Vaguely well-known players come across to take a throw-in — out come the phones. Over comes a cross — out come the phones. Minor scuffle in the centre circle — out come the phones, in go the zooms.

As for penalties, just take a look at the “toward-goal” angle of a spot kick the next time one is televised. Behind the net, behold the solid wall of Nokia nincompoops. Thousands of jaded lunatics, not experiencing the real world in front of them, but collecting it preciously via a murky 1in x 1in screen.

I have a friend who actually tries not to get too carried away when a goal goes in because he doesn’t want to lose the framing on his shot. He even slowly “pans around” the stands to “capture” the whole moment. He used to be a real hugger and screamer. Now it’s like trying to celebrate with Dickie Attenborough.

I have further witnessed once raucous, carefree songsters cowed and embarrassed after hearing themselves distorting the sound on their playbacks.

The awful truth is that these days, the moment the ball crosses the line, even those who are not peeing away their pixels for the ages are absenting themselves by calling up a friend to pass on all the details.

It’s simply not enough to feel a football match any more, you have to archive it, to own it.

Fifty years from now, youngsters will see film of goals from the last century and ask: “Grandad, what’s all that noise?” And we will explain about the Shed and the Kop and Cold Blow Lane. And probably, the little ones will look on in puzzlement and eventually say: “But grandad, how could everybody have been so unprofessional?”

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