AS THE Church & General National Football League resumes tomorrow, inter county managers have indicated by a substantial majority that they favour a season based on the calendar year.

For the next two seasons, the National Hurling League will be run on this basis, and an Irish Times survey of football managers shows large support for the league to follow suit.

Of the 33 polled (including selectors from Derry and Galway), 20 expressed enthusiastic support for the idea, while seven exhibited ambivalence and six outright opposition. There was also unsolicited support for the staging of the All Ireland B competition in conjunction with the senior championship.

At present the football season runs from October to September, with a two month break around Christmas. Within this 10 month period, some counties must content themselves with only eight matches, even though they are in training for around seven months.

The vast majority of counties will play their last league match on March 2nd; should they then lose their first championship fixture, they will have chalked up one match in seven months.

There will be other, more high profile counties - Dublin or Meath, Tyrone or Down, Mayo or Galway (six counties with 14 provincial titles between them this decade) who will find themselves eliminated after only one round in the championship. Despite having arduously attained peak levels of fitness, three of those counties will have nothing to do for nearly five months.

Some managers privately confess to feeling ambivalent about persuading players to put in intimidating levels of commitment for just one match.