The Football League kicked off on Saturday – as you can see, I attempted a panoramic pic with the iPhone as the teams lined up at the County Ground, Swindon. We got things rolling nicely with a 3-1 victory, including a lovely first goal netted by Billy Paynter after a the kind of intricate passing move we don’t get to enjoy too often down those parts. Hurrahs all round, as you can imagine.

The other big kick off is this Saturday, of course, when the Premiership gets going. I’m delighted that the League of Scoundrels, the official Completetosh Fantasy Football league, already sports a mighty 15 teams after my earlier plug here. Welcome, one and all.

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll join in the fun – it’s free, and you’ll get to watch me embarrass myself by being almost unfeasibly rubbish. Once you’ve signed up here, click on the Friends Leagues link and search for the League of Scoundrels. The password is Completetosh. Go on – sign up. It’s so much more fun than work. And, you know… it’s August, after all.

And if you’ve signed up but haven’t picked a team yet, don’t forget to log in before the end of the week to pick your squad – you really don’t want to end up with the team the auto pick feature gives you.

It’s the week of the summer which proves: a really bad memory only helps you become a better football fan.

Let me explain: the new season may be two months off – the fixture list isn’t even out yet – but the arrival of the new season ticket is an exciting moment. Mine thudded onto the doormat this week.

The close season is not, I suspect, something non-football fans will understand. But an attraction of the sport is that, unlike Real Life, things get reset every summer. No matter how shocking your side was last season, the slate is wiped clean. Forget about the midfield’s abject inability to pass to colleagues, don’t bother thinking about how leaky the defense was against even the lowliest journeymen, and just blank out how appallingly bereft of confidence the strikers were. There, there. It’s all gone. A fresh start is made.

Relegated? No bother. You’re too good for this new, lower league, and will bounce back in a memorable Season Of Glory.

Or was the tale of last season like Swindon Town’s – one of mid-table obscurity? Even better – it’s only a small step to the the playoffs which surely await you next May. Let’s all sing Town Are On Their Way to Wembley.

Better yet, maybe you actually suffered the heartache of a cup final gubbing or playoff defeat? Now is the time to let the scars heal – your team, the stronger for the experience (and never, ever, shattered and demoralised and thinking of getting a transfer somewhere better/wealthier/sunnier) will make sure of it next time.

And there will be a next time.

So, after a few weeks in the Mediterranean (lower leagues) or Dubai (Frank Lampard), the players are back sweating it out in preseason. Let the the players be photographed throwing up with exertion for the benefit of the first home game match programme, while our delusions find new voice.

Euphemisms abound in the local papers (lower leagues) or News of the World (Frank Lampard); strikers talk of the need to find the net only once early on, at which point the floodgates will open. You naturally believe they have 20 a season in them, defying the bitter experience of your own eyes only a few months ago.

Defenders talk up all the work they’re doing as a “unit”, calling to mind a well-drilled military outfit ready to defy even the flying Ronaldo himself. Midfielders talk about workrate and getting-the-basics-right-and-the-rest-will-follow, of dynamism and tempo and width.

And, by God, you lap it up. If we don’t look like a Wiltshire Brazil on that sunny opening day in August I’ll be aghast.

And when the fixtures finally come out you’ll busily scan through the list, earmarking the away trips and forgetting – just as you forgot about the performances themselves – about the assorted dreadful places you chose to go last year, just to see the team lose.

Truly, amnesia is a football fan’s greatest friend. That and a pair of warm gloves.

It’s rare you step out a football ground to be afforded a fine view of tonight’s dirty dishes in someone’s kitchen sink, but that’s what away fans at Kenilworth Road, Luton, get as they embark down a steep (and rather slippy) staircase.

This is the view out the back of the away end, behind one goal (pitch view here). The tiny, ramshackle ground must be one of the tightest fits in the Football League.

Terraced houses butt up against three of the four sides, as you can see in this Google overhead. The away stand is the one at the top of the ground in that view – if it looks impossible to even enter, it’s because you actually come through a living room-sized tunnel in the ground floor of that terrace of houses, under someone’s first floor.

Last night completed a personal double-header of tiny grounds – last week was Barnet‘s Underhill.

