The posts started coming and for the next hour they did not stop. One after the other. Premier League footballer after Premier League footballer of all nationalities pledging their support for the #PlayersTogether initiative, a movement intended to raise vital funds for the health services fighting one of the biggest crises in peacetime.

Certainly the next time the critics question the consciences of our footballers, it will be worth recalling that moment, at 9pm on Wednesday April 8, when the sport’s biggest stars came together in a show of unity seldom seen before.

A watershed moment for our game? That might be disrespectful to the many players who already do so much charitable work but, in scale, imagination and reach, this felt special, different.

The impact has already been so great that no ceiling is being put on how much money could be raised for frontline NHS services and charities and there is even talk of eventually opening it up to public donations.

Little could Liverpool team-mates Jordan Henderson and James Milner have imagined what would come to pass when they started knocking around ideas well before Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, announced plans to furlough a percentage of their 550 non-playing staff and called on players and coaches to “do their bit for the football ecosystem” and inadvertently thrust the issue of footballers and their wages centre stage.