English football's opening weekend completed its oldest ritual Sunday: results were recorded, and blame was assigned several months ahead of any evidence. Brighton's four-goal humiliation of Aston Villa headlined a closing card that also gave Manchester City a working 2-1 win over Bournemouth and Newcastle a breathless 2-2 draw with Liverpool. [1] Three results, three fan moods, one national pastime conducted in the conditional tense.

The terraces ran their own coverage. Villa's forums spent the evening drafting indictments of everyone from the back line to the ownership, an August tradition that requires no provocation beyond a bad afternoon at the Amex. Hull's support, still glowing from Saturday's impossible return win over Manchester United, discovered what promotion actually costs, which is the inability ever to be pleasantly surprised again. And Lincoln City, back in the second division after sixty-five years, lost anyway and soared regardless, the Guardian finding their spirits intact despite defeat, which may be the weekend's only emotionally stable fanbase. [2]

That is the opening weekend's cultural product: not a title race but a mood census. The table after one matchweek is arithmetic noise; the pressure map it draws on two hot seats and four message boards is destiny's first draft. September will begin sacking people regardless of what anyone decided by teatime Sunday. English football forgives nothing in August except the conviction that it might.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London