Eradicating diving and the reckless tackle can be regarded as the sort of jobs you polish off before breakfast compared with the task that the FA set itself yesterday - that of driving out the raging parent.

A personal memory is of a Cambridgeshire referee cowering in his changing-room while a father, whose 14-year-old son had been sent off for a neck-high tackle, tried to kick the door down. “Come out here, I’m gonna thump you,” he shouted. That was 25 years ago and the situation cannot have improved, given that the FA felt it necessary to launch its Respect campaign yesterday.

The governing body’s concern is merited. In a recent poll, 83 per cent of respondents said that they had witnessed “unacceptable verbal abuse or interference from the parents or spectators of a youth football match”. More than 50 per cent had heard adults verbally abusing young players.

So now we have reached the point where you will turn up to watch your child playing at the local park and be forced to stand behind a fence. Providing these roped-off areas and the Respect posters probably forms the least expensive part of the £200 million programme to improve grassroots football, but if the FA is serious about addressing bad behaviour, it amounts to nothing less than a cultural shift.

To be fair to the professional clubs, it is an issue that they have faced up to in their youth systems. At the academies there are strict rules about parental conduct. Many clubs have training sessions that mothers and fathers are banned from watching, or, at the very least, are ordered to be silent.

Stopping overexcited fathers shouting their mouths off will make Saturday mornings more enjoyable for boys and girls up and down the country, but it is only a tiny step in the long and desperately needed campaign to improve youth development. Poor coaching, in schools, local clubs and even in the professional system, is a far more serious issue if we are examining why our sport produces so few technically talented footballers.

The Government, the clubs and the FA have their parts to play in raising standards, but we should also acknowledge our responsibility. It involves abandoning our obsession with 100mph football, our eagerness to celebrate the thudding tackle over the beautiful pirouette and our tendency to shout at little Johnny. As of this weekend, let there be no more screaming from the sidelines of “get rid of it”.