We are in prime ‘just look what it means’ territory of the football season

I can’t tell you how surprised I was not to see my friends at the football last week. Shocked, actually. They’re proper Arsenal fans, they always go, so naturally I assumed I’d be ­seeing them in the ground for the key match against Newcastle, not least with the season drawing to this tight conclusion.

No sign, though. Disappointing.

Ah well. Next time, I’m sure. After all, we’ve reached that point in the year (and last Saturday’s game at the Emirates was the firmest indication of this) when fans must step up and play their part, whether they like it or not – the point where, if you’re a regular and your friends don’t spot you, they’re going to be wondering why, and maybe even putting in a call afterwards to check you’re OK.

Consider the following data, which I offer exclusively as the product of my own rigorous analysis of the images broadcast from the Emirates by Sky Sports last weekend, analysis earnestly conducted from a sofa ­during the game, over a cup of tea and a number of chocolate digestives. By my calculation, of the approximately 57,000 people present to support Arsenal that day, 82%, or 46,740, were featured in at least one lingering close-up during the television ­coverage. Not my friends, as I say. But pretty much everyone else.

Furthermore, I reckon 89% of those 46,740 were brought to the screen during the final 10 minutes of the game (and often seemingly instead of those final 10 minutes), when Arsenal were clinging on to a 1-0 lead and vital points trembled in the balance. And it’s those numbers and their ­clustering which make it absolutely clear to me that we are now officially in “Just look what it means” season.

In other words, it’s that time when the thoughts of TV producers turn inexorably away from the action on the pitch and towards the reaction in the crowd. And it explains, I think, why we saw quite so much of Elvis last week.

Did you catch Elvis? He was at Wembley, supporting Leeds in their FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea. Now, I’m not entirely persuaded of a natural link between football and fancy dress, even on the game’s ­festival days, and I certainly wouldn’t ever want to see it become obligatory. Darts has the oblique theme-wear market cornered, and football doesn’t really need to go there, in my opinion. But fair play, in this instance. It was certainly highly amusing to see how a Las Vegas-era Presley outfit needed only the addition of a club badge to pass for a Leeds top, despite the light rhinestone accessorising and a small collar adjustment.

Anyway, the point is, at any other moment, this act of crowd-based showmanship might have earned a brief acknowledgement in passing from the cameras. But this being “Just look what it means” season, Elvis practically got his own show on TNT last Sunday, with repeat comebacks illustrating the game’s ebbs and flows, and accompanying barn-door bantz from Darren Fletcher and newly crowned “Pundit of the Year” Ally “You’re not wrong, Fletch” McCoist.

And you can see where TNT was coming from. If this is “Just look what it means” season, then there are bound to be bonus points available for “Just look what it means to Elvis”. Nevertheless, it made for a slightly wearying distraction from the meat of the matter, and I fear we can only expect this tendency to expand in the coming weeks. All the way, in fact, to the Championship play-off final, when, on previous form, only 4% of the last 10 minutes of the game will be available to view live, the other 96% being obscured behind a blanket of pictures of fans rendered variously catatonic by anxiety and/or misery.

On the plus side, I suppose, it raises our chances of spotting people we know – still somehow a dumb thrill, even now. (“Look! There’s people I know! On television!”) Although, of course, in “Just look what it means” season, even that reliable pleasure can get dented. (“Look! There’s pretty much everyone apart from the people I know! On television!”)

We’ll see what it means to our friends soon enough, though. Count on it.

Photograph by Getty Images