It’s been about a month since the end of the football season, and the strain is beginning to show at talkSPORT. Mike Parry was trying to convince us on Monday that the nation would be happier to celebrate a win against Germany, by England’s U21 footballers, than to see Andy Murray win Wimbledon. “Football is our national sport,” he cried. The previous day, I tuned into the station to hear a plaintive, pathetic appeal: “I can’t wait until the start of the football season.”

Come on, lads, be strong — the bulldog spirit will see you through. There’s only another month to go of cricket, tennis and rugby, until the first kick of the Community Shield (under the strict laws of journalism, I have to mention at this point that this is the “traditional curtain-raiser” to the English football season).

Not all stations are left to twiddle their thumbs through the summer, though; some of them blossom. They lie dormant through the winter and, like a delicate flower, they appear for just a week or two, and then vanish. Today, for example, is your last chance to catch Radio Wimbledon.

The world’s best-known tennis tournament has its own tiny station, which operates for the two weeks of the competition. It began as an FM service, back in the early 1990s. Broadcasting on 87.7FM to a five-mile radius of the courts, it was supposed to help motorists avoid the traffic jams. Now, it’s on the net and it broadcasts to 900,000 people, all over the world. Strictly speaking, there are three stations: Radio Wimbledon also has continuous coverage of games on Centre Court (96.3FM) and No 1 Court (97.8FM).

There are two main presenters, Nick Dye and Sam Lloyd, plus a team of commentators. The tennis expertise is provided by former players Warren Jacques and Sue Mappin. Most of the crew are little known outside the world of tennis, but the trainer Nick Bollettieri and Judy Murray (Andy’s mum) appear frequently.

The tone is that of a respectable local station: capable, but a bit bland. If it were a player, it would probably be Björn Borg rather than Boris Becker. They don’t have the characters that lend an atmosphere to the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage — notably, John McEnroe on his lively Six-Love-Six phone-in — but characters aren’t always to everybody’s taste, and what’s more, they cost money.

This is also the final day of the Henley Royal Regatta, which has had its own radio station since 2006. This is more of a commercial operation, complete with advertising and jingles. Perhaps because it is cost-conscious, the station broadcasts from a car park opposite the Leander Club.

The growth of internet broadcasting offers many more opportunities for very, very local radio. Temporary stations are already on offer when there is racing at Silverstone, sailing at Cowes, jumping at Hickstead, and, I suppose, dog agility at the Lune Valley & Barrow Dog Agility trials. It’s not just sport: Glastonbury had its own station, Worthy FM, and specialist stations spring up all over the country to mark Ramadan.

None of this, though, is much comfort to the poor chaps at talkSPORT. Can the Red Cross not intervene? Even packing some old copies of Shoot magazine into a parcel could help a talkSPORT presenter survive for two weeks without football games to talk about. So please give generously.

Paul Donovan is away

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