We have our football back – The rhythm kicks in again | OneFootball

Finally, after the boring interruption of the Euros and the summer break, we have our football back with Newcastle United.

The season is up and running and three points on the board for Newcastle United, despite Fabian Schar seeing red.

The rhythm of the season has started and happy I am to have the latest Premier League campaign back.

I can now plan my weekends again, based around the football.

The midweek games also giving an added resonance to the rhythm of the year ahead.

When I was a kid, the rhythm was the warm up games, Texaco Cup, then the Christmas schedule, then the FA Cup and then the dry scarred pitches that ended the season and once again we would be trophyless.

A repetition that ended with the FA Cup final, where you had to choose a team you did not support, but for that day it was crisps and pop and you picked a side.

After that it was the home internationals and the patriotism poured out. This was the cycle in my pre=teenage years.

It hasn’t changed through life. The repetition of games over a period of time creating an alternative beat to the humdrum of the world of school and then later work.

Fixture lists written into the diary and cross-referenced to important dates and annual events.

The rhythm of the football season is back but it is being tampered with. Games being moved with little notice. The self-appointed elite clubs who are in Europe, now effectively seeded in the League Cup third round (on top of not even having to play in the second round).

This tinkering, though irritating, does not alter the bigger picture. The one of the cyclical process.

A trip back to Tyneside from our home in London, summer indoctrination for my kids completed with fish and chips in Tynemouth, Roman ruins and walks along the river at Hexham.

If only we could get tickets for St James’ Park.

Missed out on tickets so far but on Wednesday we will be watching the Forest game on TV. My Forest mate with his kids decked out in Forest kit and my kids in Black and White and no doubt we will be watching alongside members of the South American community.

A microcosm of the Sky Sports designers’ dream (minus two slightly drunk middle-aged lads shouting foul abuse at the proceedings).

So as the nights cut in, the rhythm of the football season begins and the cycle starts again. I am just simply grateful that we have got our football back.