Um, excuse me, it's started now

So you can all stop saying things like "what, football already, it's still summer". Actually I think you'll find there's a distinct chill in the air.

Or clearly not, but then that's hardly the point. We don't need your permission to have football back. We're prepared to share the fag end of summer with you, but you have to share it with us.

Especially in a sports bar. If there is one place in the whole fucking world where sports should take priority, it's there. Surely.

And yet, on Friday night - yes that's right, the first night of proper football on the telly since the cherry trees in all the haikus shed their blossom (the leaves are full now - the birds had all the cherries - but football is back), you're sat in a sports bar (I do feel the need to emphasise the location), there's a real live game right there on the many artfully placed screens in front of you, and what do you all do? You eat, you talk to other, you listen to the jukebox. Idiots.

The bar staff are your pawns, obviously. I asked if they could switch off the music and replace it with the commentary, but was rebuffed. "I'm afraid people are still eating". Is there something about footballers' names that impairs the digestion? More than Celine fucking Dion? No, I didn't think so.

You couldn't blame the staff though. The entire audience for the actual game consisted of six or seven scowling men, scattered individually through the pub. The rest of you were forgetting where you were. It's August the fifth, and you're in a sports bar. Act like it.

There was a game. Blackpool at Hull. So far as I could tell, it was a good game. I don't know who the fuck did what, on account of the sound blackout, but there were some chances, some poor shooting, some good shooting (both sides hit the woodwork once), some great defensive tackles and one magnificent shoulder barge. It's an endangered species, the shoulder barge. We should have a campaign to protect it.

Blackpool nicked it, with a goal after 80 minutes. Taylor-Fletcher played a one-two with some damn person, shot home from wide right in the box, and that was it, job done, three points.

They may be empty cliches to you, but after three empty months, I can assure you, I've just come all over my keyboard. Yes, I'm typing this naked. No you can't imagine it. Banish those thoughts from your mind immediately. I'm not doing this for your gratification you know.

Hull were profligate at the end, missing two good chances to equalise, but Blackpool and Ian Holloway walk away with three points.

I can't tell you the name of the pub, because the barmaid let me into a secret. She'd been taken on in a south Bristol pub because demand was expected to pick up with the new season (what with it being a SPORTS BAR - did I mention that?), but she herself was a Rovers fan. I promised her her secret was safe with me.

Next day, things signally failed to pick up. See the next post for details.