Opening day of the new football season.

 Opening day of the new football season.

So why do we keep doing this to ourselves? We do it every football season and we don't quite know why. It is this unwavering devotion to the Beautiful Game, the game we became besotted with at an early age and could never adequately explain or justify since we were children and kids are supposed to play the game in the back streets and roads with coats for goalposts. And, of course Jimmy Greaves may have been your pin up boy. He was that iconic poster on your bedroom wall, the striker you struck up a lifelong friendship with even if you could never relate to him since you were a child of nature. 

But today you will be totally committed to the cause because football is addictive, the most riveting of spectacles and, besides, you'll be watching the Premier League highlights on Match of Day since your mates will be there, sharing your agony and ecstasy. You'll always find yourself questioning the root cause of this seasonal ordeal, this unnecessary purgatory since you could be fixing shelves in your dining room, painting the walls for the umpteenth time or just roaming around shopping centres looking for that elusive bargain. Football is not compulsory or a must, an essential part of your day or weekend. It is football and not the end of the world if you lose.

And yet we do take football far too seriously because we can't keep away from the transfer speculation involving your club, the make or break, critical importance of your team's chameleon like performances. Your team are unpredictable, annoying but then we become uncontrollably triumphant when we win. Here's the deal. You spend nine months simply watching those roller coaster rides through wincing eyes, the fluctuating tides of fortune or misfortune.  There will be endless discussions, post mortems, wailing laments, floods of tears, dripping beads of sweat, timeless anguish but, quite, possibly, an upturn in form, victory snatched from the jaws of adversity. 

You'll be sitting on the edge of your season ticket seats desperately hoping for a flying start to the new Premier League season, righteous redemption, salvation from the dangers of relegation. Young and old,  children and adults, families, wives and girlfriends, husbands, cousins, uncles, aunties, neighbours and friends, they're all united by fun loving camaraderie, terrace rivalry and good humoured banter. You've been going to your team's stadium for as long as you can remember and perhaps you're hardened to setbacks and disasters, constant underachievement. But you've now been released from workaday duties and presented with new challenges and opportunities. This is your moment to shine in the August sun.

So these are the opening sentences and chapters of the new football season where issues will remain unresolved until next Spring. Then the daffodils begin to nod enchantingly at you and the tulips will acknowledge your existence with a slight shiver and shake as you walk past these hardy perennials in your local wetlands. Football was always the game that heralded new beginnings in August as winter hunkered down for the duration, hiding away discreetly before the season took a sharp bend into February, March and April. 

In the old days at Upton Park you would appear on the open, inviting terraces and stands of the South Bank, having squeezed through squeaking turnstiles and then placed yourself strategically near the front. With a 10p programme in hand and having forked out the criminally extortionate sum of £12.50 for the afternoon's entertainment, we stood there faithfully through thick and thin. In 1978, football was a completely different kind of animal, a living organism that seemed so vibrant and thriving. There were no multi millionaires, no Smart Phone gadgets, none of the paraphernalia that we now commonly associate with the modern game. 

We had no way of establishing instant communication with each other because London was still dotted with red telephone boxes and thick telephone directory books. In those far off days there was not a single sight or sound of mobile phones with in built cameras. You wandered into your local football stadium and just mixed amiably with your mates, work colleagues, school pals and the extended members of the football community. There were no fashionable accessories to show off or new fangled objects that you could boast about shamelessly. It was just you, the traditional burger, hot dog or a small carton of fish and chips while around you there was an electrifying atmosphere. That was unmistakable. 

Personal memories of an opening day of a football season remind you of some classic fixture from way back when. It was West Ham's first game in the old Second Division in 1978 and the Chicken Run was in unforgiving mood. The club had just been relegated from the top flight, the old First Division and some of the hardy claret and blue followers were still moping and sulking. West Ham fans were never entirely satisfied with the fare they were delivered regardless of the division they happened to be in. But this was an entirely different set of circumstances. 

In their opening day fixture against one of the oldest clubs in the world, West Ham were in rampant mood, pumped up, reinvigorated, batteries recharged after the summer break. In the bright, warm and hot sunshine at Upton Park, West Ham clobbered and battered Notts County 5-2 as the spritely and supple, nimble footed and graceful Hammers were on cloud nine. David Cross, a striker, previously of Coventry City and Norwich, made an instant impression with a valuable goal scoring contribution. 

In recent years, West Ham have been on the wrong end of some savage maulings at the hands of Liverpool and Manchester United on the first day of the season. Opening day fixtures for your team were awkward and often humiliating experiences if you followed West Ham.You often felt their minds were still preoccupied with heady, dizzy and euphoric days on Spanish beaches. Still, we are here now and the football season is back where it belongs- taunting and teasing you mercilessly. 

Last night, Premier League champions Liverpool opened up their account with a marvellously pulsating 4-2 victory over Bournemouth. Liverpool should be joined by the exalted company that normally hunts down the team at the top. It will, inevitably, be the magnificent Arsenal, full of football's natural impulses, passing the ball for fun and admirably durable, a force for good. Then there's the gloriously instinctive Manchester City who won four consecutive Premier League titles without seemingly breaking sweat. Aston Villa and Chelsea will, of course be there or thereabouts while Newcastle United should never be knowingly underestimated or overlooked as potential top three contenders. 

Today will be the day when football stretches its arms and yawns contentedly after a beautiful summer. Managers will be haunted by the spectre of relegation, barracked and heckled by fans who were rather hoping for an outstanding season of trophies and silverware. The players will be richer than ever before and the game will be just as controversial and toxic as it always has been. But if your team play at the London Stadium you may have to settle for anti climactic mid table mediocrity or, hopefully not, relegation to the Championship or even the lower Leagues. Wherever you are, have a superb football season everybody.