This has been a good week for a television drama about sex, drugs and violence in football, and ITV had one.
Gifted took just two hours of my Wednesday evening to bring me up to speed on the national game's stance on date rape, perversion of justice and racially-motivated assault. Bearing in mind it was commissioned some time ago, it was spookily contemporary.
The writer, Kay Mellor, could have been tried for witchcraft in a different age. Only a discussion of Claudio Ranieri's rotation system might have made it more topical. But that didn't mean it was relevant.
Football has been steadily creeping up the running orders of national news bulletins thanks to events at Manchester United's training centre, the Grosvenor House Hotel and a players' tunnel in Istanbul. The great moral debate has spilled over into studio discussions and phone-ins that are normally the preserve of grave matters of state.
The names of Rio Ferdinand, Jody Morris, Alpay and others have been lumped together as if they are part of a grand conspiracy. "Now for the latest on the crisis in football. . . ."
Modern football's fairytale existence lends itself to anecdotal and allegorical yarns of men behaving badly. It's one big rock opera. Gifted had most of the stock characters. The chairman was northern and gruff, the manager was Scottish and fiery, the star was poor boy turned rich, the commentator was Alan Green.
I can talk, I've got a script of my own doing the rounds of publishers that is probably no less fanciful and fictional. There is nothing wrong with symbolism and parable in dramatic writing. Just don't mistake it for undisputed fact.
Gifted invited anyone concerned by the issues raised to contact the Rape Crisis Federation. To be honest, so many issues were touched upon during the programme that they could have listed another dozen support organisations.
Football was being viewed as a showcase for all manner of society's ills and prejudices. Mellor has penned successful dramas about everything from prostitution to dieting. Errant footballers were just the latest in her line of hot social topics. Everybody's talking about them.
If Gifted helped to highlight the use of date rape drugs, then fine. If it examined the issues in question, I didn't notice. The victim talked briefly of losing sleep and taking sedatives, but the show was not about her ordeal.
It was a dramatic reconstruction of football's apparent abandonment of all rhyme, reason and reality. Alcohol, pole dancers, fast cars, referee abuse, decadence, bribery and corruption. It was all in there. Footballers Wives without the laughs. And the national game can't pretend it hasn't brought a lot of it on itself.
The danger is in the generalisation. Take the race issue. Racial abuse is racial abuse. Discrimination on grounds of colour or creed is an offence. But isn't there a distinction between a bigot allegedly picking a public fight with Ian Wright in the Loftus Road stands and the question of why there have been so few black managers in English football?
The Kick Racism Out campaign has earned welcome publicity recently and public awareness has grown since bananas were thrown at John Barnes. But how many Asian players are there in the professional game? The headlines never quite tell the story.
The headlines from Gifted were the same as those on the news bulletins. The household names that appear on the back of your son's replica shirt are out there swapping punches, pills and room keys. Well, I'm sorry but while a few of them may well be, they are certainly not the only ones.
The sins of the free world are not exclusive to professional footballers. If those found guilty are made a public example of, then it may make others think twice. But please don't tell me that they should be the ones who are setting the examples. In what other spheres are we looking to 22-year-old lads to be role models?
Football may have created some overpaid monsters, but it has not created any new crimes or problems. It's a fair cop, but society is to blame. Date rape and racial abuse are no more unique to the game than habitual cheating or financial mismanagement.
Football is a window on life. One that millions press their noses against and stare constantly through. Some of the more creative among them still see only what they want to see.
