United but we didn't think that their neighbours City would muscle in on United's act.

Tonight City head across the Lowry Lancashire landscape to face newly promoted Burnley, who, after relegation from the Premier League season at the end of last season, now find themselves back where their supporters feel they rightly belong. The Championship has stiffened sinews at Turfmoor and here they are once again competing with the aristocrats and monied classes of the Premier League. You feel certain that this time, under the hugely charismatic figure of Vincent Kompany, once a City pin up boy, Burnley will thrive handsomely and play the kind of football that Kompany's mentor Guardiola will continue to champion so consistently.

Arsenal, under the lively Mikel Arteta, will probably set off like a steam train with football incorporating all of football's purest virtues, football played patiently and attractively from the back and then recycled repeatedly because that's how the game should be played. Then there's Liverpool, who under Jurgen Klopp flattered to deceive and didn't really click at all effectively last season. This season the bushy greying beard will be bristling and Klopp's so called heavy metal image will once again be out on parade for all to see.

Meanwhile Manchester United, one of the most legendary names in world football, will be attempting to pick up from where they left off last season. Erik Ten Haag knows all about the onerous responsibilities that will fall on his shoulders. The enduring legacy left by Sir Alex Ferguson can never ever be forgotten but the Dutchman has taken it all on the chin. You feel sure that given time that he'll imprint his style of football on an Old Trafford, one that he must be hoping that some of Sir Alex's magical sorcery will resurrect the good times again.

At Chelsea of course there was a time when Premier League titles and Champions League trophies were almost a common occurrence. Recent seasons though have seen a sharp decline, a deterioration in standards that could never really be maintained once Graham Potter, the last Chelsea manager had been sacked. Chelsea will always draw the crowds because art and fashion are somehow synonymous with the club. Mauricio Pochettino almost brought the Premier League title to Spurs but the Argentine is still a silk weaver and the football he's capable of producing at the Bridge comes sprinkled with a liberal dusting of unmistakable class.

And last but not least there's Spurs and even their most devoted supporters are beginning to wonder if they'll ever see an open top bus with trophies on it. New Greek manager Ange Postecoglou has been handed the unenviable task of lighting up the Seven Sisters Road again. Spurs split personality has always been a subject of much mirth and merriment from their neighbours down the road Arsenal. At times any accusations of schizophrenia can hardly be denied since even Spurs most partisan supporters must think they're going through a mid life crisis. In the golden days of Ossie Ardilles, Ricardo Villa, Garth Crooks Steve Archibald and Perryman, football was an ornate ornament, football that had classical overtones, one and two touch dynamics, the football of Bill Nicholson and Arthur Rowe.

Now though Spurs will open their season with a London derby with Brentford, who themselves are discovering so many memorable experiences that maybe someone will just wake them up from their reverie. It is to be hoped that any reference to the Double years will be sent away suitably reprimanded. Today one of their own Harry Kane, a player and supporter from the cradle, looks as though he might be on his way to Bayern Munich so hearts will be broken in North London and some of their fans may well become inconsolably distraught.

So it is then that up and down the country, in every piece of remote woodland, quaint village, bustling suburban road, street, shopping centre, amusement arcade, timber beamed country pub and community centre, we will be celebrating the return of the Premier League and the whole English football pyramid. We will bite our fingernails, tease our colleagues at work about their team's deficiencies and stoke up another set of conversations and dialogues about how your team were robbed. Ladies and Gentlemen football is back again and the whole emotional juggernaut is about to set off from a motorway service station near you. Whoever you support, have a good season everybody.