The business end of the British sporting calendar.. the football season.. has just about come to a close. Only a couple of play off finals remain but outside of the four clubs taking part, nobody is looking.... not really. The serious business took place at Wembley last night in the Champions League Final. I thought I'd take a look back at the football season as an interested observer, not a committed fan.

At international level, England returned from the World Cup significantly humbled and although they have made a creditable start to their European Championship qualifying campaign, they still look a long way short of being any sort of force. They were soundly thrashed in South Africa by a vibrant, lively German team that have laid to rest all the sterotypes we often throw at Germans. With Spain as the only team above them, Germany look set to challenge the best for some time to come. England's place at the higher end of the rankings is only sustainable because traditional footballing powerhouses such as France and Italy are going through an even worse time.

Fabio Capello came to England barely able to speak a word of the language and several years in the company of Terry, Cole et al haven't made his press output any more intelligible. Wayne Rooney showed us that, in offering a fan out for a fight via Twitter, the 140 character format of that forum is an adequate vehicle for his entire vocabulary. England will probably qualify for the European Championships but nobody expects them to make much of an impression in Ukraine / Poland. After the tournament, Capello will probably leave before the English press hound him out of the job. Harry Redknapp is the "people's choice" to replace him.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales look out of their depth again and their European Championship prospects are limited. They, along with the Irish Republic attempted to re-instate the British Championship but without England taking part there is little interest in the contest. Matches have been played in near empty stadiums and this contest is unlikely to endure if a way can't be found to generate public enthusiasm for it. The current FA position is that England have no intention of taking part.

Barcelona won the Champions League final at Wembley with a swagger and panache that Manchester United simply couldn't handle. Lionel Messi showed the world that he is the best player on the planet, whilst Wayne Rooney showed the world that he is not. It's never easy for any manager to admit that his team is second best, but for Sir Alex Ferguson, the most sclerotic, bullying miseryguts football has ever known, to be soundly slapped for a second time by the team that dismissed his side with similar ease two years ago is particularly galling. His curt, terse post match interview with ITV Sport, ended with an abrupt "That's all I've got to say" was unnecessary, ungracious and only tells most observers what they already know.

He's a bloody bad loser.

In the Premiership, Manchester United won a record 19th EPL championship, finally overhauling Liverpool's previous record of 18. Far from the cavalier, swashbuckling teams of the past, United struggled away from Old Trafford and this title was not so much won by them as thrown away by Arsenal and Chelsea whose form was erratic at key stages of the season.

Manchester City continue to rise and in years to come their FA Cup Semi Final win over United could be seen as the watershed moment when they finally stopped being underachievers. With a trophy on the sideboard, their players should now have a taste for victory celebrations. Manchester United's "noisy neighbours" will aim to turn up the volume next season.

Liverpool started a renaissance as Kenny Dalglish returned and David Moyse continues to do amazing things at Everton, on a shoestring. Harry Redknapp took Spurs on a tour of European football that lifted us all. It was great while it lasted.

Of the relegated sides, most neutral fans were sorry to see the demise of Blackpool, who played good attacking football all season. The amiably berserk comments of their manager Ian Holloway will be missed as football fans are returned back to the previous fare of stodgy, PR man scripted responses to rote, bland questions from bored interviewers that were the pre-Holloway norm. Ian Holloway told it as he felt it and fans loved him for that. He spoke more truth and made more sense in one season than the likes of Wenger, Ferguson, Redknapp et al have done in the last ten years. Thank you for the entertainment, Blackpool.

Scottish football.... which is inextricably wrapped up in the two Glasgow giants.... had a dreadful season. Continuing money problems, a referees strike, death threats and parcel bombs to Neil Lennon and a UEFA censure of Rangers on the issue of sectarian chanting. When a police chief says that incidents of domestic violence rocket when the two top teams play each other, you know there is something rotten in the state of affairs.

Scotland has joined Wales and Northern Ireland as a third world footballing country and it's difficult to see a way out of it for them.

In the lower leagues, Leeds continue to rise back towards the Premiership and Gus Poyet has done exceptional things at Brighton. Whilst promotion to the Premiership is still the holy grail for all clubs, most fans realise now that actually achieving that status would most likely only be a "one season pipedream". As a result, most seem to have settled for their bread-and-butter status in the earthy, gritty world of long ball football, hard as nails competition and salt of the earth players. It isn't the "beautiful game" but it's reassuringly English and it's how we play. At least it isn't excessively blighted by the excesses of cheating that exist in the Premiership.

The behaviour of managers and players at the top of the game is an increasing cause for concern. Hardly a week goes by when a manager somewhere isn't red carded out of the dugout by the referee, or exiled to the stands by the FA for abuse of officials. When I see referees having to be escorted from the pitch surrounded by stewards or policemen to protect them from purple faced managers and players I can't help thinking the game has gone mad. Wayne Rooney's vile outburst into a camera at West Ham was entirely in keeping with the character of the man.... Ryan Giggs' ludicrous attempt to gag the press when news of his squalid little affair broke and shattered his "wholesome" image was not an isolated incident..... Kolo Toure's positive drugs test.... the routine diving, cheating, bad behaviour that goes on everywhere. Nemanja Vidic seems to be completely invisible to referees because he seems to do something red-cardable in almost every game.... and he gets away with it..!!

The game sometimes seems as if it has gone mad, and yet its' appeal endures because fans love it..... and football is all about the fans.

British football seems to have plateaued and one can only wonder when the decline will set in. That it will decline is almost inevitable. The current model is financially unsustainable indefinitely and when the money stops flowing, the top players will drift away. The Premiership will no longer be the best club league in the world and who knows where that will lead.