Some of us felt this golden age of controvassy might have peaked the morning we learned Roy Hodgson had been found wanting on the tactical half-time comedy front, and had landed in the ‘race-hate mire’ for telling a joke about a monkey in space.

Amid all the mind games and wars of words and controvassy and flashpoints we are treated to year in, year out in the Premier League, there is something unique and intriguing about this particular enmity.

The pipes, the pipes are evidently calling Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling,

Come back John Virgo, all is forgiven.

It must be 15 years now since sportswriter Paul Little, noting a general disenchantment with the state of Gaelic football, compassionately pointed out a handful of small but significant tweaks that would fix the game overnight.

If the Clare hurlers once turned their season round by convening to drink Davy Fitzgerald’s MiWadi, maybe the same trick will work with Kool-Aid.

In the foreword of John Giles’s book The Great And The Good, Eamon Dunphy told us: “John is undemonstrative by nature. But his passion for the game is real and deeply felt.”

In a week when the Premier League more or less disgraced itself on the fields of Europe, we saw further impressive efforts in the one area where its managers continue to set high standards: goal celebrations.

Something suspicious is happening. Very suspicious, says Larry Ryan.

CTRL-V. Will you? Won’t you? It is 11.20pm on a Monday night, writes Larry Ryan.