I’m getting sick and tired of the self-important pose of football managers and players. And I know a bit about this from personal experience of post-match press conferences and interviews over the years. Take any press gathering after a game and you will find the assembled hacks standing to attention like dutiful soldiers waiting for a particularly aggressive sergeant. In walk one or both of the managers and the only thing missing is the sight of the hacks bowing and kissing the feet of the great one(s).

Then come the questions, usually in the form of a statement making it oh, so easy for the manager to give the ubiquitous monosyllabic grunt: “Wayne was not really on song today, Sir Alex (Sir!!).” “Grunt.” And if anyone dares to question the tablets of stone brought down from the training pitch, then the wrath of these gods knows no limits. My six-year-old’s tantrums when not getting his own way have nothing on these overpaid bullying babies. Don’t like what the media says? Simple, just refuse to talk to them. Sam Allardyce and Sir (Sir!!) Alex Ferguson are two classic examples of this particular equivalent of throwing toys out of the cot. Sir (Sir!!) Alex has been roundly criticised by BBC commentator Alan Green over the years and instead of facing up this critic, he sulks in the corner while sending out one of his minions to face the press.

Michael Crick’s biography of Ferguson, The Boss: The many sides of Alex Ferguson, revealed all sorts of stuff about Sir (Sir!!) Alex being a bully towards his players and the media. There is a description of his anger at BBC commentator John Motson after ‘Motty’ asked him about Roy Keane being sent off. Ferguson swore at Motson and stomped off.

Big Sam is another. After the BBC Panorama documentary, in which the Bolton boss was possibly embarrassed by alleged impropriety in his dealings with agents, Mr Allardyce also boycotted the national network, sending out some Scottish chap with a Polish name with letters that would bring you at least 88 in Scrabble to deal with the sharks.

Next we come to Monsieur Wenger, the dapper and erudite intellectual whose snappy dress sense is in sharp contrast to big Sam’s tie knot, which is actually bigger than the long bit hanging down. Wenger is like my 13-year-old, all smiles when he gets what he wants but just you try reasoning with him when something goes wrong. However, in fairness to our cherie amour, his English is far better than Big Sam’s. And Sir (Sir!!) Alex’s.

We live in a democracy (more or less) and I see nothing wrong with the media laying into football managers and players. It’s more than ironic that politicians in this country get a harder time than the people who play and coach football. Why are these people so precious? So what if journalists are camped outside a player’s house waiting for a wide-angle shot of a lady clad in a flimsy nightdress. So what if they write that a player on £80,000 a week swore at a cameraman outside a nightclub. So what if they write that a manager might have received a rectangular envelope filled with goodies. If I was on £80,000 a week (I hope the publisher of Sportingo is reading this), I’d be quite happy for the sharks to call me the biggest cheating scumbag in the world (as long as they don’t tell the missus).