Groundhopping24

When the season draws to a close, it's such times I'm thankful for those European countries that play throughout the summer instead. Last season, I had the pleasure of ticking off some Irish football as I watched Drogheda United beat Galway United by a goal to nil on a mild and grey July evening. But of course, Ireland aren't the only nation to employ summer leagues. All the Scandinavian countries also do so bar Denmark, and so do the Baltics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. A Scandinavian trip, while tempting, was not something I was quite ready to break the bank for just yet, so I settled on a few days in Latvia with my partner before heading back to England for the summer.  On getting back to England, the plan is to show her the sights of Stevenage (all two or three of them), before beginning my six weeks of summer work in Canterbury. But before all that, a well-deserved break after another successful year of teaching, and the game of choice was a local derby between ...

 Zero. Nada. Zilch. No, I'm not talking about my current bank balance, but the number of teams promoted to the Czech First League via the play-off system introduced in 2018. Not a single one of the eight FNL teams to have made the play-offs - neither Vysocina Jihlava, Zbrojovka Brno, Opava, Vlasim, Pribram, Vyskov (three times), Taborsko, nor Chrudim - have ever won promotion via the play-off system. Chrudim and Vyskov came pretty close last season, sure. A contentious VAR call stopped Chrudim from levelling the tie against their groundsharing neighbours, Pardubice, while Dukla Praha needed penalties to keep Vyskov down. When considering the respective plight of both Chrudim (allegedly involved in the match-fixing scandal and currently unable to get a licence for the second tier) and Vyskov (replaced by Pribram, now playing in the sixth tier) a year later, it tells you a lot about what a mess Czech football is in right now. Add to all of this the fact that nobody has any real idea ...