New season, new dreams – and echoes of old memories

It’s the time of year when hope springs eternal, when the old slate is wiped clean, the failings and disappointments of the past are consigned to history, when everyone is equal for a day or two at least.

In other words, it’s the first weekend of the Premiership football season.

And from the west coast of Ireland, we speak of ‘our’ teams, often in places we’ve been to once or twice or never – Manchester, Liverpool, London, Newcastle – as though we were born and lived there.

Not alone do we talk in a proprietorial way but those who know the identity of our favourite team actually ask us if we’ve any insight on who might be coming or going, as though we’ve a source in the boardroom.

We hoover up all of the gossip on new signings, coveting a defensive midfielder from Georgia who we’d never heard of until the day before yesterday but who is now the final piece of the jigsaw on the road to glory.

And when he slips through the net or becomes the 98th signing of this transfer window alone for Chelsea, we’re privately distraught but publicly nonchalant because the 32-year-old lad we already have was always the best option in the first place.

If we’re of a younger age and it doesn’t look ridiculous, we might shell out the guts of a ton for the new replica shirt, which differs radically from last year’s in that there are different coloured collars and cuffs.

Super fans will also buy when we used to refer to as the away kit, but which is now just the second kit because there’s a third kit to both remove the tiniest chance of a colour clash and, by pure coincidence, maximise revenue in the club shop.

There are loads of Irish people with season tickets to Anfield or Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge; people who make the fortnightly odyssey by bus and boat, through the night and the dawn to take their usual seat before making the reverse journey to be back at work on Monday.

But for most of us, a Premiership trip is a very occasional and expensive journey, where – if you’re lucky – you pay just two and a half times the actual ticket price and three times the normal cost of a hotel room.

These tickets can often come back in unorthodox ways which adds to the sense of expectation of the occasion – not just as to how ‘your’ team will do…more if you’ll get in to see them in the first place.