Fixture day breaks up the summer of sorrow for football fans

Generally speaking, May and June are torrid months for football fans. The season is over, and depending on your team’s fortunes, you may be reliving the nightmare of that last day relegation, or that failure to get into the playoffs thanks to the missed penalty.

Yes there’s Wimbledon, and yes there’s the cricket, but do these really compare?
No, they don’t. But there is one shining light: one day, when the despair of the season just gone gets cast aside, and you and every other football fan suddenly has an immense feeling of optimism, of what can happen…of the dreams, the away days. That day is fixture release day – when you find out who you’ll be smashing 4-1 on the opening day, who you’ll be thrashing at Christmas, etc.

The optimism from football fans on fixture release day is laughable, really, but it’s brilliant at the same time, and it’s one of the reasons football is so good, isn’t it?
For one day, the despair of a couple of months without football (no, the Confederations Cup doesn’t count – I’d much sooner be at Kenilworth Road for Luton v Tamworth) is irrelevant. The mind wonders far and wide at the possibilities of the next campaign.

This pre season is worst than most, of course. It’s the odd season where there is no European Championships, and there is no World Cup. Not only can we not scream at our love-to-hate central midfielder who can’t pass the ball for toffee, but we can’t even pass the time yelling at our TV while England’s prima donnas once again fall at the quarter final stage (having built up our hopes in the group stage, of course).

By the time the fixtures come out, it’s already a case of despair for most. We’re screaming at ourselves –

“ Why haven’t we signed that left winger we so badly need?”

“How is that manager still in a job? He was given an ultimatum in January and only won one of the ten last games!!”

It’s horrible, isn’t it – but it’s the reason we all love football and the reason we all love our team. Wives and girlfriends up and down the country long for the day when the football season ends and they can have their husband’s attention for a couple of months. They might get it for a week or so, but once the fixtures are out? They’ve got no chance – it’s time to focus on the next season – when we’re definitely going to win something…

For football fans, the new season could mean many things: joy, despair, adulation, hope, tears – or the same old feeling of mid-table mediocrity, depending on your team. But this season, it could mean something else – it could mean smashing home a penalty in *your* stadium of dreams, winning the adulation of the crowd and proving, once and for all, that you’ve got what it takes to get the job done under pressure, as part of the Strongbow Earn It Campaign. You’ll undoubtedly have dreamed of it, but the question is: have you got what it takes to actually go through with it? Win the chance to bowl against James Anderson, take the penalty challenge, or try your hand at stand up comedy, and earn your colours. Visit the site to learn more.