Then when we thought there would finally be football it rained on the parade.

Now - after Northern Ireland's first 50metere swimming pool, on the Westlink, has been cleared - the 12 teams in the new Irish FA Premiership are whipping up a storm of their own.

A controversial red card on the first full day of action, Glentoran dropping points, Linfield just about getting a victory and Cliftonville coming from behind to display their title credentials by ruining Roy Walker's league debut as Ballymena United boss.

Goals galore have followed and that's what the paying punter wants to see. Linfield hitting seven, Crusaders five and Seaview midfielder Aaron Black making an early charge to be top scorer.

And Portadown, well, they aren't there through their own mistake and although the new dawn for local football would have been better off with the top sides involved, the Shamrock Park men's absence hasn't, so far, been a major issue.

So far the season has had it all, it's been hard to keep up with all the goings on and the truth really is stranger than fiction.

Had those first couple of weeks been written into a soap opera or movie it would have been slated by the critics as too far fetched, much too unrealistic, but it happened and fortunately for those who worked to get the Premiership off the ground, we've lived to tell the tell.

Bangor top of the league one week, Crusaders the next. Of course, it will be a few weeks, if not months, before the league table settles down and the usual suspects take their seats at the top table.

In the meantime the shuffling is entertaining us, as is the action.

I have long argued that the product on the pitch is much better and more attractive than it is given credit for. I have watched some cracking games over the years and while there are others what haven't been so good that happens in every league.

Take, for example, the recent Aston Villa v Liverpool game. Both managers, Martin O'Neill and Rafael Benitez, have spent million after million on players over the last couple of years and with the Gareth Barry sub-plot too it was set up to be explosive. In the end it had all the excitement of a knitting competition, with the statistics showing that Liverpool didn't register a single shot on goal in the game.

If that had been in the IFA Premiership those who are always quick to knock the local game would have been having another pop.

And comparing the local game to the multi-million pound equivalent in England is way beyond the realms of reality anyway. Apples and oranges if you like.

Our Premiership is what it is, a part-time league, with part-time players and largely the clubs are run by enthusiastic fans who get no financial reward.

And to think we still produce some great games and many of the current international squad - and some from the not too distant past - have learned their trade in their own backyard. Gareth McAuley and Ivan Sproule have both moved in million pound deals not long after leaving home, so the local game can't be that bad.

The refs are back, the floods have gone - but may return - and the football is on. Now let's hope it rains goals before we see who reins as the first champions of the IFA Premiership on the first Saturday of May.

It'll certainly be fun between now and then.

Previous columns:-
27th August - Stephen Looney (Sunday World)
22nd August - Paul Ferguson (Sunday Life)
15th August - Ruth Gorman (Sunday Life)