“IDIOT… Absolute idiot.”

Other barbs available, mostly unprintable mind.

A stinging riposte to a Brexit opinion? A withering assessment of certain chants over in Bulgaria? No, the reaction to ratings given to footballers – non-league footballers I might add.

The sense of entitlement I have encountered at semi-professional, sometimes amateur levels of football can be quite astounding – and trust me, some semi-pros should be amateur.

Give someone five and you’re clueless, even if you are the same you-know-what who gave them the eight they plastered all over their Facebook wall a couple of weeks earlier.

It had me scratching my head.

On my old patch down in Bournemouth you’d get the odd remark, usually with tongue firmly in cheek, but up here everyone seems to get properly upset and it is not always the players.

Does a few miles north really make a difference?

The answer is no, and it tells us much more about all of us than it does about pockets of precious footballers (believe it or not most of them are pretty decent lads).

The problem is societal. If you have an alternative opinion, you’re stupid, misinformed, wrong.

Agree, nod along and sing along with the hum in the echo chamber and you get a hearty slap on the back. Come on in, welcome, here’s your complimentary slap on the back.

You’re with us or against us, social media amplifying the most vehement of claims and sticking it under your nose at the expense of the more-reasoned, thought-out opinion.

Whether Brexit is a symptom or the driving force behind such a mentality is hard to say but it feels like we’ve all be far less tolerant since that vote in 2016.

As is often the case, these things tend to get magnified in football and usually by the hangers on.

That opening comment was made by someone who shared the surname of a player in a match I did ratings for.

Then I think back to the interview I did with a lad of 19 or 20 with his dad, who I had just witnessed negotiating his terms for a new club, acting as pseudo press officer.

And we wonder why some of these lads, particularly those who have been in professional academies, don’t think for themselves.