There is never a bad time to reread the journalism of Red Smith, one of only three sports writers ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, but there has probably never been a better time to reprint an excerpt from the great man's work in an effort to illuminate one of the greater irritations of modern football.
"High on the list of things that hold no interest whatsoever for baseball fans is the identity of the team's owner," Smith wrote in the winter of 1955. "Nobody has yet bought a ticket to see the club president arrive in his box, sit down and hold his hands across his abdomen."
One measure of truly great writing is its timelessness and for many years this particular snippet passed the test with honours. Substitute "baseball" with "Premier League" and "president" with "moody Russian billionaire with Napoleon complex" and you would once have had a beautiful precis of the relationship between football fan and club owner.
But alas not even the genius of Red Smith has been able to withstand the financial bulldozer that is top-class English football. These days virtually everybody cares who owns their club, while those who would prefer to expend their energies supporting their team rather than being forced to dwell on the significance of their team's latest boardroom machinations are considering alternative living arrangements. The far side of Neptune, with return tickets to earth on match days, might be the safest option.
Once upon a time, breathless gravitas was the preserve of Richard Dimbleby perched in an eyrie high above Westminster Abbey on royal occasions.
These days, breathless gravitas is the daily currency of our national sport. Hence, Roman Abramovich's childish strop in the Villa Park directors' box is imbued with the significance of cabinet reshuffle; its detail and consequences to be pondered long into the night.
And if it isn't the antics of Mr Chelsea then it is those of the (self-proclaimed) Mr Arsenal, David Dein, who, as avid readers of newspapers as diverse as the Moscow News and the Financial Times will know in some detail, trousered a cool £75m from the sale of his shares in the club to the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who may be pondering a takeover of the club in conjunction, or possibly in competition, with the American billionaire Stan Kroenke, who may, or may not, be able to out-manoeuvre the multimillionaire Danny Fiszman, who is, of course, the London club's majority shareholder.
So many billionaires and multimillionaires, so little clarity. It would require a PhD in economics and a working time machine to predict the outcome of the Arsenal power struggle but it only needs a half-ounce of common sense to realise that the participants in this drearily self-indulgent tango will be looking out mostly for themselves and not for the interests of Arsenal season-ticket holders.
And as we ponder that sad reality, it might be worth asking why it is that the goings-on of rich men take up so much space in our football lives. Is it because these people are inherently interesting? Is it because what happens in the boardroom matters more than what happens on the pitch? Or is it because the average fan finds it hard to divert their gaze from a bonfire of vanities, especially when it is taking place in their own backyard? Whatever the answers - and I'll settle for no, no and yes - it is surely time to call a halt to this particular circus, or at least draw the curtains as it parades before our eyes.
If that doesn't stop the likes of Dein and Abramovich seeking to hog the limelight then they might politely be requested to divert their own attention towards Manchester United, where the Glazer family has been a model of personal restraint since taking over the club; profit seekers, yes, attention seekers, no.
No doubt most people at Chelsea and Arsenal, not to mention a few dissidents in red-and-white, would gag at the notion of Malcolm Glazer as a role model but, say what you like about him, he is hardly the type to start selling tickets at Old Trafford to watch him arrive in his box, sit down and hold his hands across his abdomen. The same is no doubt true at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates Stadium, although the way things are going these days you never know.
