To the class of 2025 If I could offer you only one tip for the future, not looking at replies would be it

Chances are none of you have spent time looking back on my 2024 attempts to produce a column alongside esteemed journalists who actually write for a living. But through the various subjects, from set-piece coaches to VAR, from the dark arts to PSR, the one consistent theme appears to be a fortnightly mid-life crisis published straight on to your Guardian app.

- Max Rushden

So if you'll permit me – fully aware of the patronising tragedy below – here is my Baz Luhrmann letter to today's football fans. Hopefully this catharsis will stop me humiliating myself with anyone under 30 who crosses my path. And although wearing sunscreen is good advice, suggesting it to a primarily UK-based audience experiencing one of those winters seems unwise, so let's just take that as a given.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2025, don't look at your replies.

If I could offer you only one tip for this year, ignoring the replies would be it. You will gain nothing from watching two people you don't know arguing at length about whether Matz Sels should be in the Premier League team of the season so far instead of David Raya.

The long-term benefits of spending less time on social media have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Results don't matter. Genuinely. Almost no football teams win things. Desperation for a trophy is fine. But you can love a football team for your whole life, win nothing and still have the best time.

Revel in the pain of it. Every game without three points will make it sweeter when it comes. You will win again. It just may be in League Two. If a trophy ever comes, the longer the wait, the better it'll be.

Winning over and over changes your expectations – don't get blase about victories. They are not an entitlement.