Angry was good fun.

The pink leaflets and booing the Premier League anthem and issuing an open letter to that lad off Sky who then explained why he was broadcasting from the Wirral and made everyone sheepishly wind their necks in. 

That was a good laugh.

Incidentally, have you ever been in the presence of an open letter issuing? Is there some sort of declaration, and a scroll, flanked by two poker-faced fellas with trumpets? Like Bedknobs and Broomsticks?

Is it exhilarating?

Anyway, that’s by the by. If that’s the right phrase. And lo and behold, it’s not. It’s by the bye. So, as we were saying, the vociferous, vehement vituperation around Goodison was, well, diverting and something new that gave the fans something to focus on now that Bill Kenwright’s passed on.

But that at Selhurst Park, well, that provoked that most corrosive of feelings: resignation.

Not so much that it’s a conspiracy against Everton, per se – although sometimes I hear things in the CIA’s wires in the walls that make me wonder. No, it’s more just a slope-shouldered acceptance that the whole ethos of top level football makes it very close to unwatchable.

The game, or more to the point the money in the game, just brings together so many powerful forces rubbing up against each other that all the fans are left with in the middle of this obnoxious Venn diagram is nothing but a grubby little vector of venality.

We’ve gone on about club owners and the telly companies endlessly, but what about that other bloc of self-interest, the modern-day top-level referee? What a slippery pole that is, paid Brewsters, no doubt a nice touch on their expenses, and a measure of celebrity that has Howard Webb at the pinnacle, resplendent in his ‘Ari Gold at a christening’ rig-out. 

He definitely pronounces Zegna with a hard G.

‘I’ve come over to the screen Craig, looked to me like Calvert-Lewin made a good recovery tackle there.’

‘Studs up mate, made contact.’

‘It’s a contact sport Craig, we don’t want the game going the same way as table football.’

‘Laws of the game, take a look yourself.’

‘Just call them rules Craig, that laws thing is just for pedantic weirdos. Anyway, yeah, ok. Play that back, slower. Can I see another angle please. Is there maybe one where he hurts him, that would be useful. No? That’s it? Jeez, I mean, Craig mate.’

‘Don’t make me look a cunt here lad.’

‘But Craig. Are we saying that a kid who has only made four actual challenges in his entire career deserves a three-match ban for that? Heavy salad, this.’

‘If you look like you’ve made a better decision than me, on the spot, than I can make given all his technology, then you are essentially fronting me on live TV you quisling little maggot. You took an oath. I was there, you pricked your finger and burned a photo of Roger Milford and swore to protect the Brotherhood of the Greasepaint at all costs.’

‘But…’

‘But nothing. Do you know how many jobs VAR has created for faceless little headset goblins? You want to see them lads out on the street, do you? And as for me, well, showbiz is all I’ve known – Google me, dickhead, I’ve never had a proper job. You jeopardise this for me, I will stick that whistle so far up your arse, a coughing fit will sound like Quadrant Park. Now be a good boy, send the Scouse cunt off and let’s all move on.’

No wonder they rarely release the audio.

Elsewhere, is there a more deflating phrase than: ‘Have you heard what Joey Barton’s said now?’

Seriously, I’d rather hear about that really weird dream you had last night or what you cook in your fucking air fryer than his latest thicker-than-the-Saltburn-bathwater contrivance. In the glorious days before the internet, these bores were just avoided in alehouses.

‘Oh hello Joe, lad. Didn’t know you come in here. Sorry, no, just finishing this pint and got to get going. Up early in the morning, son.’

Now it’s a fucking career.