IAN LADYMAN: The recent scenes seen at football grounds across the land is the re-emergence of hooliganism into our game, people should stay in their seats or else the days of empty stadia so depressingly seen during Covid will return

It is to be hoped the Football League’s threat to reduce capacities in response to the rise in lawlessness in our stadiums will give the mindless minority pause for thought. There are, of course, no guarantees.

Here, if it helps, is a picture of what life was like for everybody not so long ago.

Football, the country’s national sport, continued to function during large parts of the Covid-19 pandemic that caused us all varying degrees of suffering as recently as last year. But it looked and felt very different. Nobody who was fortunate enough to be allowed inside a Premier League ground during lockdown football will ever forget what it was like.