MILLIONS of Englishmen have begun their annual ritual of convincing themselves that football is an essential part of who they are.
Across the country, pubs were filled with men, and a handful of annoying women, expressing tired, obvious opinions about semi-literate millionaires who see them as nothing more than sad, desperate cash machines.
Arsenal supporter, Tom Logan, said: "I read Fever Pitch about 15 years ago and decided that I should start supporting Arsenal because it would make me feel like a normal man.
"About three years in I realised that football was incredibly boring and meaningless, but found I was unable to escape even though I knew deep down I was spending hundreds of pounds a year on something that is basically for children."
He added: "Occasionally I would catch the eye of a friend and we would communicate silently our secret desire to talk about cooking or gardening, but then the moment would pass and I would say something unbelievably predictable about Robin Van Persie and then he would pretend to have an opinion about it."
Chelsea supporter, Charlie Reeves, said: "What I resent is those women who pretend to like football just so they can join in with the men. Surely they've got plenty of their own own empty, meaningless things to talk about."
The opening weekend of the season saw most of the same things happen again for the 184th year in row, although Arsenal's 6-1 victory away to Everton did cause eight million men to say 'bloody hell' in a loud voice before wasting an hour of their lives speculating on the future of someone called David Moyes.
Meanwhile Sky Sports has unveiled plans for more than 5000 hours of promotional films designed to trick you into believing that any of it matters in any way whatsoever.
A spokesman added: "We know how you pretend to feel about football, because we pretend to feel the same."
