JUST A NORMAL BLOODY SEASON

The ‘ new normal’ came to mean several things in football over the past year or so – but finally, it’s time to bring the old normal back again.

For the first time in three years, there’s hope that some sort of tradition can return. A league season that runs from August to May – not August to July with an unexpected three- month break in the middle, or from September to May with the world’s most ludicrously packed fixture list.

Minus international breaks, Manchester City played in every midweek but one during that eight- month period – and that break was only because a match at Everton was postponed because of COVID. Tottenham had to cram a League Cup match and Europa League tie into the same midweek during the opening weeks of the campaign, while Manchester United and Rotherham were required to play four games in a week during the run- in.

The League Cup final is set to return to its traditional late February date, rather than being played in April. This campaign will feature only one final of the Scottish Cup, EFL Trophy, FA Trophy and FA Vase – not none, like two seasons ago, or two, like last season. Sadly, last season’s Women’s FA Cup will resume with the quarter- finals in September... but we’re getting there.

Kick- off times will return to something approaching sensible – midweek EFL games to 7.45pm, not 7pm or even 5pm, when people were still at work. Midweek Premier League clashes at 6pm have been banished.

On the opening weekend of the Premier League season, five games are scheduled for Saturday at 3pm, rather than the staggered kick- off times which made it feel like no matter what day or time it was, a top- flight game was being played somewhere. 4am on a Thursday, you say? Sure. Probably.

The frenzied rush to get through all of the fixtures, all of the time, has come to an end. Fake crowd noise has gone, to be replaced by actual human voices. Imagine! Away fans at matches, not just home supporters or their cardboard cutout equivalents.

August to May, the old normal is back. It’s football as it was always meant to be – the football we fell in love with. So watch it, and drink it in. Go and support your local club; experience it all in the flesh.

If FFT gets our wish, none of us will ever see anything like the nonsense of the last 16 months ever again...