NO, I didn’t hear the interview. But I have heard plenty about it ever since.

The fuss and the fury confirms what I have suspected for a long time. In football, what happens off the pitch is often a lot more diverting than what occurs on it.

I’m talking about Gordon’s Strachan’s now infamous post-match interview where he told a local radio reporter that he took drugs, drank and smoked to alleviate the stresses of his job.

Strachan was trying to be funny. He failed on two counts. Firstly, his material was rubbish.

Substance abuse isn’t amusing. Secondly, he forgot the first rule of comedy. It’s all about timing. Making flippant remarks minutes after your team has thrown away a two goal lead is not going to get supporters who have shelled out hard cash to watch them collapse rolling in the aisles.

It’s said in Strachan’s defence that he doesn’t suffer fools. I don’t have a problem with that. What worries me is that the Middlesbrough manager’s definition of a fool seems to be “anyone who is not G Strachan”. It is an attitude that can only lead to conflict.

There are solutions. If Strachan finds the media tiresome, he can delegate. Sir Alex Ferguson is a rare interviewee these days and while a hard-pressed nation would no doubt be cheered by seeing more of his smiling face and jolly demeanour, we get by without. I’m sure we would all get through Saturday teatime without the thoughts of Gordon.

It has to be said few managers do themselves any favours on TV. If Strachan is the grouch, up the road in Sunderland Steve Bruce is the grumbler, the only man in the universe who can find a direct link between a dodgy offside decision given against his team in the first minute of the match with a disputed goal conceded in extra time.

Uniting these, and all other managers, is the inability to admit any of their players has put a foot wrong. There is now an accepted term for this queasy mixture of myopia and amnesia: Wenger’s Syndrome.

The other common factor among all these highly-paid and highly-trying individuals is that they all look so miserable. I appreciate football management is a high-pressure job, but its rewards are proportionate. It is a game that should be played with a smiling face. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for it to be managed with a touch of humour or humanity.

It isn’t, of course, and this attitude spills out onto the pitch. Just ask yourself the last time you saw a professional player who actually looked like he was enjoying what he was doing for most of the match?

At times it seems to me that the game, particularly at the highest level, has become a mirror of modern life, played out at a frenetic pace, with a devil-take-the-hindmost attitude and little time for the courtesies and kindness that add value to any experience.

There were a number of serious injuries and even more near misses last weekend.

They all happened because of players launching themselves at opponents like human missiles, rather than tackling. The root cause is the fear of losing that now pervades and poisons every aspect of top-flight football.

But it isn’t just players and managers who will have to change if we are to have a healthier, happier sport. We’ll have to look at our own attitudes as supporters as well, our demands for instant success and our brutal attitude to failure. It’s a sad fact, but baying for blood has replaced communal singing as the sound most associated with our sport.

So the ball is in our court. For once let’s see if we can play it fairly.