The greatest crisis in a generation. It is time to put aside petty squabbles...

ARGUING is an integral part of sport. Depending on what particular team you follow, it might actually be the most enjoyable aspect of the whole thing.

But the United Kingdom has effectively just been put on a war footing, with every living soul on these islands enlisted in a battle guaranteed to claim many, many innocent lives.

In such circumstances, there is something extremely unedifying about so many in Scottish football parking their tanks in the centre circle at Hampden, taking aim at the fifth floor — and daring the decision-makers hunkered down inside to make the ‘wrong’ call.

Seriously. This just feels wrong. Whatever you think you’re achieving, think again.

However strongly you feel about ‘sending a message’ to your supporters, always the prime audience whenever public threats are issued against our game’s powerbrokers, just give it a rest.

Because surely we all now appreciate and understand that we are living in truly terrifying times.

No one could have listened to Boris Johnson or Nicola Sturgeon address the public yesterday and been anything but utterly terrified.

Families are belatedly facing up to the very real prospect of ‘losing loved ones before their time’, to repeat that most chilling of lines — straight out of a dystopian novel — from the PM just a few days and a hundred lifetimes ago.

Entire households are on lockdown, unable to conduct basic errands if so much as one among them is showing symptoms.

The fear of what comes next, the very real prospect that none of us will get through this without at least knowing someone who has lost a beloved family member, should cause everyone to pause for thought.

It should, by rights, act as a brake on all the petty squabbles that seemed so important before the reality of a global pandemic truly hit home.

Yet, following on from Neil Lennon firing the opening shot, staking Celtic’s claim to the title — in the event of a complete cessation of footballing hostilities — last Friday, we’ve had days of whispers and moans. Threats and hints of further action to come.

Then, within the space of a few hours yesterday, while most in the country were wondering whether to send their kids to school or worrying about elderly relatives, we heard from another couple of heavyweights.

Hearts owner Ann Budge made it clear that she was not happy. Not best pleased at all.

The SPFL rules say the season lasts 38 games. And that’s what it has to be. So don’t even think about putting Hearts down simply because they’re at the bottom of the table now. Or else.

Then came a contender for the most tone-deaf statement of this or any other year, courtesy of Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson.

Like Budge, he is firmly of the view that the very integrity of the game is in question. Something about 38 games played by all teams. The inevitable line about how ‘any attempt to finish the season with a significant amount of games still to play impacts upon the integrity of sport in

Scotland’. And then the inevitable dog whistle to the faithful.

A promise that Rangers will not allow anyone to ‘run roughshod over people’s lives’, Robertson continuing: ‘We will continue to maintain a watchful eye on the decisions of football’s governing bodies. Let me reassure the fans that we will not be found wanting in this situation.’

If this wasn’t a family newspaper, what words would we use to describe such a naked attempt to rally the troops against some imaginary enemy?

That went well beyond expressing an opinion about what should happen. It was a crass attempt to say what must happen. There’s a time for rabble rousing and this isn’t it.

Look, it’s perfectly okay to accept that sport still matters and understandable that when asked your opinion, you give assurances that you are fighting your team’s corner.

You won’t find anyone on these pages hoping for anything but a swift resumption of normality, even if games have to be played behind closed doors; people are going to need a distraction through all of this.

And we need to understand that, denied the outlet provided by actual games, some involved in football will inevitably lose a bit of perspective.

Nobody is suggesting that all debate has to stop and it will surely ramp up again in the wake of today’s ‘all-important’ UEFA conference call.

At a time when many are losing their heads, incidentally, fair play to the SPFL-SFA joint response group for at least just stating the facts, holding fire and waiting — in hope rather than expectation — for a higher power to make the big decisions that will impact on any plans they might wish to implement.

Ian Maxwell and Neil Doncaster have been, as you would possibly expect from a pair of administrators with no interest in getting cheers from the cheap seats, measured in everything they’ve said.

If only more could retain a similar degree of composure. If only more could follow the lead of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, whose statement on Friday set new standards for football folk putting their game in perspective.

As he so neatly put it: ‘Football always seems the most important of the least important things.’

It was true last week, doubly so today. Tomorrow? Yeah, probably for a little while yet, to be honest.

In time, of course, our natural instincts will return to the fore. Deeply-held views on whether annulling the league or anointing champions will be fired across the ether with renewed frequency.

Be warned, though. There will be more days like today. Days when arguing about football seems not only pointless, but tasteless.