I finally snapped when the Sky Sports cameras panned to the away end at Kenilworth Road. There was a chap in his red Liverpool scarf and stood next to him was a young woman wearing a pink baseball cap. An LFC baseball cap. It was pink. I think I screamed.

The abject performance from Rafael Benítez’s side in the FA Cup third-round tie washed over me. I was too busy seething about the fact that a) anyone thinks female footie fans need pink accessories, and b) that female footie fans wear them.

Perhaps the cap was a gift, but that is no excuse. Just before Christmas my mother phoned me from the LFC shop. “I’ve found a lovely fleece in the women’s section. Shall I buy it for you?” she asked. “What colour is it?” “It’s white. It’s really nice.” “And the Liver Bird? What colour is that?” There was a guilty silence and then my mum said it was pink. I growled and told her to make an official complaint and under no circumstances to buy it for me.

So all I got for Christmas in an LFC sort of way was a club calendar, a beer glass and beer mats with lovely red insignias. Presumably there is a range of LFC champagne flutes with pink insignias out there somewhere.

It has to stop. Now, when you scan a stand packed with fans, their scarves raised above their heads, a dozen or more scarves stand out like acne on a beautiful face. They are pink; maybe pink-and-white stripes, maybe blue-and-pink stripes, but they are predominantly pink. And if you look closer still you can see women wearing pink football shirts and pale pink bobble hats decorated with dark pink devils or cockerels or lions.

I support Liverpool and Liverpool are red. I do not support them because they are red. Are there women out there who have been pouting all these years, desperate to go to a game but refusing to do so on the ground that the club colours are all wrong? “Come on love, I’ve got a spare ticket, come to the match with me.” “What? And wear blue? I’m a lady. If they change their strip to pink, I’ll think about it.”

Oh how that chap must have clicked his heels in delight when he saw the range of pink gloves and badges in his club store. “Look, darling, City are pink.” “Pete, how gorgeous. I’ll come. Do they serve strawberry milkshake at half-time?” Oh dear, I may have given the executive who dreamt up pink Liver Birds an idea.

I don’t get it. It is not as if women only ever wear pink, so why do they need to at a football match? Perhaps it is all a horrible game of sexual politics. Are women saying, “I like football but hey, don’t assume I’m butch or anything”? Or are they saying they don’t like football unless it is fluffy?

I can only guess that it has been decided that female fans are not real fans, that they tolerate football and they need a reward. Their prize is the feminisation of the sport. To hand a woman a scarf with the Liver Bird defined in pink is a way of saying, “Look, football is pretty and it likes you and it appreciates you”. But should, come May and the Champions League final, the road to Moscow be decorated with pink ribbons, I will vomit and turn back home.

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