You ready?

No, not for Saturday, today. Football returns from the abyss at Villa Park this evening, which is 2pm here so I may grant myself a later lunch stop to soak in the artificial crowd noise. There will even be audio from the coin toss.

Players were warned that there should be social distancing goal celebrations, with a camera identified to celebrate in front off. With players naturally drawn to fans when they’ve scored, I look forward to the first player to score and give it the Sssh fingers to lips motion in front of an empty stand!

I’m intrigued by the kick off times of games, possibly other than the war years I don’t expect Charlton have ever kicked off at 6pm, and even then that would be too late pre-floodlights. I think war games were often held in the morning and early afternoon due to visibility and black-outs.

I’m football starved like the rest of us, but I’ve struggled to get into the Bundesliga lest to have it on as background noise, not literally of course. I am sure I will take in a fair few of the Premier League games as they come thick and fast, but undeniably I’m more inclined to watch The Championship and League One and Two play-off games.

You have to think that there will be a big TV audience for the games though, and hopefully much more so for the ‘free to air’ ones.

Let football resume!