I’D forgotten Chaka Khan until the Checkatrade Trophy came along.

It seems the thing this competition does best is sound irritatingly similar to the 80s pop singer.

It certainly doesn’t get the juices flowing with football fans. Then again, it’s hardly on its own.

The League Cup has been so frequently undermined down the years by teams in the top two divisions playing weakened sides that it comes a distant second to the FA Cup in domestic status.

The Europa League is so second-rate that even teams don’t want to play in it, as Jose Mourinho admitted about Manchester United recently.

What is football playing at when it stages tournaments clubs don’t want to be in and fans don’t want to watch?

The only ones really worth their salt are the Premier and Football League, FA Cup and Champions League.

The League Cup is okay but would certainly benefit from a rule stating something like at least eight players who have played in any of the last three league games must feature in the starting 11.

The Europa League should go. Thursday nights in Europe are like an empty seat convention and any competition that you can win entry to for finishing seventh in your domestic league quite simply isn’t worth anybody’s time and effort to watch.

Why not go back to the old days and have the domestic cup winners competition?

The European Cup Winners’ Cup had serious kudos until they ditched it to introduced a new era of enabling nearly every man and his dog to enter a European competition.

And while we’re at it let’s get our own house in order and do something about the Chaka Khan [much prefer that to Checkatrode] Trophy.

Just over 1,500 bothered to turn out at the Macron for the latest round of this pitifully irrelevant competition on Tuesday night.

That was a few dozen more than the lowest ever attendance for a competitive home game for Bolton Wanderers.

If the 8.000 or so Wanderers fans who turned up at the back end of last season for league games when things couldn’t seem to get any worse are the real loyal hardcore fans of Wanderers then 6,500 of their most devoted supporters gave it a miss on Tuesday.

And I’m not having it that this competition is worth it because you get to play at Wembley if you manage to stick it out for the duration.

That’s like saying if I clean the toilets for the next eight weeks I’ll get a bottle of fine Champagne at the end of it.

No thanks.

There are too many irrelevant games – England v Malta tomorrow is another – and unless football gets rid of these and replaces them with meaningful, competitive matches, the fans will continue to give it a miss.