It's a beautiful day!

SO it's that time of the year again, that time of the year when the shameless Football Correspondent begins his column with the phrase: it's that time of year again.

Not too far behind in the second paragraph, you are bound to come across some nice, descriptive stuff about the sun blazing down on the fresh green grass and snow-white lines, and how all the fans travel in hope and expectation on the one day of the season when the playing pitch is truly level and, for ninety minutes only, all clubs - from the mega-rich masters to the small change servants - are created equal.

Proper order too, say I. Enough words have been written about the disfigurement of the beautiful game, about how football has sold its soul, and about how a people's pure passion has been soiled by the dirty corporate hand and the mad excesses of its not so super stars. There's truth in that too, of course, though not as much as the back page magnification would have you believe.