Thirty-seven years on, the folly of their position is writ large in the statistics. Average attendances in the First Division during 1986 were 19,517; in 2019, the year before the pandemic, despite wall-to-wall broadcast coverage, the Premier League average was nearly double that: 38,168. The truth is, television is live football’s best recruiting sergeant.

You can see that on nights when Champions League games are broadcast live at the same time as midweek football league fixtures. More people than ever are going to lower league games. Even if they take their mobile devices with them: I was at a League One game earlier this season and the fan in front of me spent the entire match watching a European game on his phone. Now it has happened and the apocalypse did not follow, we can only expect the once sacrosanct kick-off time will soon enough become a staple of the broadcasting menu. Brace yourself for Micah Richards regularly cackling at 3pm on Saturdays, the one moment of the week, until now, free from his presence.