Anyone going anywhere interesting?

Sunderland predictably have two or three in Ireland (not sure who at the moment). Ajax at home and Forest away.
Also a three hander tournament in Portugal against Sporting Lisbon and Vittoria Setubal which Id go over for if it was in Lisbon but apparently its in Albuferia on the Algarve.

No football for me then until next August unless Darlington get to the playoff finals.

I went to my first pre-season friendly in about 20 years last summer. It was too hot and I had too much to drink. I'm going to stay indoors until the middle of October this year, to be on the safe side.

One of my colleagues, an Arsenal fan since he started watching football in about 2003 (he freely admits this, and isn't annoying about it. He's a very nice man actually), has never been to see the team in the flesh before, and thought he'd better change that at last, so got himself a ticket to the Emirates Cup. He's going to see Real Madrid vs. Hamburg and Arsenal vs. Juventus, back-to-back (sadly not literally). He's paid £40. Once-upon-a-time, that would probably have sounded like an unimaginably extortionate price.

As for me, I'll be far too concerned with the fact that I return from Cuba 4 days before the start of the Argentine season, and thus will have to do about 2 weeks' worth of pre-season-preview-writing in a couple of days.

Bangor City may be playing Glentoran plus our Europen Campaign begins in mid-July

They've got a proper axis of evil thing going on that tournament with Real, Arsenal and Juve, haven't they? The sad truth is that I'll look in the Argus at the start of August and it will say "Crowborough Athletic vs China XI" or something, and I won't be able to resist it. The trouble with friendlies is this: it's football devoid of any sort of context.

I really am the king of the fucking, bleeding obvious, aren't I?

Well, you said it yourself, 200.

When he told me who was playing in it I did ask why they didn't just go the whole hog, invite Boca to replace Hamburg and get Bayern along as well...

No, they want Rangers and Mussolini's Italy team from the 1934 World Cup.

Oh well if we're talking time machines, how about Estudiantes '68-'69? Helenio Herrera's Inter? Di Stéfano's Madrid, the big scary late-'50s USSR, Chels... oh, wait.

Now we're onto something. The world's most evil pre-season tournament. Sponsored by Marks & Spencer.

Group A: The Nazis out of "Escape To Victory", Mussolini's Italy, Estudiantes and a special All-Star team: Idi Amin in goal. A back four of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Rasputin. Four across the middle - Timothy Claypole out of "Rentaghost", Enoch Powell, Herr Flick from the Gestapo and Mr Bronson out of "Grange Hill". Two up front - the Libyan terrorists who shoot at Marty McFly in "Back To The Future".

Managed by Sting, obviously.

We've got Arsenal for our big centenary special match, and may even be hosting a UEFA Cup match