CAN WE go home now, Mum?”. I didn’t hear the lady’s answer but she and the boy stayed in their seats as Sheffield United turned a fortunate 1-0 lead into a decisive 2-0 win.

The child asked again after Lawrence Vigouroux avoided a red card, despite crashing into their forward like a cranefly onto a window.

He asked many more times as Town toiled and the game drifted like a sentence that goes on far too long and sort of never seems to reach any sort of conclusion.

It’s probably a scene that plays out at every football ground with every parent and every young fan, but it made me remember the times I’ve wanted to leave early but haven’t, such at Cheltenham, or Wembley. And Cheltenham, again, or Wembley, again. But I always return.

This week, Town made me want to go home early once more, except I wasn’t at a game, I was in a museum. And it wasn’t due to my children nagging (they were actually pretending to be bees) instead it was a message that Nathan Byrne had gone and Michael Smith was going too. At that point, I too wanted the comfort and familiarity of home.

I wasn’t alone in my discomfort. The near-hysteria online has been so bleak as to be almost funny - like laughing at 80s nuclear-holocaust LOL-fest Threads. But seeing one of the best Town teams in years be torn up has been hard to take. And having it done with barely a word from the man doing it makes worrying even easier.

But this morning, the world feels different, and not just because the kids are back at school. Now I can again see that the transfer window is just like a real window: You can’t see everything through it, just a small, framed portion of the world. You have no peripheral vision, there is no bigger picture.

Now, I don’t want to be at home. I’m ready to see this new team take shape. I want to go to Crewe and Barnsley. Can we go away now, Mum?