Test cricket, The Open golf and our course Wimbledon all became popular alternatives to having no live football.Test cricket, The Open golf and our course Wimbledon all became popular alternatives to having no live football.
Test cricket, The Open golf and our course Wimbledon all became popular alternatives to having no live football.

Nostalgia: Surviving football's close season in the 1980's and early 1990's

Those of us of a certain age remember football’s close season being tough – very tough and very long.

Back then there wasn’t dedicated 24 hour football channels offering endless packaged programmes from the footballing world, there wasn’t social media and there certainly wasn’t the prospect of friendlies between Manchester United and the Laos national team and the like to help give us our fix.

It was a lot of weeks of the good old fashioned waiting game as summer sports took centre stage, whether we liked it or not, and the long countdown to August began.

Of course every two years we had a Euros or a World Cup to see us good, but when it was a blank summer, oh boy, did it fill us with dread.

Here’s just seven ways we managed to survive.