No loss of appetite as football gets set to return
FROM famine to feast. Those starved of their regular football fix since March are about the find that the football isn’t just back but rather that wall-to-wall coverage is back.
With a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel insofar as an easing of lockdown is announced, there is genuine optimism that the Scottish calendar could be up and running by August.
Given where we were just a month ago and how the mindset has changed fairly quickly, that seems like an extraordinary turnaround.
If Germany led the way in terms of getting themselves organized and back onto the pitch it is worth remembering how organized they were politically in terms of containing Covid-19 in the first place.
But with England now set to get back up and playing from next month you can expect a fairly hefty diet of regular football: Friday night games, Saturday lunchtime, afternoon, evening and night games, Sunday games and midweek games as the Premier League gets up and running, the gluttony should make up for the lack of action over these last couple of months. Still, although there is a semblance of some sort of normality returning, it is worth remembering that it’s a new normal we are heading into.
Football back on the horizon for the English Premier League will be eagerly awaited by those of us who had expected to sit on the couch in June and watch the European Championships. There won’t be the excitement of a tournament to sit back and enjoy but there will be a conclusion to the season. It’s just that everyone will watch it from the sofa.
The expectation is that Liverpool will pick up where they left off. The Anfield side need just two more wins to formalise their championship – and celebrate winning the league for the first time in 30 years – but, for all that they will claim their crown without anyone chatting about asterisks and tainted titles, it is a fairly brutal moment for their supporters to be robbed of.
If the games that have been beamed back so far from the Bundesliga have been a fix for those missing their regular diet of daily live sport, it has been a weird experience to watch matches without supporters.
Regardless of what clubs do to try and generate atmosphere and replicate the feeling of having people in the stadium they still feel like soulless affairs. It might be a bit of fun to earwig in on some of the insults that will be traded on the pitch between rival players but ultimately the novelty of that will wear off fairly quickly.
And for the Liverpool supporters who have waited three decades to see their team declared the best in the country again, it will be a bittersweet moment. With the chat being that the games will be played at a neutral venue in a bid to prevent fans congregating at the stadium, it remains far from an ideal way to go and win a league.
Closer to home, there is every chance that the vote to conclude the league season early in the face of the pandemic and in light of the financial plight of the clubs who were inevitably keen for prize money to be released will guarantee pub arguments for years to come.
If lockdown is clearly sending us a little stir-crazy then one could only surmise that Gareth McAuley was sick of listening to himself and fancied mixing the pot for a change of pace.
The former Northern Ireland internationalist curried favour with his old club Rangers, whom he turned out for less than a dozen times, when he suggested that Celtic’s title was handed to them.
He failed to mention just who handed it to them. Had Rangers kept up the pressure and form that they showed in the opening half of the season and remained neck-and-neck with Neil Lennon’s side, there is no chance that the league could or would have been called when it was.
For now, though, there is the glimmer of getting back to talking about something that is a bit more relevant.
An imminent return to football will at least provide a few talking points, not least that an August return will beg the question of whether a Scottish football could have held off. Bring forth the fresh controversies and talking points to get us off our seats.
AND ANOTHER THING...
WHAT comes next for Hearts if Ann Budge’s league reconstruction plan hits the buffers?
There was merit in the 1414-14 plan for the next couple of seasons but given the whiff of self-interest of it – and that isn’t a criticism – there was every chance that other clubs would torpedo it.
But the 72-year-old has been clear from the outset that she is willing to go the long haul and use every legal avenue available to the club if the are expelled from the top flight.
It is impossible not to have sympathy for Hearts and Partick Thistle. Denied the opportunity to dig their way out of a hole they spent the bulk of the season digging, there is a fair argument that they were unlawfully relegated and at serious financial cost.
This week a similar case was taken to France’s Council of State, the highest administrative state in the country given the fury of Amiens and Lyon. The latter were potentially denied a Europa League place – and the finances to go with it – while the former were the relegation victims. The expectancy will be that Budge is watching it unfold with some interest.
It’s just that everyone will watch it from the sofa