"You’ve probably long forgotten by now, but back in October, Liverpool played Manchester United at football, and two of the players spent the whole afternoon got up in each other’s grills, and then one of them went a bit too far and said a really rather idiotic word, and so he was told to stop being such a stupid soft get and sit on that step over there for eight games and think on, and some fans suddenly became experts in Latin American semantics which made one wonder whether they were more concerned about the subject in hand or simply not admitting fault to their rivals, and some other fans made an unedifying gleeful grab for the moral high ground which made you wonder whether they were more concerned about the subject in hand or simply getting one over on their rivals, and there were also some T-shirts and newspaper articles and barrack-room lawyers having a go at each other on the internet. No, you don’t remember any of it, do you? Just as well. God it’s been grim."