(Whenever the TV company can get here)

A WONDERFUL thing happened at Maine Road last weekend.

Home fans didn't have to set their alarm clocks for the crack of dawn, miss their Saturday night out or leave the wife and kids to eat the Sunday roast dinner without dad.

None of this silly kick off time or scandalous business of going to the football the day God set aside for man to rest in the bosom of his family. No going straight from work on a Thursday, giving up the pub on a Friday or missing Bob and Rose for the Monday night Sky Sports game.

No, what happened - and Manchester United fans in particular might find this hard to picture - a football game kicked off at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.

City experience this wonderful but passing tradition increasingly rarely, United hardly at all and when it happens you realise how much television is killing the game.

Football matches kick off at all times of the day and night because television companies give them hundreds of millions of pounds to do so.

I for one would be more than happy if they kept their money - almost all of it only goes into players' pockets anyway - and we can have our 3pm Saturday afternoon kick off back because there's nothing like it.