The new football season

The season officially begins tomorrow night with our first game in the sectional league cup. This is organised in geographically local groups (4 groups of 6 clubs). Which means our first game is againt our oldest rivals. They are actually in the league below us.......this is the first time in our history we have started the season in a higher division than them. We beat them twice in this cup last season (3-0 at home and 6-3 away.......this was the first time we had scored more than 5 goals against them in one game since the 1950's). So we will start this game as favourites to win. I don't really care about this cup. I can't see us qualifying (the top two qualify) - but if we beat our rivals I'll be happy.

Last season had a strange situation. The way the quarter finals were drawn we went into our last game of the league section knowing that a win would mean our quarter final tie was away from home to the runners up of the section. So both clubs in that final game were determined not to win. Even got to the stage of one club missing a penalty. But we eventually won by a late goal. The player was sacked. Only joking. I think we got humped 6-1 against the same club in the quarter final.

Usually, at the start of the season the club is in dire straits. There is usually no committee, no money, hardly any players have re-signed. But this season almost all the players have now signed, we've got a better goalkeeper (he also lives in the town - plus another local player looks as though he will be signing up for another stint at the club). There is a few more on the committee. The ground looks a little bit better. There is now an anti-climb grease on top of the fencing round the ground to keep supporters from escaping. There is still a lack of money - but we can't have everything. We get a flag for winning the leage the previous season - unfortuinately, we have to pay for the flag ourselves.