IN my years following football as a fan, and covering it as a journalist, I’m sure of only two things.

One, that fans have absolutely no idea what players go through and, two, that players have absolutely no idea what fans go through.

Players, certainly the ones we’ve heard of, are highly paid, no doubt.

But they have overcome incredible odds to get to where they’ve got to.

And name me one other workplace where you’re routinely physically and ­verbally abused, not only by your ­competitors but often by your own ­colleagues, too.

And then there are your own “supporters”, who will deify you at times, but if you go through a bad patch will “support” you by calling you every name under the sun and, from the terraces or on social media, outline your shortcomings.

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Fans don’t appreciate what it takes to survive all this.

But footballers don’t understand what it takes to be a fan, to have that love and loyalty for one club.

Most footballers, after all, have had to give up following a team home and away at a very young age, as they will have been too busy playing a match themselves at the weekend.

These thoughts come to mind watching the entertaining Twitter spat this week between Gary Lineker and Gary Neville.

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Ooh, it’s been a right old Gary-off.

Gary N got the ball rolling by complaining about Man United players and execs being seen apparently enjoying themselves after getting kicked out of the Champions League.

Manager Ralf Rangnick was at the cricket in Barbados, forward Marcus Rashford was at the boxing in Dubai and owners the Glazers were at the F1 in Bahrain.

Furious Gary tweeted that he remembered “a time when United players, managers, executives wouldn’t be seen in their local Italian after a draw at home, let alone getting knocked out of Europe . . . This lot are tone deaf.”

To which Gary L responded that Gary N was remembering a time when, after a defeat, “they were mostly busy getting hammered down the pub without everyone being on social media”.

There then followed various unsubstantiated allegations along the lines of Gary N being seen all sweaty in a nightclub dancing to The Birdie Song in the aftermath of some Man United defeat 20 years ago.

My view is that players are perfectly entitled to spend their leisure time doing exactly what they want, whether they win, lose or draw.

But I perfectly understand why fans sometimes can’t bear this.

Twenty years ago I wrote a book about the psychology of football supporters.

It was called We Don’t Know What We’re Doing and is now available for as much as 25p if you shop around.

In my research I interviewed a fellow West Brom fan who didn’t miss a game for two decades.

And then he saw something after a match at Bristol Rovers which led to him never again attending another match.

Relegated and laughing

It wasn’t specifically because that 1-1 draw was a particularly poor performance, or that it led us to being relegated to the old Third Division for the first time ever.

It was because the West Brom team coach passed him on the M5 home and, for reasons still unclear to him, he decided to follow it back to The Hawthorns.

When they arrived, he didn’t know what to do other than watch the players get off the coach. And he saw two of them laughing. Laughing!

Relegated to the Third Division that afternoon and laughing.

He was so appalled that he swore to me he never watched us play again.

This was possibly a harsh judgment on the laughing players. After all, even at funerals there’s usually some laughter.

But what this fan was forced to confront that day was another awful truth about the game: That very few footballers care as much about their club as any of that club’s fans.

They’ll care about their performance, and they’ll desperately want to succeed for that club.

But that’s not the same as the love fans will have for a club.

After all, it’s just a job for the players. For heaven’s sake, they move between clubs!

No West Brom fan ever has said: “Look, I’ve had a decent offer from Wolves; good money on a five-year deal to support them instead, so I’m going to have to move on.”

The offer would never be made nor accepted.

So, if I may offer this final word on the Gary-off: Players are entitled to go out and enjoy themselves after a defeat — I know I do after a bad day at work.

But if they’re seen enjoying themselves too much, they run the risk of spilling football’s dirtiest secret, the truth we’re all aware of but must hide from.

Footballers don’t love their clubs like fans do. It’s just the way it is.

KEEPY IT UP , NICOLE

WHO’S your favourite astronaut? Mine’s Nicole Mann, and she’s the most impressive person I’ve spoken to in a while.

Raised in California, the daughter of a mechanic and a nail technician, she excelled at soccer as a teen.

Then she became a pilot in the US Navy, as you do, flying jets.

Then a test pilot. And now she’s an astronaut, training for a mission to the International Space Station.

She may well then become the first woman on the moon.

When I asked her if anyone had ever played football on the moon, she said: “Hmm, you’ve given me an idea there.”

So if we see her doing keepy-uppies way up there in a few years’ time, it was my idea. Just so you know.

EMMA JOINS AD RACKET

I BOW to no one in my admiration of Emma Raducanu.

Her US Open win last year was one of the all-time great moments in British sport.

She was 18, playing there for the first time, and won the whole thing without dropping a single set.

Furthermore, she seems really nice – never stops smiling off the court, never stops grafting on it.

She’s state-educated, fluent in two other languages and generally an all-round good sort.

When she lifted that trophy there was such purity about her and her achievement that it jarred a bit when the massive prize money was discussed.

It wasn’t about the money. It was only about the joy of the miracle that had come to pass.

Surely all the lucrative product endorsements could wait.

But no, within days she joined the “iconic @TiffanyAndCo family”.

Looking through her Twitter feed, in no time she went on to be “excited to partner with Evian”.

Then came membership of another “family”, in this case British Airways, for whom she was appointed “global brand ambassador”.

Then Nike. And then Dior, for whom she’s “global fashion and beauty ambassador”, and on to something to do with Vodafone, for which she’s also an ambassador.

And this week comes news of another flipping family, #PorscheFamily.

This is all somewhat grating for many people who’ve spotted that she’s not actually, you know, won anything since Flushing Meadow.

But I can’t blame her for all this corporate nonsense – I just wish the so-called responsible adults managing her would just leave her be to play her tennis for a while.

She’s our Emma, sporting prodigy of the highest order, not an opportunity for some suit to squeeze their commission out of her on every one of these deals.

A CAR CRASH, RISHI

THE cheesiness of political photo opportunities has now bottomed out.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer – one of the great offices of state – has now achieved maximum cheese with a photo so cheesy that even glancing at it raises your cholesterol, furs up your arteries and gives you bad dreams.

To accompany his announcement in the Spring Statement of 5p a litre off fuel duty, he organised to have himself pictured filling up a small family car at a branch of Sainsbury’s.

Oh please. We know it’s not his car and he knows we know it’s not his car. So why bother?

Terrifyingly, we have to assume that the party underlings’ research tells them that there are a significant number of voters who will see that picture and think, “Hey great – our Chancellor’s just a regular guy who runs a small family car and does his own shopping”.

To be clear, he’s not. His wife’s family are so wealthy they might even have more money than the Treasury.

So, we’re agreed that’s the cheesiest picture of late.

In close second place sits the Foreign Secretary’s effort on her visit to Moscow before the Ukraine war started.

Notwithstanding the urgency of her mission, Liz Truss found time to commission a picture of herself outside the Kremlin wearing one of those furry Russian hats.

“Get me one,” she must have commanded an aide.

“You know the kind of thing. Google Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago. That’s what I’m after.”

COVID IN MUDDLE

THE Covid rules have always been a bit of a muddle, but never more than now.

Do you isolate? Do you even test? Where do you get a test? Why would you bother? And so on.

I asked a friend of mine who’s high up in the NHS what he made of it.

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He says it feels like the policy is shifting from containing the disease towards herd immunity, “which is fair enough except it’s a bit like going from driving on the left to driving on the right but only doing so gradually”.

Hold on tight, everyone.

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