I WOULD like to know how many people out there are like me – football fans that don’t watch live football on the television anymore.

As a football reporter, I guess it is not too surprising I do not go out of my way to seek out live football as I spend nine months of the year chasing Bury up and down the country every Saturday.

But even before I snared this plum job, I never committed to a Sky TV package.

In my view, paying for a subscription is on a par with joining a golf club or an expensive gym.

I like playing golf, but I don’t have the time to justify shelling out hundreds of pounds a year to join a club.

If you don’t play at least two rounds a week, every week of the year, it just doesn’t make economic sense.

The same goes with joining a gym.

I have done that on two previous occasions, each time with the best of intentions, but each time I just ended up stressing about the amount of money I was wasting after agreeing a £40 monthly fee, only to visit twice a month if I was lucky.

So while paying up to £70 a month to get the whole world of football beamed into my living room may sometimes sound like a good deal, I know I would only end up cursing the day I signed up.

Every time I am out doing something else – shopping for children’s pyjamas on a Sunday afternoon, working late on a Monday night, taking the wife out for a meal on a Wednesday or having a pint with my mates on a Friday – I know my mind would wander back to the game I was missing on the box.

A game I have bought and paid for.

I know the choice of how to watch live football is expanding, with BT Sport adding to the mix, and the latest brainstorm of Friday night football is sure to attract new bidders to the market.

But I think I will always begrudge paying extra for it.

In my view, subscription TV and pay-per-view matches have taken football away from the masses and I long for the day that some clever entrepreneur figures out a way of handing it back.

Dads and husbands shouldn’t have to risk divorce by floating the possibility of ditching the family holiday in favour of a satellite dish.

My only hope is that modern advancements in smart TV will help people like me to reconnect with our beloved game.

As soon as a global company like Google twigs that broadcasting football free-to-air over the internet would open the door to untold advertising billions, the sooner I can become a proper armchair fan again.