Nigel Pearson victim of empowerment age

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.

But we hadn’t yet lived through the special times that have given us the rolling story: ‘Pearson says sorry for calling journalist an ostrich’.

It was, admittedly, a “post-match rant” that had it all — one Gervais, David, Seinfeld combined would struggle to better. Even as Big Nige was maxing out on the boorishness, his innate competitiveness took over and he found himself insisting he would make a better ostrich than the one settled in front of him.