It didn’t take long, of course. In fact the ink was barely dry on Jim Ratcliffe’s £1.7 billion investment in Man Utd before he was being sycophantically platformed by the BBC so he could share his vision with a waiting nation, a grand design for the rusting monolith that has become, over years of chronic mismanagement, British football’s laughing stock.

Rusting monoliths were on his mind first and foremost in the shape of Old Trafford, a ground which through the neglect and financial mismanagement of the Glazer family now lags behind the facilities — and by facilities we mean the ability to fleece cash out of gullible tourists — offered by the likes of Arsenal and Spurs.

Jim had redevelopment on his mind. Except not, he said, of rusty mono, but instead of a project to create a NATIONAL STADIUM FOR THE NORTH. The location? Well, why not Manchester? Northerners pay taxes too, Jimbo reminded us. Although he doesn’t, preferring to reside in Monaco to avoid doing precisely that. And surely if this nirvana by the ship canal benefited all (nudge, wink) then why should Britain’s second richest man put his hand in his own pocket to build it?

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