IT is a real pity St Helens Town’s FA Vase run has come to a halt before the national stages.

The club, who famously beat Warrington Town to win that trophy at Wembley in 1987, could have just done with the profile and extra cash that making it through to the last 32 would have brought.

Town would have netted an extra £1,500 for making it through – small when you consider that Wayne Rooney reportedly earns an estimated £1,785 an hour, but nevertheless handy money for clubs operating on a shoestring.

Money and the disparity in wealth from top to bottom is one of the things that has really turned me away from football this past 15 years so much so that I rarely watch a game on television these days.

That is a bit of a transformation from 40 years ago when, like any other eight-year-old lad at school, football was an obsession.

In those days football was much simpler and straightforward; Four divisions numbered logically, an FA Cup competition that was revered and a European Cup competition that was there to test the mettle of champions.

Back in the mid seventies, in the immediate afterglow of watching the 1974 World Cup Finals, I used to spend every Saturday afternoon watching the teleprinter and writing in the Division One results in a little red cash book.

The only live games were the FA Cup Final, England v Scotland and the European Cup Final – so Saturday night’s Match of the Day and Sunday dinner time’s The Big Match became the weekend staple diet, with Sportsnight for the midweek games.

I drifted away from football when rugby league took a grip on me, but still followed the fortunes of Leeds United, Celtic and then professionally covered Birmingham City.

But if I am honest, I really can’t be bothered with top level football these days.

It is not simply the big wages, celebrity lifestyles and way every non-story affecting a footballer and his WAG is plastered on the front and back of every tabloid.

Nor is it the ticket costs, which have effectively priced the average working class fan out of the market.

But it is also that football has simply become a big business – one which essentially means snaring an oligarch to bankroll your team is far more important than bringing players through.

Sadly that overshadows anything that happens on the field – so I’ll carry on ignoring top-flight football and stick to watching clips of Cruyff, Lorimer, Best, Pele, Trevor Francis and Jinky Johnstone on YouTube.