Football is back. And so is a sense of restored youth.

What’s that smell coming out of the shed? What’s that stink emanating from the garage?

That mustiness of neglected, unwashed, unpolished football boots is pungent and repulsive to my wife. It’s my potpourri, along with fresh-cut grass and the crispness of spring returning to the air.

That smell has been a constant for me since high school, coming out of ball bags at training, or from unwashed bibs. From the equipment store in the sports hall at school, to the rusting shipping container down behind the far corner flag.

It smells like home, it smells like play, it smells like being a kid. And belatedly, it’s back.

Domestic European football is back on our screens. The season is so long, so jam-packed, it’s easy to feel fatigued with the amount of football on the television. But the close season is long enough to have you salivating when the game returns.

In Australia, the ‘lunch-time’ kicks are on at the perfect time. Late enough for a couple of beers during, not too late you are left with a hangover the next day. As winter turns to spring turns to summer, those games will get later and later, but so will mid-week football.

Villa v Newcastle, City v Spurs, Chelsea v Fulham, and this week Arsenal v Forest, will make way for PSG v Bayern, and Atlético v Inter.

In a couple of weeks, social soccer will return to the park. We’ll all be a little wrinklier, a little balder, a little more curvy around the hips and certainly a little slower. It will be fun, and then it will hurt. And what else are we supposed to do? Watch the A-League?

But we’ll also be a little more connected. In our fourth year of congregating on the hallowed turf of our local park (to the dismay of the cricket club that use it also), we’ve rotated between a barbecue and sojourn to the local after games. Protein and liquid replenishment is of course key to recovery. Whether you are twenty-six or sixty-two, bonds have been made (and bones have also been broken).

So dig out those boots, wipe down those shin pads. Find those threadbare goalie gloves. Some say it smells of damp and mould. I say it smells of heaven.