With the Global Poker League heading directly for centre stage, Lee Davy offers an opinion on why he believes they will have to move away from the city-wide franchise to provide the main course of all sporting events: passion.

When I saw the first punch my foot stepped onto the pitch. When I saw the referee was in over his head, I broke into a gentle trot. When I saw 11 players converge angrily into my son’s space with fireworks of fists exploding around his head, I have never run so fast in my life.

As a coach of an Under 16 football side you should never be proud of violence but I was that day. All season I had worried over our inability to create the fever needed to compete. There was more oomph in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory United.

When I was a kid, I played for a team called Wyndham Boys Club and we despised a team called Bettws. When I played senior football, I played for the Cafe Royals and we hated a team called Lewistown. As a Manchester United fan, I despised Liverpool. As an England fan, I hated Germany.