EVERY now and again you see something on TV that makes you reach for the rewind button. Sadly, it’s rarely for something worth watching again; far more often it’s to make sure that your eyes didn’t deceive you over the latest example of bad taste or idiocy.

Then there are the scenes or incidents that evoke long-lost memories, some pleasant, some not so.

I saw one this weekend, when watching Aston Villa play Chelsea, just after Villa’s second, soft goal. There, on the goal-line, oblivious to the millions watching, was John Terry jumping up and down in self-possessed rage.

In an instant I was whisked back to my childhood days and the sight of some spoiled, little boy who didn’t know any better reacting to having his sweet ration stopped.

Terry’s antics gave me a good laugh. Of course, week in, week out, we all see things on football pitches that aren’t so funny. We see cheating, or as it is called these days, gamesmanship. We see boorish, scowling, swearing prima donnas, or as fawning commentators call them, born competitors. And week in, week out, we hear the same, tired old excuses from the people who are supposed to manage these regrettable role models.

We can overestimate the influence that football’s alleged elite exercise over young people. Hopefully, they have far better examples to follow at their local school or club when they turn out for a match.

But what they see on TV does have an impact.

If you’ll permit me one more boyhood memory, I recall watching the World Cup back in 1966. I have happy memories of the epics I saw at Ayresome Park, but it’s one televised incident that lives with me more than 40 years on.

In the third place play-off, a West German player downed a skilful Russian winger with a brutal and unpunished two-footed tackle.

The reason I remember it is simple: when I got back to school after the summer break everyone was clogging in the same way and wondering why they were getting pulled up.

The old rule that self-discipline is the best discipline applies to footballers like the rest of us, but the first line of re-enforcement should be the managers. Unfortunately, most seem to be afflicted with professional myopia.

Post-match interviews seem to consist of lame excuses, blame-shifting and attacks on officials. The qualities required of a football manager are the same as those required of anyone running a business, or a council, even – credibility, judgement and ability to lead by example. You could count on one hand the number who score a hat-trick.

The issue is coming to a head, with the case of Sir Alex Ferguson, who casually tried to trash a referee’s reputation and possibly his career by suggesting he wasn’t fit enough to officiate in a game in which his team had, coincidentally, underperformed.

Sir Alex’s achievements are, to lapse into football hyperbole, legendary, but at times his behaviour resembles that of another figure we all remember from our childhood days, the playground bully. I suspect that if he gets his deserved come-uppance from the FA, we will hear the old, weaselly cliches about his competitive edge, will-to-win and one hundred per cent commitment getting the better of him.

But inside, most of us will be cheering.

We should be too, because the tide of indiscipline that is at the root of so many of our ills is no longer lapping round our ankles. We are up to our necks in it and whether it’s on the football, pitch, our street or the local shopping mall, it is up to us all to stem it.