ALL of us at some stage have probably lamented the lack of 3pm Saturday kick-offs “these days”.

You are not a bonafide purist if you are happy to accept football being played at any other time: you probably can’t remember the Highbury peanut sellers, the half-time marching band or even the Jumbotron – in the 1990s having a giant screen in your ground was considered in the same rich ilk as carrying a mobile phone.

But many fans will be saying p’ah to tradition in recent weeks after a series of Arsenal games weren’t broadcast live on any channel at all. It’s the first time in ages that the Gunners have had a sniff of being in the title race at the end of March and, all of a sudden, supporters are left with radio commentary to follow the action. The blackout happened with the games against Everton and Crystal Palace, and it will happen with the Leeds match this weekend.

The worst thing for fans missing the action at this crucial juncture is that many of them are paying ridiculous subscription fees on the basis that more or less they will see it all if they do. It’s close to £100 a month if you want to see all of the football all of the time, as you’d need to take out deals with Sky, BT Sport and Amazon Prime.

There’s the licence fee for the BBC’s Match of the Day and FA Cup games (although I think they put on some other shows as well when the football’s not on) and if you want to go the whole hog: Apple TV now has the MLS.

This week everybody started hearing that Scotland were beating Spain in a fun match to watch, but where could we see it? Subscribe to “Viaplay” for another chunk of cash.

Ironically, there were spirited protests when league football was taken off terrestial telly way back when and snapped up by Sky. This asset grab seemed to be an ugly case of ransom – locking up the nation’s favourite sport to only those who could pay.

In truth, the free channels had hardly been making the most of it though, and we’d more or less get Elton Welsby and one game a week, rather than the menu of matches now provided on the pay services. Nevertheless, the idea of a Sky monopoly was hated in many quarters to the extent there was some joy when we were told it would be broken up into different contracts.

In reality, smashing that grip – which let’s not forget at one time meant we were stuck with Richard Keys and Andy Gray whether we liked it or not – has only raised everybody’s bills by creating more channels to subscribe too.

No wonder then, so many people scour the internet for dodgy feeds every Saturday afternoon.