Three Balls On Our Pitch (Cheadle Town 3-0 Glossop North End)

Two men and their dog went to watch a Cheadle

August the 12th seems a hell of a long way away still, the papers are awash with so many ludicrous stories as the Premiership splits itself into 3 separate leagues: the Chelsea league, the Champions League Position league and the Relegation league.

How it amuses to see the press collude with the whole scene. The Premiership sells papers, sells Sky boxes, pays wages and the whole thing is a feeding frenzy of greed and over-blown nonsense. Man Utd, so desperate for money, squabble over transfer fees that are so bloated because of the Chelseas riches; Liverpool, left to pick up the scraps, ignore their tradition and sign footballers crude in manners and in potential; Arsenal give in to the inevitable and give Cole to Chelsea receiving a sum that will never enable them to compete.

The rest of the league is totally interchangeable; would anyone notice if Charlton and Newcastle did a full squad-change? Or Fulham and Middlesbrough? And so on and so on. Are they playing for safety or are they doomed to relegation?

Football is 11 men against 11 men and a leather ball. God bless it for that. And what a fantastic sport it is when played in the true spirit. As football eats itself and cycling implodes on a drugs binge, other sports at other levels flourish, because you can't destroy the need for sport. You can't buy it off or drug it into oblivion, but there will always be the grassroots.

Cheadle Town truly do not dive and there is the point in a nutshell. To dive is to cheat, to cheat is to turn your back on what sport is all about; the England team were caught in that folly during the World Cup talking of the winning being everything and performances not relevant, oh how wrong, how wrong they were.

As our pre-season friendly played itself out yesterday there was a moment of sublime skill. A player trapped the ball in motion on the touchline and with the instep flicked a pass into the momentum of a forward running player. A quick interchange of passes followed and a triangle of pure football class was drawn. Brilliant true art.

" When the ball hits the goal like a big pizza roll that's a Cheadle...."