John Williams argues that the efforts of the police to keep hooliganism in the spotlight are masking the real progress that has been made combating violence

Notice the signs, recently, of a new football season approaching? Press stories complaining of too much TV football coverage; fierce debates on player wage hikes; Deloitte and Touche’s annual lecture on the booming financial power of the Premier League and how the market is good for football – but watch out for that nasty club overspend; and now, slotted nicely into the week leading up to the big kick-off, the Nat­ional Criminal Intelligence Service report on the arrest figures related to football. This, too, has become some­thing of an annual media event.

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Roger Titford leafs through responses to our survey on TV football and concludes that viewers are overwhelmed and irritated by the sheer volume on offer

Even before the first remote control of the new sea­son had been punched in anger, the backlash ag­ainst the “surfeit” of TV football had begun, with two muted BBC voices, John Motson and Kenneth Wol­stenholme, to the fore. Our survey (WSC 174) looked back to our readers’ ex­periences of the past season’s TV football. Our read­ership, of course, is not representative of all viewers, but the 700-strong sample is bound to include a higher proportion of dedicated, active and informed fans than your average sofa-full.

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We asked Cameron Carter to sit down and watch as much of ITV's Premiership coverage as he could stomach. He emerged unscathed but unsympathetic

ITV have got football. It’s like the Childcatcher and, frankly, I’m scared. With the first edition of The Prem­iership going out at the Blind Date time of 7pm, ITV were always going to have one eye on the com­mitted fan and the other on its family audience. I sat down to watch it with two packets of Frazzles and a heavy heart.

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Divided opinions as two fans debate as to whether Scottish football would be better off without the Old Firm

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The reaction of Scottish Premier League man­agers and administrators to the suggestion that Rangers and Celtic were to leave for the English Premiership was pre­dictable, with much “Woe is me” wailing. Less predictable was the reaction of a sizeable number of fans of other clubs, which could best be sum­mar­ised as a well-known two-fingered gesture and a hearty cry of “See you later”.

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Brighton's chief executive Martin Perry talks to Andy Lyons and recalls the club's fraught period groundsharing at Gillingham and draws some parallels with Wimbledon's current situation

“If Brighton had had to stay at Gillingham for any longer than we did, I don’t think we would have survived. In our final season at the Goldstone (1996-97) our average gate was around 6,000. But in the first season at Gillingham gates dropped to some­thing like 2,500. It was a 150-mile round trip for our fans, similar to that now being proposed for Wimbledon supporters. Travelling fans were setting off before lunch and getting home after eight at night.

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