Ex-journeyman footballer and full-time lad Steve Claridge was hosting the show and making my blood boil as he kept defending the thuggish behaviour of Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, who “accidentally” kicked a female steward in frustration after his team’s loss to Chelsea on Saturday. He was said to be aiming for a brick wall when he “brushed” the steward’s leg by mistake.

Yeah, those stewards just pop out of nowhere in those bright, florescent yellow coats, don’t they Rio?

Caller after caller was ringing in to say that Ferdinand should be banned for his outlandish behaviour but the blinkered Claridge wouldn’t have any of it, saying instead that the incident should be dropped because the steward who was assaulted is said to have accepted Ferdinand’s apology.

But that’s not the point, Steve. Apology accepted or not, Ferdinand is supposed to be a professional and is, whether he likes it or not, a role model for children. He’s also the man supposedly in line for the England captaincy. Is this really someone we really want leading out our country, a man with so little control that he’s liable to fly off the handle when angry?

The only way to stamp out (if you’ll excuse the expression) this kind of behaviour in football is to make an example of the perpetrators by fining and banning them. Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano was recently banned for an additional two matches after being sent off during a game for merely arguing with a referee. Surely booting a steward, accidentally or not, is worth more.

The ridiculousness of Claridge’s flimsy defence reached its apotheosis when one caller stated that Ferdinand should be banned for life. Admittedly this was over the top but it was then that Claridge said that, with respect, the listener couldn’t possibly understand because he had no idea of the “pressure” professional footballers are under.

It was a tactless insult to the listener but I suppose a man of Claridge’s mindset wouldn’t see it that way. How could a man who does not kick a ball around for a living, while getting paid millions for the pleasure, know anything about pressure?

Give me a break. John Bloggs knows just as much about pressure as any top-ranking footballer – they have to deal with similar stresses with their relationships and health as well as at home and work. On a bad day, a hospital ward, classroom, mechanics yard, office or driver’s seat of a bus can all be as pressurised an environment as a football stadium.

And a look at the current state of the economy will show that, compared with most footballers – Steve Claridge states on his MySpace page that his income is “£250,000 and higher" - your average person is certainly feeling far more fiscal pressure these days.

What about all those low-income people who will get financially hammered after the abolition of the 10p tax?

Struggling to survive on an even smaller low-wage salary in a credit crunched economy – now that’s what I call pressure. Not picking out gaudy furniture for your mansion in the north-west property hotspot of Hale. Famous footballing underachiever Emile Heskey is reported to have just finished work on a home worth £5million in the leafy Cheshire haven – and his team, Wigan, for whom he’s scored a whopping four goals this season, are still not mathematically safe from relegation. I’m sure he has problems sleeping at night.

Plus, these billionaires probably don’t pay much or any tax on their grotesque wealth, as most of them probably have non-domicile status – another brilliant scheme that Gordon Brown’s so-called socialist Labour Party keep promising to review but doesn’t – and avoid stumping up their fair share for the public coffers to the tune of some £126bn a year, according to some reports.

Yeah, let all the bankers who get paid millions for screwing up the economy get off tax-free while the lowest earners pay for the upkeep of the nation’s crumbing infrastructure. Nice one, Gordo. No wonder you are so popular at the moment.

Anyway, as you can see, I was building myself into a nice little frenzy while this twerp Claridge twittered on about the sad state of the poor, beleaguered footballer and I found myself yelling at the radio, as one does, using the kind of colourful language I am unable to repeat on the website of a family newspaper.

So incensed, I went into the living room – not that I needed to travel that far to have my feelings heard – and regaled Mummy with my views of this obscene situation. I was well into my stride when Mummy cut me off abruptly and pointed to Golden Boy, who had stopped crawling across the carpet and was watching me wide-eyed.

He appeared at that moment, I am saddened to say, almost a little scared of his dad. Why on earth is Daddy yelling and looking so angry, his expression seemed to say. Of course, I felt guilty and went over to him right away to make amends. After a cuddle and a bit of a play, he seemed to have accepted what I guess was my apology.

It’s easy to forget that your children are there when we get lost in our own worlds, but they see and pick up on every little thing we do, even when they are as young as my son, just 13 months. I suppose I am used to having a rant when discussing events with my friends or my colleagues but perhaps I, like Rio Ferdinand, should learn to keep my emotions in check sometimes. I, too, am a role model and shouldn’t forget my responsibilities.

At the beginning of Ham On Rye, the semi-autobiographic tale of writer Charles Bukowski’s childhood and adolescence, his literary alter-ego Henry Chinaski says that, from an early age, his father seemed like an angry man and that he never liked him because of it.

Now I am not a consistently angry father and I would hate for Golden Boy to grow up and ever say that of me.

** Email New Age Dad at paul.rhodes@express.co.uk