Weekend Notes: "...the dawning of a new season"

The best of an excellent Opening Weekend in 5iveLights, TopLines and your Letters.

Ali Maxwell.

The American sportswriter Grantland Rice was a wordsmithing genius. He once wrote this about football (the other one).

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes - not that you won or lost -

But HOW you played the Game.

Oh man. The dawning of a new season and how that game has been played! Hard and fast. Blood-and-thunder pressing. Visible summer rust leading to poor first touches, dodgy passes and painful outcomes. And how long!? An average of 6.5 additional minutes in the first half, and over 10 minutes added at the end, means we saw a lot more football than usual.

We’re going to dig into Opening Weekend in just a moment. But first, I should say that this is a paywalled article for paid subscribers — this week’s free article will be out on Wednesday. Second, I know that there are a lot of new subscribers who may not have read Weekend Notes before, and for those that have, we’ve made a few changes. Here’s how we’re shaping up:

• 5iveLights: five must-see clips from what weekend that was.

• Top Lines: Ali Maxwell and Huw Davies expound on the games, the players, the managers.

• Letters: every weekend, we ask you to share your sharpest observations and most strident takes; then we’ll pick our favourites and publish them here.

This week it’s me (Ali) on Championship and League Two duty, with Huw making his Weekend Notes debut in League One. It’s great to be back. Let’s dive in.

1. Esse a wonderkid? Romain makes a grand entrance for Millwall.