The Premier League is back.

For millions of people, that means another nine months of goals, disappointments, arguments, predictions and the hope that this could finally be their year.

For me, though, the beginning of the 2026/27 season feels slightly different.

It feels like the beginning of my own new season.

After spending the majority of my life in the education system- school, college and university- each stage came with a timetable, deadlines, assignments and some idea of what was expected of me next.

Now, suddenly, there isn’t one.

I have graduated.

And although graduating was something I had been working towards for years, nobody really prepares you for what happens afterwards.

The excitement is there alongside the freedom.

But so is the reality.

Navigating life after university has been much harder than I originally imagined. There are jobs to find, money to think about, decisions to make and a future that suddenly feels much more real than it did when I was sitting in a lecture theatre.

University provided me with the thing I was in search of the most: independence.

Four years of having my own space and the freedom to make decisions for myself. Moving back home after graduation has therefore required an adjustment. You suddenly go from having your own routine and your own environment to adapting to a completely different way of living.

And perhaps that is one of the strangest parts of this new season.

You realise how much university was preparing you for independence without necessarily noticing it.

A year ago, I was preparing for another new season.

Beyond the Pitch was about to launch.

Starting an independent sports platform was completely out of character for me. There was no guarantee that anyone would read what I wrote, care about the stories I wanted to tell or even take the project seriously.

But I started it anyway.

What happened afterwards taught me something I need to remember now.

One of the stories I am most proud of was about men in sport struggling with mental health. It was not like any of the pieces I’ve previously written. It is something I genuinely cared about and could genuinely resonate with personally; with the words I wrote, it made me realise that I had created something that could mean something to many others in the world.

That’s when I understood that Beyond the Pitch was more than a university project or a personal experiment. It became evidence that I could create something from nothing.

That is what I need to remember now.

Every Premier League season begins with many uncertainties; nobody knows exactly what the next nine months will bring.

A team can have a terrible previous season and completely transform themselves. A young player can suddenly become a star. A manager can arrive and change everything.

There is no guarantee.

But they start anyway.

And I think that’s where I’m at right now.

I don’t know exactly where I will be in the next five years.

I don’t know which job I’ll have, where I’ll be living or what Beyond the Pitch will look like.

But I know what I want to build.

The next few months may be frustrating. There will be rejection, uncertainty, and days where I question whether I am doing enough.

But this is only the beginning of my season.

I’m not going to allow a difficult start to convince me that the season is already over. 

The Premier League has 38 games.

I have considerably longer than that.

And I’m ready to see where this season takes me.