Beat The First Man

Cricket season ends. X Factor starts. Nights draw in. Floodlights go on. And some whining no-mark starts banging on about the need for a winter break in this sub-Antarctic climate we stoically live through every year.

There is an argument for it, apparently. This edition of the Golden Generation are going to get a bit tired running up and down football pitches, playing endless FA Cup replays. Oh won’t someone think of the children? Because, if Theo or Jordan are exhausted, then who is going to underperform for England?

Here’s a thought then. Front-load the start of the season, when players are arguably not quite match fit, so will only benefit from all the extra running and jumping and stuff what footballers do. The weather will be better too. Admit the League Cup is a farce, and offer a fig branch to the Premiership by saying that European qualification outranks Cup entrance. They won’t care. 

Then, when the sainted Champions League kicks off, hotly pursued by the ginger step child that is the Europa League, Swansea can give their reserves a run out against a mildly apathetic bunch from League One, and we’re all equally knackered.

When the weather turns sour, as apparently it always does with Tag-Heuer like precision  we can back off the Cup games, do a bit of league work, and wait for the inevitable blizzards and floodings, before the rest of Europe emerges from their 27-tog duvets.

We live in the UK. It is one of the world’s less predictable regions, meterologically speaking. In the last two years we have had tremendous amounts of snow in November and in March. Are we to sit on our hands in the middle of January, cos it is a bit damp? The only teams who ever suffer from any serious fixture backlog exist lower down the pyramid. Those without undersoil heating. And lower still, those who have to compete in locally sanctioned County Cups and Chairmans’ Trophies. 

Football in England, and England themselves, dances to the beat of the Premier League. It is to the Football Association’s eternal shame that such an imbalance was allowed to materialise. This is not a request for the betterment of the national squad, let alone the national game. It is simply those at the top table trying to get their own way yet again. Fuck ‘em.