Forget about enjoying a quiet pint in your local, over the next nine months you will be surrounded by soccer fanatics, writes Mary Hannigan
True, not everyone will greet the return of the English Premiership today with unbridled joy. For some it simply heralds the start of nine uninterrupted months of misery, when their beloveds will talk of little else and become so obsessed they'll insist on naming their new baby Vicente Matias Vuoso O'Reilly if the Argentinian scores the winner for City in the Manchester derby. Even if it's a girl.
Dismal days ahead, too, for those who enjoy a quiet pint in the local on a Sunday afternoon. From this weekend they'll be surrounded by grown men in West Bromwich Albion shirts, who still have Cyril Regis posters on their bedroom walls, who'll spill their pints every time their team concedes a goal. And such is the quality of West Bromwich Albion's defence the local could end up under five feet of lager.
For others, though, the start of the Premiership season comes as a relief. Few, you can be sure, will welcome it more enthusiastically than Roy Keane's dog who's had the paws walked off him since the end of May. Now that his master is back at work, he can catch up on all that cat-chasing and lost sleep. Happy days.
The big summer story, of course, was the transfer of Rio Ferdinand from Leeds to Manchester United (with the tribute from Daily Record reporter James Traynor still ringing in his ears: "If Rio Ferdinand is world class then Gazza is Parkinson").
Those of us who still remember Alf Common's record-breaking move from Sunderland to Middlesbrough for £1,000 in 1905, the same season Laurent Blanc made his professional debut, found the £29.1 million fee quite astounding. It could have been more, though - word has it United offered Leeds £35 million for Ferdinand if they promised to take Phil Neville off their hands. Leeds rejected the offer, saying they'd enough trouble as it was.
United's season started badly on Wednesday when they lost 1-0 to crack Hungarian outfit Zalaegerszeg in their Champions League qualifier, a result that was greeted with some emotion by non-United supporters. "Oh dearie me," said the Leeds faithful, for example, when that last-minute goal went in. Still, though, it will have done little to lift their spirits. After selling Ferdinand, Leeds bought Nick Barmby - and people wonder why their supporters look depressed?
Arsenal, commonly known as "lucky", won the Premiership last season but God is good so they're unlikely to retain it. The one advantage they have, though, over their rivals is that most of their team is French so they have had a long restful summer after spending the same length of time at the World Cup as Saudi Arabia.
And what of Liverpool? Well, they haven't won the title since the last century and Everton supporters will hope they'll have to wait until the next one before winning it again. If goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek and Emile Heskey play like they did in the World Cup, Everton fans will have nothing to fear and can give their undivided attention to their own relegation battle.
SUNDERLAND will hold a special interest for Irish folk this season having assembled a squad that has resulted in them being re-christened "Sundireland".
At the latest count their first team squad contains eight Irish players, which probably means Mick McCarthy will spend more time in the north-east this season than in his own home. (The only club in England to rival Sunderland in the "green" stakes is third division Carlisle United, or the "Sellafield Shamrocks" as they are affectionately known.)
Spurs have had an unhappy pre-season, regularly announcing the imminent signing of household names only for the players in question to declare that they'd rather join Bognor Regis Rovers (see Rivaldo and Fernando Morientes).
"When a player gets to 30, so does his body," Spurs manager Glenn Hoddle once said, and it is that degree of footballing insightfulness the club's supporters hope will help result in a successful season (e.g. missing out narrowly on Europe again).
Newcastle, too, have a wily manager at the helm, the thoroughly lovable Bobby Robson, fresh from his starring role in ITV's World Cup coverage ("There will be a game where somebody scores more than Brazil and that might be the game that they lose" and "Ireland have got to score to win the game").
Robson's big summer signing was Portuguese midfielder Hugo Viana who announced on his arrival at Newcastle that "the thing I am going to miss about Portugal is the food", adding "that is why I have brought my mother with me".
VIANA and his Ma are two of a large contingent of foreigners to sign for English clubs this summer, which means there will be even more language problems in dressing rooms the length of the country.
Fortunately there were always those willing to help the new boys settle in, like Dennis Wise who once said: "We've signed five foreigners over the summer and I'll be on hand to learn them a bit of English."
Hopefully no one will have quite the same difficulties as Englishman Mark Draper experienced after he joined Spanish club Rayo Vallecano. "Permiso, permiso," he often shouted at his team-mates, having been told it meant "pass, pass".
He never received the ball and was greeted by mystified looks, probably because he was actually shouting "driving licence, driving licence" at them.
Lots to look forward to, then. Earlier this week Coventry City's player-manager Gary McAllister vowed: "I'm not going to make any predictions, but I think there will be six or eight teams challenging for promotion and we'll be one of them." Such caution is wise, so rather than tell you what will happen this season we'll tell you what won't.