Andy Burnham is right that football fans have historically been treated differently from other sports fans. But if we’re going to talk about discrimination in football, the ban on drinking at your seat feels like a strange place to start.

The rule may have its roots in a very different era of football, but for many fans today, being able to take a pint to your seat may not be top of their list of changes they’d like to see in the game. Especially at a time when discrimination is very much present elsewhere in football.

The legislation, introduced under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s as part of a crackdown on football hooliganism, was rooted in the idea that football fans needed to be treated differently from the supposedly better-behaved crowds at rugby and cricket – which smacks of classism and the stereotyping of working-class fans. But football has changed since then, and so has drinking culture. Fans have adapted to the restrictions and built a matchday ritual around them. A good fan concourse pint is up there with an airport pint or a beer-garden pint on the first day of summer.

Fans have got used to this routine, and one of the biggest concerns of lifting this ban now seems to be the Boxpark-ification of........

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