THE NEVER ENDING SEASON

To be printed in the friendly v Brentford B Tuesday 15th July 2025

I love runner beans. We grow masses of them at our community garden and they are easily my favourite vegetable, but are only available four months of the year. Freeze them and they taste insipid and soggy. So wouldn’t it be great if you could have runner beans all year round? Nah, I just wouldn’t enjoy them as much. That’s how I see the football season. I like when it ends (so does my wallet and liver) and I can really get on with growing runner beans and other vegetables (but not aubergines – they should be given a vegetable banning order). But now football is served up to us every day; never ending tournaments to satisfy the TV bosses, who cram more in until we become bloated and bored-sick.

There was no play offs for Slough, but I listened with fingers and toes crossed while putting pins in a black and white voodoo dolly, hoping that we would be playing Maidenhead next season. That seemed to do the trick.

I paid a subscription and watched a roller coaster of a game against Oldham and Southend in the National League final – with an attendance of over 50,000 that could have been even more if it wasn’t capped because of the football fans pet hate, transport disruption. A goal from a recently departed Slough player and a fairytale ending for a loveable Oldham owner who was beaming with pride knowing how a successful team can help transform his home town.

I watched this on my phone via another company hoping to hit the TV football jackpot, DAZN. You should never trust a company whose name you can’t pronounce, and DAZN sounds like some cheap imitation washing machine powder from Bulgaria that doesn’t remove the stains, but adds a few new ones.

Shopping Powder TV also has exclusive access to the Club World Cup, a superleague with bells on. Like a travelling footballing salesman meets the circus. I managed to miss it all. But im glad we’ve sacrificed FA Cup replays for competitions like this.

We all know where we are heading with the Club World Cup. The powers that be have still got the hump they couldn’t get their European super league, so they chip away until its already happening, behind our backs in plain sight.

And as world temperatures continue to climb, will people be able to play football in the suffocating heat of the summer? And will American TV finally realise their dream of multiple drinks breaks so they can cram in more adverts for food and drinks peak athletes wouldn’t touch with a barge pole? Will cold wet neck towels become a fashion accessory like those stupid sleeping bag coats people wear that were designed for keeping warm after a swim in the sea not for a shopping trip to Waitrose.

TV viewing figures nose dived 10% in last part of the season – blamed on a Premier League where Liverpool won at a canter while the Championship Clubs all got relegated again for the second season running. Premier league clubs are chasing tourists rather than those annoying so called ‘legacy’ fans, who never spend enough in the superstores buying the fifth away kit and the branded pants. This is where savvy lower league owners can tap into to disgruntled supporters and make them their own.

DAZN and the Club World Cup is of course bankrolled by Saudi Arabia who are experimenting with a whole new Virtual Reality fans experience. My mate Gibby whose an expert in these things told me ‘The Fifa Club World Cup VR Experience has shown the way forward for sports in VR and mixed reality….with spectacular views feeling like you are on the pitch, in the crowd...while Subbuteo type pitches show you real time movement of players.’

We talked about whether this solitary experience of football is the future. Another way to add to the loneliness and obesity epidemic? Or will people still want to be immersed in the real world, in a crowd of people with restricted views but collective joy and misery.

As we’ve been told ‘Football its a simple game, made complicated by people who should know better.’ But the football of the future and the way we consume it is probably as unimaginable to us now as todays football would be to a supporter 100 years ago. Still, when you boil it down, its still 22 players kicking the ball around a pitch. And then blaming the ref when things don’t go the way for their team