On the ball. Again.

The new Championship season kicks off tonight, with the juicy encounter between Birmingam and Ipswich, who last seasn were two divisions apart.

More tommorow, and all on TV.

Another Sunday.

Then comes the League Cup.

And so begins the madness.

How come there is so much football, Ian? I don't hear you ask.

Well, good question.

Once upon a time there was just league and cup football. And not much international football. No European football at all. And no League Cup.

Four divisions of 22 or 24 teams, playing each other in their respective divisions home and away: 42 or 46 games per season. The cup was the FA Cup, with unlimited replays, mind, so played until one team or the other won the tie. One game, two games, four games. Whatever.

As football was "mass entertainment", entry was a few pennies or so, so that the owners wanted as many games as possible to turn a profit. Players were limited to £20 a week until the beginning of the 1960s.

So far, so good.

Then clubs decided they would like another competition to raise more cash. So the League Cup was born, for the 92 members of the Football League.

Initially, not all clubs took part, but within a few years, a Wembley final and entry into Europe made it all the more attractive.

Until the beginning of the 1950, English Football (through the FA) was happy to believe that its game was the best, so saw no real point in international matches, and only took part in the World Cup in 1954 onwards. International travel was tricky before then too. But a hammering by Hungary in 1953, 6-3, showed that English football might not be the best.

Soon, European football started. But again England was slow to take part, but high profile friendlies made the case, as did floodlights. By the end of the 50s, English teams were playing in European games.

So in a few years, football went from just league and cup games, to having international and European games too. But at no point did anyone think there was too much football.

As football passed through the 60s, the rise of television ownership, and leter, violence on the terraces, meant that attendances plunged, and there was the need more than ever for lots of games.

Football reached its lowest point in 1985, when there was the Bradford fire and Heysel.

Bradford was a disaster a long time coming. Decades of lack of investment in grounds left many clubs with at least one wooden stand, sometimes more, and all it would take was one dropped cigarette butt ignighting a pile of accumulated rubbish.

It happened at Bradford, captured by TV covering Bradford's promotion celebrations. 55 peoople died.

Heysel resulted in English clubs banned from Europe for 5 years, and the clubs created a new competition to take the place of European games among themselves.

Then came Hillsborough, 96 fans died in a crush, 35 years after a similar crush at Burnden Park and 18 years after a crush at Ibrox.

The old stands were swept away. Standing terraces replaced by seats. And after the Taylor Report into Hillsborough, all standing at games in the top two divisions was banned.

Clubs had traditionally charged more to sit than to stand, so carried this on with the new all-seater grounds. Prices surged. And yet, there were more games in Europe, even as the fledgeling Premier League reduced the number of clubs in it to 20.

More and more European games.

More and more International games.

When Aston Villa won the European Cup in 1982, they only had to play 9 (nine) games in total. When PSG won the Champions League in June this year, it was their 17th game. For some teams playing, they might have had to play one or two, or more qualification rounds just to get to the group stage. Taking a possible number of games to 21.

The number of European games has expanded as Europe of the Cold War fractured. Meaning more games, more groups. And then more teams get to qualify for the finals.

The World Cup has ballooned from 16 teams in 1978 to 24 in 1982, then to 32, and will be 48 next year when the fnal are held in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Or not.

More teams, more games. More games for overworked players to take part in.

The extra money that the Premier League brought in for top clubs lead to higer and higher prices paid for player transfers and wages. And the way in which spending caps are calculated means that clubs are encouraged to put up ticket prices to be able to keep spending on players.

This is mutually assured financial destruction, of course.

Player wages in Englad at the start of the 1960s was £20 a week, but now some earn over half a million a week. Some earn far more. This is paid for by TV money and by ticket prices. Clubs do not want to see their number of games reduced lest they not be able to afford the latest wonderkind.

So, the madness continues.

And in a global world linked by the internet there are post season tours, pre season tours. Pretend tournaments played in places where the Premier League, or the club's brand is wanted to grow.

So that some players are now getting to play close to 70 games a season. As well as the associated travel.

So, big kick off tonight, Norwich play on TV tomorrow.

Let the madness commence.