Let’s face it, this really is the best time of year to be a football fan, no matter which team you support. Not a ball has been kicked yet. No games have been won, and, perhaps more importantly, no games have been lost. There’s a new manager who talks about promotion and wanting to play in the right way, on the front foot, entertaining the crowd, getting up the table. A lot of players have gone but that means that of course a lot of players will arrive.

Some we will have heard of but many we won’t and at this time of year they will all have the potential to become heroes. ‘This time next year…’ we all say, like versions of Del Trotter. This time next year we’ll be in the Championship. This time next year we’ll have won the FA Cup. This time next year we’ll hang on to that 20-goal striker.

There are those, quite few in number, who advocate for continuous football with no break, no concept of seasons, as though football is a tap that never gets turned off. And it’s true that what with the Euros and the international tours and the friendlies it seems that there never is a pause but it’s the pause that builds up the excitement, in my opinion. The pause is like the eye of the storm, and it’s good to relish that moment of calm.

As well as being a football fan I’m also a fan of orchestral music and there’s a similar pause with one of my favourite orchestras, and the one I go and see most often, The Halle Orchestra in Manchester. They work in seasons and I get excited when the new season is about to be announced and then when it’s announced I go through the list of concerts and mark off the ones I’m going to go to in my diary. I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to that Philip Glass gig in February 2025; I’d highly recommend it if you’re a fan of American minimalism, or even if you’re a fan of good music. It’s like with the football: at this stage of the year, in the lull between concerts, I’m sure that this will be the best season ever and if the concerts went on all year there would be nothing to look forward to.

And, let’s face it, the concerts may not all be uniformly brilliant. And, let’s face it, the new season, the season that’s waiting in the tunnel to run down onto the pitch, may not be the best season we’ve ever had. But at this point, at this point in early June, it will.

So how about if, with your season ticket, you got a little time machine, a Tarn Tardis that you could use to flick forward to the last day of the season, even before the fixtures came out. Would you use it? Would you want to travel through space to that day in may when the season ended, just to know where we finished up?

I’ve been thinking hard about this and I’m not sure, just as I’m not sure if I would want to go to the applause at the end of that Philip Glass show in February next year to see if I enjoyed it or not. Part of me wants to, because then I could decide whether to go for the train but part of me wants to be surprised.

It's the same with the football. Will the last game be the game that gets us promoted or, and let’s hope not, sends us down? Will it mid-table mediocrity or a playoff push? On balance, I think I’d rather not know because then what would all the anticipation be about? What would be the point of the season if the season was already over before it began? I’ll stick to not knowing, ta. Mind you, if there was a Tarn Time Machine with the season ticket I’d keep it in my drawer just so that, if the season was going well, or badly, I could sneak a quick look and see if it was worth booking a holiday or not.

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Everything’s possible at this moment, or ‘at this moment in time’ as Danny Wilson used to say. Everything’s possible. Just don’t look at the time machine!