Sharing the marital bed with my dad in the mid to late eighties - a move resulting from the final breakdown of my parents' tumultuous marriage - took the joy out of sleeping for me and I never quite got it back. It doesn’t help that my long serving pillows are way too flat and I know it’s high time I replaced them. It won’t resolve the insomnia entirely, but it might help me grab a few more hours a week

I rarely change my pillows. The very day I left SW9, I still remember that I had to rescue my lead pillow from the bin after my aunt chucked it in a bin bag and trashed it when we were clearing out the old family home. I say lead pillow because I think most of us have a lead pillow, the pillow we sleep with, but then we have a second pillow, often more bulbous, like the back of my head if you’re to believe south London’s barbers, that we use to raise our head if we’re reading or watching something in bed.

My pillow’s quite flat and I support it with an equally flat cushion underneath that I picked up in the mid-noughties from a Homebase in Wandsworth. They’re an ageing pair and I know it’s probably high time I looked at easing them out. I’ve tried, believe me, but the replacement pillows just haven’t been up to scratch.

I suspect replacing them is going to be a long and protracted process every bit as difficult as the time Liverpool had to replace their inspirational skipper Graeme Souness when he left to play in Italy back in '84. Souness remains the finest all-round British player I've ever seen. He wasn't as easy on the eye as Kenny Dalglish or my own personal favourites John Barnes and Glenn Hoddle, but he was more important for the team and without him, Liverpool were never quite the same force again. Similarly my pillow isn't great to look at, but it is my own Souness and replacing it has already led to a number of false pillow dawns.