MY teenage son told me if I wrote a column about fantasy football it might be of interest to younger readers like him.

I would like to write a compelling, thought-provoking 400 words on the subject to appeal to the huge youth demographic out there who I doubt normally hive off part of their Thursday to read my weekly sporting ramblings.

Unfortunately I don’t know anything about it.

There are only two things I know about fantasy football – from now to be known as FF.

The first is that some people are totally addicted to it, spending their entire weekends following games which would normally be of no interest to them simply because a player in their FF team is involved.

So strange is this addiction that it has been known for people to be elated when one of their FF players scores against the team they actually support or when a player scores for their team’s biggest rivals.

Now that’s just wrong.

I would recommend if anyone ever finds that happening to them they either wean themselves off FF right away or seek medical attention.

The other thing I know about FF is that it has elevated the importance of an easy goal assist to a ridiculously high level.

If you know someone who plays FF you will know how important the goal assist is to them because it is worth points, and points are very important because they move you up and down your FF league.

Ridiculously, it doesn't matter if a player played a one-yard pass to the goalscorer in the middle of midfield, he still gets credited with the assist and FF points awarded.

That doesn't matter in FF democratic world where all assists are equal.

And it certainly doesn’t matter to the FF addict whose default reaction to reports of a goal being scored anywhere in the country is to search around for who scored and who provided the assist.

Suddenly assists have become special whereas in reality they are just the last pass before a goal is scored.

I have nothing against them – with the last pass before a goal we wouldn't have goals. But you could say the same about the pass before the last pass and the one before that.

Football is about goals, not every detail of the game that led up to them.

And if assists were so great how come no-one can remember who provided them for some of the most memorable goals in history?

Who passed to John Barnes for his England v Brazil wonder goal for example? Or who provided the pass to Frank Worthington for his keepie uppie over-the-head volley for Wanderers against Ipswich. Or for Geoff Hurst for the fourth goal in the England's 1966 World Cup Final victory over West Germany? (Answers at the end).

No, goal assists are wildly overrated, although my son gets one for this column.

(Answers: Mark Hateley, Alan Gowling and Bobby Moore).