'Football' focus

Another new football season has already begun and it feels like a huge release.

Not just because I've missed the regular fix of domestic football, especially in the absence of a proper international competition (the Confederations Cup doesn't count), but because I grow tired of all the speculative transfer rumours, news of clubs financial turmoil and the general nonsense of an annual silly season that erupts over the summer months.

My own club Chelsea is as much to blame as any. Drogba, so insistent that his time at the Blues was over, has performed a more dramatic about face than Jodie Marsh's make up and John Terry, the so-called 'Mr Chelsea', has treated all the fans like complete morons (the fact that most Chelsea fans are morons is no excuse), claiming his silence on any potential transfer to Man City was because he, "wanted to find the right words to say." Quite simply - bollocks!

Despite this though, I'm not going to fall into the trap of bemoaning the loss of football's soul (although I accept that it may well have slipped down the back of the sofa with the small change some time ago), nor will I claim that football was so much better in the good old days.

There may have been more club loyalty, you may have seen the players down the local boozer and your salary may have only been a couple of zero's less than your idols but when you cut through all the hoi poloi, the thrill of seeing Gerrard driving into the opposition box or the joy of watching Arshavin skinning a couple of defenders before burying a shot into the far corner, still makes you tingle with the same excitement as ever.

So here's my plea for the new season. As the drama unfolds, resist the temptation to talk endlessly of terrible refereeing decisions or how you was robbed by a diving centre forward cheating his way to a penalty award. We love to debate these things and of course they add spice but ultimately we can't control them and even though it's a cliche, these decisions generally do even themselves out over the course of 38 games.

Instead, wax lyrical over a sublime piece of silky skill, gesticulate wildly when describing a real rasper unleashed from the edge of the box or swear liberally in appreciation of a point blank reaction save.

Above all, let the words of 'Big' Ron Atkinson ring sagely in your ears.... "I never comment on referees and I'm not changing the habit of a lifetime for that prat!"