And yes, Swindon Town won 1-0, thanks, the first away win I’ve seen in three years. No penalties this week, which was a relief.

For the record, out of sympathy I took the whole scripted call, and asked for more information, and didn’t once make a joke about the weather. The new product line strategy must have seemed like such a good idea last year.

“Dave Rimmer, 27, a Notts County fan, said: ‘There are several different grades of terrible. If it’s been truly terrible I don’t speak to anyone for a while. I’m one of the more optimistic fans.’”

Yep, that’s what it’s all about.

Sky Sports, always with an eye to the drama of the game, will mark the relegation of a side with a crash zoom in on some puffy-eyed, shaven headed ultra, wiping tears from his face with a tattooed arm and a scarf. He becomes the proxy for all, promoting the notion of the crowd as a great obsessive family, together in grief. It’s a slightly cosy notion, and most other football fans (who rarely experience promotion or relegation) can feel relieved it’s not them.

Yesterday, at Swindon Town, we were as good as relegated by a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Brentford, very well reported in today’s Observer by Spencer Vignes. As he notes:

“Twenty years after The Robins last occupied the Football League’s basement, it now looks almost certain that they will mark the anniversary by becoming the first club ever to drop from the Premiership into what is now League Two. This was a must-win game for Iffy Onuora’s side, especially with their remaining fixtures falling against the in-form Bristol City and Huddersfield. In the event it was all over by half time, Brentford’s win keeping them in touch with Southend and Colchester in the race for automatic promotion.”

This was the point of realisation, the point to start welling up and railing at the injustice of it all. There is no way back. But this supposed emotional low point of the football season wasn’t, really. It was expectations fulfilled, rather than the (far worse) hopes dashed. Losing a play-off tie is far worse (we experienced that a couple of years ago).

The end was greeted with a shake of the head, some boos, and cries of “what a load of rubbish”. A few of the better players in the side stared at their boots and sheepishly applauded the crowd, who slightly sheepishly applauded back. We don’t want them to go.

The others got the hell off the pitch; professionals thinking only of the summer break and the next contract, wherever it might be. Potentially, it’s worse for them than for us; pay at this level isn’t startling, so they won’t have much in the bank. There will be a few who simply won’t get contracts in the professional game this summer. That’s a personal relegation that’s far harsher than the one their ineptitude has inflicted on the club.

Almost to prove the point, in the crowd nobody was crying, and few even looked as disappointed as the players; a few shaken heads, a few wondering if next week’s trip to local rivals Bristol City might be worth it (that match will confirm things, mathematically). No need to rub salt in your own wound.

But, in the meantime, nothing but a low-grade disappointment. A few fans will console themselves with the thought – optimistic, as proved every season – that the relegated side can bounce straight back to this level next year.

But another part of this creeping disappointment, I suspect, will be the publishing of the fixture list in the summer – with visits to such hotspots as Shrewsbury and Rochdale, and nothing but low four figure crowds – and the realisation that, even in securing promotion from that league, it’ll only win the right to get back to here.

Then they’ll be instant favourites to go back down, yo-yoing again, but at a lower level than they’ve seen in two decades, the promise of mild disappointment stretching years into the future.

More coverage here and here. As the panel in the paper says, you can tell us who and what you’d like to see in the new blog by emailing comment.is.free@guardian.co.uk

Chelsea £90
Birmingham £60.50
Newcastle £56
Portsmouth £52
Everton £46
Real Madrid £28.60
Swindon Town, currently third bottom of the damned League One table £28
Bolton £26
Valencia £24.80
Crawley Town £24
Hereford £22
Roma  £21.40
Juventus  £20.70
Blackburn £20
Aston Villa £20
Woking £19
Bayern Munich £12.40
Borussia Dortmund £12
Bayern Leverkusen £11.70
Schalke £9.30

A little research shows that I and some imaginary child could Easyjet to Turin to watch Juventus – Del Piero et al – versus Inter Milan, featuring Shevchenco, the world’s best striker, on October 2. It would cost us £46 for the return flights and £20.70 for the stadium tickets. Total, £66.70.

Or the following Saturday we could spend £38.25 on a return train ticket and £28 to see Swindon take on Port Vale. Total, £66.25.

Given the obvious cost benefits, I don’t need to tell you where I’ll be.