Emmanuel Adebayor, Manchester City’s cretinous centre-forward, has grabbed all of the football-related headlines this week, thanks to his antics in Saturday’s Premier League victory over Arsenal and, like any conscientious Brentford columnist, I am going to seamlessly link the incident to the Bees.

The Adebayor furore harks back to an unpleasant moment for all of we Brentford supporters – our run-in with a certain Martin R******* (please excuse the astericks – words likely to cause offence are not permitted in a family newspaper such as this).

The former Bee is infamous around TW8 for his behaviour on that fateful November night in 2003 when we played Queens Park Rangers, and the similarities with Adebayor-gate (as the papers are not calling it) are undeniable.

Before the game, R******* stoked up trouble by espousing some inflammatory views about his former employers in an interview with the Evening Standard, exactly as Adebayor did in the Daily Telegraph last Friday.

During the game, Adebayor then went on to further match R******* for idiocy.

While the QPR midfielder twice kissed his badge to send an already fired-up away end into apoplexy, Adebayor’s chosen method of provocation was, of course, to sprint the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the guys and girls who used to pay his wages.

While R******* and Adebayor both displayed vast and insurmountable stupidity, it also amuses me how sensitive supporters can be.

The behaviour of the Arsenal fans in response to Adebayor’s goading was undeniably disproportionate.

Yellow jacketed stewards may be third only to traffic wardens and child molesters in terms of their popularity among the general public but, when one is knocked out in a mad rush to vent spleen, things have gone too far.

The Bees fans’ fury didn’t reach similar heights of violence at Loftus Road but, clearly, we football supporters are a delicate breed.

I have certainly never been angrier than I was on that cold night in Shepherds Bush but, now, looking back, I am probably quite glad it happened.

Football fans need a bogey man, like Batman needs a Joker, and we have certainly had our fair share in recent years, from ‘friend of the Krays’ David Webb, to 12-year-old referee Stuart Atwell, but it would be a challenge even Anneka Rice would struggle with to find a little scrote more bogey than Mr R*******.