It was when the website crashed for the fourth time in an hour that I cracked. Having spent most of the summer trying to make sense of the FA’s Whole Game website - a system so complex that the Byzantines might have deemed it a touch intricate - I could take it no longer.

What I was attempting to do should have been simple. It may have been the FA but I was not exactly trying to hack records about Gareth Southgate’s salary or unearth what England DNA means.

I was merely trying to register some amateur footballers for a Sunday League team.

Unfortunately the FA’s agonisingly slow website and excessive bureaucracy makes doing so about as straightforward as changing an EasyJet flight.

Among its many quirks, the website has a habit of only revealing what information you need on a stage-by-stage basis. So just when you think you have managed to track down all your team-mates’ home addresses, e-mail addresses and photos there comes the big reveal: Can you confirm you have seen each of their passports, birth certificates or driving licenses?