Holidays are a fine institution. Not only do they encourage travel and relaxation but they also help to make tolerable the football fans' worst nightmare - the close season.

This idle time is now mercifully short compared to the horrors of twenty? years ago. In 1994, as an example, the gap from the last league game until the start of the new season was thirteen weeks. Nowadays a well timed few weeks in the sun allows a return in time to appreciate the ceremonial pre-season fixtures.