The opening day of the new football season often brings with it new beginnings, fresh faces and nail-biting dramas. In the Premier League, promotion newcomers Sunderland and Derby County gave an excellent account of themselves.

Most Premiership grounds look like billiard tables and as summer turns into the final straight the grass is a pristine shade of green. Football groundsmen are never really given the credit they deserve but once they’ve been cut, mowed and sprinkled you could almost eat your dinner off them.

Once again the first day opening results gave a totally misleading picture of the season ahead. It was rather like the first night of a well-publicised West End play or musical. The leading stars always know their lines but when it comes to the opening curtain nerves play havoc.

'Allardyce has never minced his words but when he returned to his old muckers Bolton the whole experience must have been harrowing'


For Newcastle's new boss, Sam Allardyce, this was probably the day he’d dreaded. Imagine going back to your old company and then sticking two fingers up at the old boss. Allardyce has never minced his words but when he returned to his old muckers Bolton the whole experience must have been harrowing.

But Allardyce, forever the blunt and forthright manager, marched into the Reebok Stadium, smiled that Cheshire cat grin and then stole all three points from his old club. Newcastle, who last led the Premiership in the giddy Kevin Keegan days, are back at the top of the Premier League after winning 3-1 at Bolton.

For once Allardyce, who looks like one of those militant trade union leaders, had every reason to look happy. When he was a hard-as-nails Bolton centre-half, big Sam would crash into forwards with all the force of a bulldozer.

Now Sam he is one of the most respected managers in the game. He is one of the most ground-breaking of footballing coaches, bringing the best out of foreign players and punching his fists at sluggish Englishman.

He also knows a thing or two about physiotherapists, dieticians and all things scientific. When Allardyce stuck a heart monitor to himself football took a sharp intake of breath. Newcastle may be top of the Premiership but their boss will have to take it easy.

Champions Manchester United had an uneasy start to the season, grinding out a goal-less draw against last season’s new boys Reading at Old Trafford. Last season United played some of the most delectable football ever seen.

But for Sir Alex Ferguson a 0-0 draw against Steve Coppell’s upstarts wasn’t quite what he might have had in mind. Owen Hargreaves, Carlos Tevez, Nani and Anderson were this year’s Fergie’s summer signings but may be needed sooner rather than later.

At Upton Park one foreign figure from football’s past came back to English football. Sven Goran Eriksson, that quiet, courteous Swede who once managed the English football team, led his new Manchester City team to a 2-0 victory to West Ham.

When Eriksson was England boss he was the most popular thing to come out of Sweden since IKEA furniture and Abba. But once Eriksson had introduced an Italian, two Brazilians and a Bulgarian to each other, West Ham had been crushed out of sight.

For lovers of Roy Keane's style of management this was a very revealing afternoon. Now we all know that Keane, as a Manchester United player, would run through brick walls, but when Keane took over Sunderland none of us knew what to expect.

On a sultry mid-August afternoon at the Stadium of Light, the Black Cats sharpened their claws, leapt off the fence and pounced on Spurs. It may have taken them into the dying seconds to score the winner but new signing Michael Chopra side-footed home a magnificent winner.

For Chelsea and Arsenal it was business as usual, with Arsene Wenger's Thierry Henry-less Arsenal squeezing home a 2-1 win against London neighbours Fulham. Robin Van Persie, widely regarded as a successor to the Denis Bergkamp hot seat, put his name to the scoresheet.

Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea boss who loves the limelight, saw his fashionable West London dandies, nick victory against another promoted side, Steve Bruce’s Birmingham. New Chelsea winger Florent Moulada scored on his debut as last season’s runners-up got the best of a 3-2 thriller.