Before Sky invented it in 1992, a game existed in Britain that some of us dared to call football.

It was rough, tough and at times dangerous to know.

Isn't anyone like me and misses the way football used to be?

Nonsense I hear you cry. We've never had it so good.

How on Earth can I think that the mucky, horrible, slow, short-shorted, mustachioed game of the 1970s and 80s was better than the polished product we watch every week in fabulous arenas across the country? (Arenas that are wonderfully decked out with all the technology you'll ever need: Arabian TV and a bar).

Parents, I beg of you, don't let this golden period of our sporting history slide into obscurity. Tell your kids!

I'm sure most of you, eager to increase your children's' IQ's, read columns from The Northern Echo Sport section to them late at night, their bright eyes dazzled with the non-League tales of Mike Amos, and of course the Zen-like post-match comments of Roy Keane.

Well stretch their tiny minds further and let me tell them tales of perms, polyester and Liverpool domination.

This was a time when Mark Lawrenson looked and played like a hard man. Now we know him to be ever-so-slightly camp as Christmas. How the world has changed in 25 years.

I'm coming up to my 29th birthday, so let me reminisce.

My first match was a European Cup semi-final at Anfield. The game didn't actually sell out. Liverpool won 4-0.

Football was probably at its lowest ebb.

Actually, that was to come in the European Cup Final that followed. Yet our teams dominated Europe.

In 1985 the Football League champions were Everton (yes kids, Everton) and they won the European Cup Winners' Cup with the sort of football that got you on your feet, mainly because you were standing in the first place I suppose.

No-one scores diving headers like Andy Gray any more. No-one steps out of defence as beautifully as Alan Hansen. And no-one kicks people up in the air like Graeme Souness and Peter Reid used to do.

I know we're spoilt by the way Arsenal play and how Cristiano Ronaldo does those step-over things, but is it really worth £45 a go?

Is it really worth us forking out on satellite subscriptions and replica shirts and pies that cost £3.50?

I suppose full stadiums tell me that it is, but would you want to sit and have a chat about football with ANY of the 74,000 who turned up at Old Trafford to watch Manchester United's third team lose to Coventry the other night?

I'd rather stay in and watch America's Next Top Model. And sometimes I do just that.

Everyone has an opinion (even me) and now everybody has a chance to write it somewhere.

From Internet forums to fanzines to The Northern Echo letters page, why are we so bothered about trying to analyse the game?

I'm sure somewhere on Youtube someone's found a way to do their own analysis of the latest televised game and that they've even got Andy Gray's bendy arrows, circles and offside-bodyline-measurement device (technical term there).

But why?

Let's get back to old days I say. We need more Andy Grays on the pitch, more Alan Hansens in defence.

And if we're going to de-revolutionise TV coverage totally, I'm sure Elton Welsby's free next Sunday.