Here's to football giving us a warm glow (From Your Local Guardian)

Here's to football giving us a warm glow

11:55am Friday 9th May 2008

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It is a common complaint that the football season is getting longer and longer, and I'm sure Brentford boss Andy Scott probably wishes it had all ended a month or so ago.

It wasn't until the home defeat by Rochdale that the words play-offs' stopped being linked with the Bees.

That all seemed a distant memory after Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Stockport County, which meant Brentford finished a miserable 14th in League Two and left Scott warning his current squad that most of them have no future with the club.

So I don't expect Andy to agree, but isn't it daft that, just as the sun has come out, the Football League season has suddenly come to an abrupt halt?

Yes, I know a dozen league clubs are about to embark on that end-of-season lottery that nobody can seriously think is fair, but in a gruesome way everyone loves to watch.

Unless of course your club has done a Hull City, who deservedly finished third and could now see their Premiership dreams dashed by a Watford side who have earned contempt from their own fans, never mind anyone else, for their performances.

People go on about the drama of the play-offs, but I have always thought that as the weather gets more barmy, the football also naturally gets a little, well, more barmy.

When the pitches stop being boggy and the winds stop howling, the sides people actually enjoy watching, for example, West Brom, in the Championship, start to prosper.

And the boring percentage games played by the Watfords of this world stop being quite as effective.

Remember back in January when Brentford had to cram in midweek fixtures at the likes of Accrington Stanley?

Surely a trip to that match would have been a far more attractive proposition on a sunny, mid-May afternoon.

You wouldn't even need a mid-season break to extend the season by a Saturday or two - just get rid of the midweek fixtures in January and February when attendances tend to be at their lowest.

I am not suggesting football goes the whole hog and turns into a summer sport like rugby league.

But, surely, fans everywhere would prefer to watch football on a sunny early-summer's afternoon than on a miserable January evening.