It's all going to be kicking off in the Coca-Cola Championship tomorrow - and hopefully in a purely sporting fashion. But if you believe the next nine months will be all about love and peace, forget it.

The old Arsenal-Spurs and Liverpool-Everton rivalries will of course be reignited with the return of the Premier League next week. But this season the inter-club hatred won't be confined to England. Nowhere is the nastiness likely to be more in evidence than on November 30, when Cardiff City clash in the league with their newly-promoted arch-rivals Swansea for the first time in nine seasons.

I have no idea how long the hatred goes back, but I don't remember too much mutual animosity between the clubs during my youth (was I perhaps just naive?). Let's face it, there is absolutely no logic to it. The Welsh are a proud nation and I think it's pathetic that fans in the Principality find it necessary to divide themselves in a league where they are outnumbered 45 to one by the English!

When I was growing up in the Rhymney Valley, I followed the fortunes of the Swans and Newport County almost as avidly as I did the Bluebirds. Of course I wanted Cardiff to win the derby games, but nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to see us win the league and the Jacks finish second.

Swansea was a bit too far for a youngster to travel on a match day, but I spent alternative Saturdays at Somerton Park watching our struggling cousins Newport in their seemingly incessant battle against relegation and bankruptcy.

I also remember one 'special' outing to Eastville to watch an enthralling 4-4 draw between Bristol Rovers and Swansea - presumably on a day when Cardiff were either playing away or out of action. It wasn't the goals I remember it most for, though - it was the fact that one belted clearance by a defender smashed straight into me on the terraces, leaving a a ball-shaped imprint on my brand-new white mac. My father, who had just laid out good money for that coat, never did believe that of 15,000-odd fans, I could possibly have received a direct hit.

I distinctly remember cheering every one of the Swansea goals that day - and being disappointed that they had to settle for one point. Having said that, I wept when the Swans came to Ninian Park around the same time and unexpectedly beat us with a lone goal from Mel Nurse. That was only natural, I suppose... but there was absolutely no animosity towards Swansea Town, as they then were, as a club.

These days it is so different. Our respective fans positively float when things go wrong for the other side. And the dislike seems to permeate up into the players and officials, too. Lee Trundle highlighted it a few seasons back when he ripped off his Swansea shirt after the Football League Trophy final at the Millennium Stadium to reveal an anti-Cardiff City cartoon - and then paraded a Welsh flag with an obscene taunt daubed on it

And Barnsley manager Simon Davey admitted very undiplomatically as he sat in the TV studio before last season's Middlesbrough-Cardiff FA Cup quarter-final that, as a loyal Swansea boy, he wanted Boro to win.

Come on, Simon - have you forgotten you're a Welshman? When Wales play England at rugby, we Taffs ALL all want the Dragons to win. And Glamorgan (whichever part of the country you live in) is OUR cricket team.

Now, with the demise of Newport and Wrexham, we have just two clubs in the entire Football League. So for God's sake let's pull together... and BOTH win automatic promotion to the Premier League this season.

With Cardiff City crowned champions, of course!