Over the years I've got to know a lot of those who run football in England.

Senior people in the Football Association and the League, club chairmen, some managers and former players, and a few current players too.

As a group they are prosperous, self-confident, law-abiding, and want to do well for their families.

I've not done a formal survey of their attitudes to crime and disorder but if I were to do one I'm clear about the answer I'd get.

They dislike as much as the rest of us dreadful violence and serious crime, and also recognise that it can be from yobbishness and lower level violence that youngsters may "graduate" into much more serious harm to others.

And I'm quite sure, too, that they have parallel views about the need to show proper respect for figures of authority including parents, teachers, and police officers.

But given all this, is it not strange that each Saturday from the results' programmes through to Match of the Day there is a stream of managers blaming their lack of success on the referee, and showing little or no respect for this necessary figure of authority, who is simply doing his job (and for far less money than any manager or player).

And for good measure the commentators join in too.

Of course, as a wholly partisan supporter, I've instinctively shouted "handball" when our opponents fingers are seen to touch the ball but kept quiet when it's our breach; I can be certain that if one of our players goes down in the box it should always be a penalty, but never in reverse (especially if Manchester United are playing); I can offer endless opinions on the off-side rule, and I can always tell rather better than the assistant referee whether the ball has gone out of play, even through I'm sitting 70 or 100 yards away, and at an angle, and the official is on the spot.

I also have a list in my head of referees who I think do a consistently good job, and those who may not.

So I don't pretend that I'm that different from most other supporters.

And I also recognise that compared with the dreadful days of the 1970s and 1980s there has been a huge improvement, led by the FA and the clubs with the police, in crowd behaviour in the ground and outside.

But I am worried, and I think with good reason, at the way some managers have declared open season on referees, and at the damage this is doing to the game acquiescing in poor, uncalled-for behaviour on the pitch, and the way in which this seeps through as a very bad example to impressionable youngsters at school or in the street.

If a young child sees his idol snarling at a referee he might think that is an acceptable way to behave.

Just as he might think copying an off-the-ball punch is acceptable.

My colleague the Sports Minister Richard Caborn has put it this way that what happens on the pitch on a Saturday is then repeated in the playground on a Monday.

He had written to the Chairmen of the football clubs urging them to get a grip of this situation.

This bad example in professional football feeds its way into amateur football too.

Who would want to referee some of these games, where the ref has none of the protection of CCTV cameras, stewards and police on hand at professional grounds?

So it's time for those running football to act. If there is no action, those in charge might reflect that the next time their wife, or mother or child is the victim of yobbish behaviour in the street, the perpetrator might have thought that it was OK to show no respect because their heroes act in the same way on a Saturday.