The football faded into the background on a historic, horrible night in Sofia

The football action became largely irrelevant, a sense that was only deepened by the feeling of unreality around the game

After an initial stoppage, England decided to continue with the match (AFP)

Monday in Sofia was one of those grim nights when a football journalist stops reporting on the sport and is instead writing about a live story, with far deeper societal dimensions. A different approach, for what was an unprecedented set of events.

At around 10.12pm Bulgarian time, after England debutant Tyrone Mings had reported racist chanting to his captain Harry Kane, Uefa’s new three-step protocol for dealing with racist abuse was enacted for the first time. This ensured it was a landmark night, with some encouragement, if also a highly depressing one.

For the first time in history it gave agency to the players in such a situation, and a choice. They decided to forego the option to walk off the pitch and have the game abandoned, and decided to play on.

For football journalists, though, it was no longer about writing a match report. The football action became largely irrelevant, a sense that was only deepened by the feeling of unreality around the game.

It was about capturing the details of the entire night. There were long passages when we were barely watching the football, but instead looking around at where the abuse was, how authorities were reacting, what the key officials were doing.

It was also one of those nights when the ability to put WhatsApp on your desktop is never handier, because of the necessity to send messages and put questions to all of the various bodies and figures involved – especially when there was so much confusion about it all.

Nobody thought the game would actually be completed. England manager Gareth Southgate admitted he and his staff felt the same, in post-match press conferences that followed the same theme. No one was really asking about the football – or themes like the improved performance of Marcus Rashford – beyond praising the England players for performing so well in the circumstances.

Southgate and FA chairman Greg Clarke were instead talking about what can be done, and problems that go way deeper than football.

This led to a bizarre scene where one Bulgarian journalist interrupted both men and started to shout about “exaggeration”. Some journalists assertively but calmly pointed out why he was wrong afterwards.

It was anything but exaggeration. It was a landmark night that went way beyond football.

Yours,

Miguel Delaney

Chief football writer