Man was meant to play football, not shop at out-of-town superstores or prune the gardenias. While others may find the summer months a time of relaxation, for the true grassroots football addict, it is a time of dread, if not despair, when all structure to life collapses; all meaning and purpose drains away. This period of prolonged agony is known as the close season.

At least this year we've had the World Cup. But in many ways this has made it worse. With games virtually every morning and lunchtime, it was easy to forget that your boots were festering in the utility room. But now there is just post-World Cup depression, as the park footballer realises that all that lies ahead are the Australian Football Pools, Big Brother and spending more time with his family.

Yes, all those things that you forgot to do at weekends during the footie season now have to be crammed into the summer. Shopping, childcare, DIY, gardening, figuring out how that DVD-player works, finally getting on-line, family outings, car-boot sales and making that long-promised visit to your great aunt Gladys in Nether Wallop.

There was a time when footballers used to try another sport during the summer. West Ham's great World Cup-winning trio of Moore, Hurst and Peters once spent their summers playing cricket, while some footballers, such as Chris Balderstone and Arnold Sidebottom also managed to play professional cricket. But nowadays, their clubs would be aghast at the insurance premiums.

The Sunday League footballer, meanwhile, is more inclined to relax for a couple of months and perfect his remote control lifting. An alternative for those addicts suffering footballing withdrawal symptoms is to organise a summer kick-about. Despite strangely expanding pitch boundaries, these park games can be enjoyable. However, since they are open to anyone who turns up, there is always the risk of recruiting the local psychopath by mistake.

There also tend to be lots of comings and goings, as some players do a Roy Keane over the bone-hard pitches or vital strikers nip home for tea half-way through the match.

A particular curse affecting the disaffected Sunday Leaguer in summer is the mystery of the vanishing goalposts. Most councils take their posts down; so in a situation that would delight Ron Manager, it often really is jumpers for goalposts.

Simon Heywood, secretary of Timperley Bigshorts FC of the Manchester Amateur Sunday Football League, recalls many a chaotic pre-season friendly: "There's one local park where they normally take down the goals and turn it into a cricket pitch. But they always leave one set of goals up; so, in July and August you get people camping out to get on the pitch first. We're not even allowed to be there and there's a police centre next door, so then it's a race to see if you can get the game finished before the police chuck you off."

The close season is also a time of misery for the ageing geniuses of Brazil '70 FC in Aylesbury. "The season before last lots of games were called off and, in a funny sort of way, it worked out OK for us as it meant the season carried on until May," recalls club secretary, Steve 'Wrightinho' Wright. "But last season it finished at the end of March and we're now left twiddling our thumbs. "

"On Sunday mornings you see some of the single lads counting down the time until the pub opens or taking the car out on silly trips going nowhere because they're so bored."

Perhaps the only solution for the terminally addicted is just to treat the close season as if it doesn't exist. Terry Wood, secretary of Parkstone Trades and Labour Club FC in the Bournemouth and Hayward League, reveals that imaginary meetings help. "Every week there has to be a meeting in the pub, which involves a lot of last-minute phone calls to the other lads. We'll get the whole team in the pub supposedly organising the awards ceremony, but instead we'll have a kick-about at the local recreation ground."

"From June onwards we arrange friendlies with kit-bags for goalposts. You could argue that its pre-season preparation, as playing friendlies through the summer does give us a fitness advantage over the other teams when the season starts. But really, we'll use any excuse to carry the season on."

We all understand Sven-Goran Eriksson's comments about his stars playing too much football, however on the parks of England they can't get enough. Bring on those goalposts.

Ten Reasons Why Summer Is The Cruelest Season

* DIY
* Gardening
* Family outings
* Childcare
* Shopping
* An expanding girth
* No Match of the Day
* Visiting relatives
* Car boot sales
* No Sunday lunchtime with the lads

- By Pete May, the author of Sunday, Muddy Sunday - The Heart And Soul of Sunday League Football, published by Virgin Publishing (1998) at £7.99, and available in all good second-hand bookshops.