Freebie Friday: Are we in limbo or perfectly aligned?

Season ending or season starting, or maybe just somewhere in the middle

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Whilst football is in a bit of limbo, there’s still plenty to write about. Where do you sit though? Has last season now ended as we’re in June and less than 5% competitive games going on? Does next season start when the players return to pre-season or when the first pre-season friendly kicks off?

It’s quite open to interpretation I think, although from an admin point of view there would be a clear cut off point of when one season ends and the next begins. A lot will agree the space in between or the close season is getting shorter every year.

Although we are now back on an even keel when the leagues are starting and finishing around the same time the start date for a return to pre-season seems to come around very quickly. For some National League players their season only just finished on 21^st May at Wembley and with most heading back for the new season around the 26^th June the break isn’t long.

In a way for the players there’s less time to get out of shape, but just about a long enough period to rest and recuperate before it all starts again. But what about for us fans and supporters?

Well, every single snippet of news on social media or rumour for that matter is dissected ten times over. The communications teams at most clubs are very deft at teasing their announcements in order to make you refresh the club feed every three seconds or throw the phone across the room when nothing appears for the 45^th time of checking.

I can see you all smirking or nodding because we all do it don’t we! And they know we’re going to do it until they release that snippet of a new signing or an announcement of the latest pre-season friendly.

And then comes the news that such and such have signed so and so, a player you thought might look good in your colours and gliding across your pitch, the fever pitch reached it’s crescendo and is now on the way down, another day down with nothing to cling onto, no morsel or crumb nibbled on, we go and we wait again.

But when it does come, everything goes into overdrive, your WhatsApp kicks off, the club feed appears everywhere across your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, even YouTube and TikTok and for some time you can be lost in the world of football once again as everyone adds their opinion.

But what would we be without the rumours and hearsay? It’s part and parcel of the game we know and while probably less than 50% of it is actual truth there is an element of fun to be had with some of it.

By the time you read this no doubt things will be starting to hot up, pre-season schedules are there in the domain and should begin to show up in the Non League Paper at the weekend as we scour the fixtures to find out where we can be fitted around our summer holiday.

Players will be back from their own, agents with four phones to the ears trying to get the most money they can squeeze from clubs eager to make a statement signing or just spend over the odds to try and steal a march hoping it pays dividends.

Whatever we see, whatever we hear we’re never happy but that’s the beauty of the game, opinions and ability to be proved wrong all the time we wouldn’t have it any other way would we?

Are you already wanting the season to start? Are you enjoying the downtime and feel it can all wait another three weeks or so? Let me know in the comments section below.