Well, that was the summer break that was, although it certainly didn't feel like a long one, with it being less than two months between the play-off semi-final defeat at home to Leeds and the first pre-season game of this campaign at Kendal two weeks ago last night. It's certainly left little time for rest, recuperation and reflection for players and supporters alike. We're back at Brunton Park today though after a less than entertaining summer of rain, wind, and wind and rain, although there have been a few occasional spells of rain and wind instead just to mix things up a little bit. As someone who likes to spend as much time as he can hacking around the golf course, it does get rather wearing after a while constantly checking the BBC forecasts to pick a bright spell in the weather to get out there. Still, at least every Saturday is now booked up in the calendar. Even those eight weeks seemed like an eternity with no football to keep us going through the long winter, erm summer, months. Euro 2008 was never going to be as entertaining without England to support, but it was still an excellent tournament, with some great passing football on the go, and the Germans lost in the final which is always a bonus. There is always one player that makes a big name for himself at these tournaments, and this year was no exception with Andrei Arshavin being the relative unknown who now has clubs all across Europe clamouring for his signature. It doesn't look like Arsenal will snap him up, but, although Arshavin dreams of Barcelona, it could be Arsenal themselves that have actually scuppered that avenue, after the Catalan club signed playmaker Alexander Hleb from the Gunners last week. Russia and Spain played the best stuff in the competition, with Holland surprisingly capitulating to Russia in the quarter-finals after they played some scintillating football in the group stages. Spain were strongly represented in the UEFA team of the tournament as well, with nine of their players featuring in the squad of 23. Which, kind of makes you wonder why it's called team of the tournament instead of squad of the tournament, but that's the common sense of UEFA for you I suppose. On the subject of UEFA and common sense, a topic we could go on about for weeks, what do you make of the decision to expand the European Championships from 16 teams to 24 teams from 2016? Not only will that surely mean the tournament lasts for over a month, but it more than likely means six groups and a few third-placed teams from four team groups qualifying for the knockout stages, a recipe for defensive tactics if either there was one. That was one good thing about EURO 2008, attacking football, albeit some of it on the break, seemed to be back in vogue. Apart from hapless defending champions Greece of course, who seemed to forget the attacking on the break bit as they just stuck with playing in their own half for 90 minutes. Co-hosts Austria and Switzerland were little better, but like Greece, they did have to play with some burden of expectation on their shoulders. For the first time in many years I didn't actually bother watching the final, a nice evening of weather meant I ventured out onto the golf course. I was more than pleased to get back in the car, stick the radio on and find out that Spain had won though, as the best, and most entertaining, team they certainly deserved to wipe out their traditional tag of flattering to deceive. With golf in mind, I'm typing this on a Sunday night just after watching the end of the Open from Royal Birkdale, and the excellent performance of Greg Norman at the age of 53 certainly gives us all hope. I doubt there are many golfers in their 50's who wouldn't take getting married to Chris Evert one month and then finishing third in a Major the next month. It's back to concentrating on football now though, with the majority of the summer now behind us as the mind turns from Wimbledon to AFC Wimbledon. We've got the MK Dons in our division now as well, and I can see both them and Peterborough being real forces to be reckoned with the amount of financial backing behind both sides. Leeds and Leicester will more than likely be the two to chase for the automatic promotion spots, but let's hope that we can go one better than we did last season, and make into the Championship, here's hoping!! |