Well, that’s the end of that then as another regular League One season draws to a close this afternoon, with just the play-offs to come over the next few weeks. The big question of course is what are you going to do with yourself over the summer months now there is no Carlisle United game to go to on a weekend. Last year we had yet another England penalty shootout disaster to look forward to, plus London 2012 was also on the horizon, albeit deep into the pre-season schedule.
2013 doesn’t have much exciting coming up on the footballing radar over the summer months though. No real major men’s football tournament for starters takes that interest out of the equation, although the play-offs and Champions League final do at least take us up to the last weekend of May. Immediately after that come a couple of England friendlies, at home to the Republic of Ireland and away to Brazil to keep things ticking over, although how much interest you can muster up for an England friendly these days is more than open to question.
But, then what’s that staring at us in the distance, hmm, like I said there is no real major men’s football tournament coming up this summer, with the Confederations Cup taking place in Brazil from the middle to the end of June. The two groups for that competition comprising of Brazil, Italy, Japan and Mexico in Group A, with Nigeria, Spain, Tahiti and Uruguay then set to battle it out in Group B, before the top two in each table move on to the semi-finals and a third/fourth place play-off or the final.
From your televisual experience perspective all but three of the 12 group games kick-off at 4pm local time which I think makes that 8pm in this country, a perfect time really for watching an evening game of football, with the remaining three being 11pm kick-offs in the UK. Both semis are again 8pm starts, while the third/fourth game is on at 5pm and the final is once more an 11pm kick-off, although unfortunately it’s on a Sunday night, which isn’t ideal.
So, up to the end of June we are and with next season’s Football League campaign kicking off on the earlier date of August 3rd, it’s highly likely that pre-season training will be starting at around the same time, with the usual Friday night fixture at Kendal presumably coming a week or so later. The reason that the 2013-14 season starts early incidentally being down to a ballot of clubs that resulted in that date being chosen as it sticks another Saturday game into the calendar, with a busy festive period planned too of games on the 21st, 26th and 29th of December and then also on New Year’s Day.
If the thought of the pre-season schedule doesn’t whet your appetite enough at that time of year though then there is always the UEFA Women’s EURO 2013 which takes place in Sweden between the 10th and the 28th of July and which will be broadcast on BBC3. England are in it too in a slightly strange tournament which sees just three groups of four at the qualifying stage, meaning that eight of the twelve countries competing will make it to the quarter-finals. England’s group of four including France, Russia and Spain, with France the only side ranked above us on the FIFA list, with in Europe the French ranked 2nd, England 4th, Spain 10th and Russia 13th.
That’s the on the pitch stuff then, but of course there will be the traditional stuff off the playing surface as well, starting with the soon to come released and retained list which always provokes some good debate, while the new signing rumour mill continues to grind away throughout the summer. During that period though comes the release date of the 2013-14 League One fixtures, which come out at 9am on Wednesday 13th June, while the first round draw for the Capital One Cup will also take place at around the same time. Plenty to keep you interested, to a lesser degree obviously, over the close season then so have a good summer and we’ll see you all again at Brunton Park in July no doubt.