The Close Season Has Closed

Andrew H on the demise of the close season

Much has changed about the lexicon deployed to describe certain football phenomena in my near four decades covering the game. And I must say I mourn the passing of one stock phrase often given an airing in press boxes whenever pre-season friendlies rolled around. A time which, incredibly, is already homing into view.

A first sighting of certain players subsequent to their close season r-and-r could often prove a pupil-widening experience. Attributable to some of them not merely sporting new kits, new haircuts and new tans but new waist measurements. Those in that bracket were always euphemistically said to have “summered well”. 

I had cause to reflect on those days when hosting my latest podcast guest, the avuncular and engaging Peter Latchford (to be released at a later date). A man whose charm extended to owning his chunkiness. To offer up, uhm, another gentle euphemism. In his Celtic career that spanned from 1975 to 1987, the keeper, as he freely admitted, didn’t just summer well, he autumned, wintered, and springed - if you will - well too. In terms of the downtime between campaigns, he was hardly alone, though. And little wonder, when you think of how much more generous the calendar proved for footballers when it came to the break afforded when hostilities ended in a campaign…and hostelries began calling to them like Meccas for mischief. 

Peter Latchford’s last close season came in 1986. It began after he featured for a strong Celtic XI in a Glasgow Cup final loss to Rangers at Ibrox on May 9. A matter of five days following The Miracle of Love Street title triumph. Paul McStay played in both before heading off to Mexico with Scotland for the 1986 World Cup finals. And it is instructive how his summer schedule then panned out compared with what will be asked of the Celtic players currently in Germany on national team duty for the on-going Euros.

Scotland’s interest in the tournament 38 years ago ended with their brutal scoreless draw against Uruguay on June 13 - a full two days before the abysmal opening game evisceration of Steve Clarke’s men against hosts Germany last week.

In 1986, Celtic’s first friendly of the new season didn’t take place until a tour of Ireland that pitted them against Longford Town on July 27. The guts of two months on from their Glasgow Cup final loss. In contrast, Brendan Rodgers will be standing on a touchline again come July 5, when Celtic take on Scott Brown’s Ayr United at Somerset Park. Never mind that Scotland representatives Callum McGregor, Anthony Ralston, James Forrest and Greg Taylor will have had practically no time off by then (though, of course, they will be afforded some recuperation interval); that game will come little more than five weeks since Celtic sealed a double with their Scottish Cup success over Rangers at Hampden. 

The close season has been effectively closed for internationals of the present age in years that feature international major finals. Meanwhile, even for those with only club commitments, fixture cramming means they face physical - close on 12-month-solid - demands entirely removed from those incumbent upon players from bygone eras. Exemplified by the fact that Celtic could fall just short of qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League and still play more games - 10 - than the nine it took for Jock Stein’s team to win the fabled big-eared cup in 1967.

Sympathies rarely are extended to professional footballers at elite level. A consequence of the eye-watering sums they trouser in relation to those who part with their hard-earned to watch them. True even of those on the payroll at Celtic…despite their wage packets proving a fraction of those operating in the big five leagues. And, trigger warning here but I’m going to offer an endorsement to a certain Peter Lawwell over the Celtic chairman’s claim - speaking last year in his capacity as vice-chair of the European Club Association - that the football calendar is “more than maxed out”. Surely that is a sentiment with which it is difficult to argue.

Speaking in relation to the World Cup being expanded to 48 teams from 2026, while a 32-strong Club World Cup to be contested every four years will begin next summer, Lawwell was hardly going out on a limb in stating something has to give. "It seems to me we have pushed…that bit too far,” he said. “We must come up with a process that covers everything in terms of player welfare, time on the pitch and time in training. It has got to a situation where it is impossible to expect high-quality performances from elite athletes over so many games in a year.”

Where once footballers might pile on a few pounds at this time of year, now there is more chance of problems piling up for them down the line. Oh how the current top level professionals must envy their forebears who summered well. Even if they didn’t earn so well.