I TOOK no pleasure from telling a former colleague – a passionate Liverpool fan – that I would not be able to attend the concert he is performing in Poole tonight.

To be honest, there was a certain vicarious pleasure in telling him that I had a prior appointment with a very large television screen, a couple of beers and a few hundred like-minded football fans.

Last May, days before Manchester United faced Chelsea in the Champions League final in Moscow, I was offered a ticket for the match.

For the unitiated or disinterested, it was the equivalent of holing the winning putt to win the Ryder Cup for Europe and seeing your child win a Nobel Prize, all rolled into one.

The fact that I subsequently had to give that ticket away in the final 24 hours was like winning just the penny on Deal Or No Deal and also seeing your offspring’s photo on the Crimewatch rogues’ gallery.

Yes, I know it’s been a very long and tortuous season, especially for those football widows and fans of teams that perhaps haven’t managed to find success.

But win or lose tonight, I will take great pleasure in embarrassing my wife by wearing my replica shirt – for only the second time – and making very loud and frightening noises when my team scores.

And if they don’t, normal service here will be resumed in a matter of days...