Overpaid, posturing footballers back on our TV screens

Yes, before he returned to work after a relaxing two-week summer break, Mr Pendle tuned in to watch Match of the Day and found little had changed since the end of the last football season in May.

There were the same posturing, prancing, pampered, overpaid, cheating, conniving, shirt stripping, knee sliding, aren’t I great (no, you’re not, in the vast majority of cases) footballers whose every action will be featured on the back pages of our national press for the next nine months.

In that time, we will see blinkered managers who fail to see the most blatant indiscretions by their own players and yet somehow manage to see a similar incident committed by an opponent.

On top of that, Burnley have returned to the Premier League and so there will be increased media coverage of events at Turf Moor, with even the most trivial of events being blown out of all proportion.

Mr Pendle will have one ear tuned in to the radio to how the Clarets fare, but his attention will be focused on his television and the rugby league.

No pampered overpaid players, no cheating, no shirt stripping – just 26 men going hell for leather for 80 minutes.

Sheer bliss!