We may never know how close ITV came to calling off its live coverage of the FA Cup second-round tie between non-League Histon and the formerly mighty Leeds United on Sunday. We can only report that rain battered the camera lenses almost throughout the 90 minutes, creating, for the viewer at home, an effect familiar to anyone who has ever stood on the deck of a North Atlantic fishing smack in a pair of reading glasses.

Although the match itself was not in danger, the broadcast self-evidently was, and we can only assume that there was a formal inspection of the cameras at half-time. The regulations, as we understand them, state that if more than three quarters of the viewer's television screen is comically obscured by fat raindrops, the producer must lead his team back to the outside broadcast truck and revert to the stand-by family movie, probably Black Beauty.

Those conditions regularly applied at Histon, where water - and, indeed, condensation - divided the screen into so many fragments, it was like watching an episode of 24 edited by an angry chimp. Occasionally the touchline reporter, Gabriel Clarke, would collar Histon's chairman for a comment, but, peering as if through a bathroom window on the other side of the pitch, we couldn't tell which one was Clarke, or whether either of them were people at all, rather than rain-lashed tree stumps.

Yet, controversially, the broadcast stumbled on, leaving in its wake only bafflement, a strange feeling of dampness in one's socks (despite being undeniably indoors), and agitated calls for an official investigation, which must follow.

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Two goals down at the interval and three behind within the hour, mighty Leeds United stood shattered and humiliated

• Topic: FA Cup upsets

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It was a miserable afternoon for ITV, which had to apologise twice, first for audible obscenities after Leeds fans scooped up a pitchside microphone for the purpose of some adult-rated karaoke, and then again, after the match, for the sight of a butt-naked footballer, which may be all very well at a town centre taxi rank after midnight, but is rightly deemed unacceptable during family viewing time.

Then again, frankly, if you put cameras in a changing-room, you're going to see people change. It's called asking for trouble.

As for the waterlogged lenses, though, how did ITV so significantly fail to prepare for this eventuality? Did it think it wouldn't rain? It was the second round of the FA Cup, for heaven's sake: it always rains. (Unlike the third round of the FA Cup, when it always snows. And then rains.) In any case, games of football have taken place in the rain before, and been televised, and we have still been able to see them. In fact, come to think of it, such games have been televised by ITV. Incredible to relate, but they have rain in the Champions League, too. And cameras with special protective hoods on them.

But maybe the rain never falls quite as hard as it does in the “lower echelons”. Or maybe ITV couldn't be bothered to take the protective hoods down there, it being only Histon.

Alternatively, perhaps bringing us these earthy conditions, unmediated by cleverly adjusted bits of tarpaulin, or even the odd umbrella, was all part of ITV's vision of the FA Cup as a competition still thrillingly in touch with football's roots. It may even be that someone was using a wind machine to drive the rain into the camera's face, while someone else was popping up at intervals to breathe on the lens, for that authentic “Bovril steam” effect.

The mission will not be complete until Peter Drury is persuaded to commentate through mouthfuls of white-hot meat pie and stale Wagon Wheel. In the meantime, a bit of wetness on the lens may be ITV's last stand against the faddish, high-definition, money-oriented soullessness at the top of the game. “Keep your Premiership pretty boys on £130,000 a week,” the coverage seems to be saying. “Here's a dimly visible postman in a puddle.” And as an exercise in contrast-creation, you couldn't fault it.

Afterwards, I clicked over to the Manchester derby, which was taking place, almost mockingly, in sunshine and in the total absence of mud banks. Truly, one reflected, it's another world at the game's top end.

At the same time, the tactic slightly defeats itself if you can't see anything. Histon had a shout for a penalty but, as far as those of us at home were concerned, it was only a shout, the details utterly invisible between the rivulets streaming down the insides of our television sets. Windscreen wipers would have done the trick. Or a bloke with a J Cloth. We wouldn't have minded. As Steve Rider and the rest of the ITV team told us again and again at the weekend, victories such as Histon's over Leeds don't come along too many times in a lifetime. You don't want to be peering into a cloudy aquarium when they do.