If you’re like me, a second year History student meandering through life with little purpose or motivation, the weekends are an important watershed. You’ve managed to spend three days of your week studiously working, with nothing but a promotion to Division Five on FIFA 16 and a worryingly large college bar tab to show for it. How could this happen? You opened that book, didn’t you? Are there not a few notes on a Word document? Surely you must have done… something?

Yet you dropped out of bed on Saturday morning to find that only twenty pages of Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans have been read. That particular tract needs to be returned to the Seeley Library by 6pm. All of this in a week when you promised to really “pull out of the bag” that stellar essay that you and your supervisor both know you’re capable of. Bewildered, with an oversized mug of coffee in your hand, you sit down in your uncomfortable desk chair plucking up the courage to do some work.

Then it hits you. It’s Saturday, and that means Premier League football! You knew there was a reason why “I’ll do it at the weekend” didn’t really cut the mustard. An orgy of sport awaits from 3pm onwards. Maybe you’ll just put it on in the background?

The hallowed time looms, and you’ve read enough about Colonial Louisiana to conclude that you probably wouldn’t stop by and visit. This is not enough for your supervisor, and you know this. Yet you open up Google Chrome and, not without a deep sense of self-loathing, find a stream for the match of your choice. Or maybe you open up two streams, or more – putting Windows’ useful new ‘snap’ feature to its intended use as a Premier League threesome pops up on your screen.

Oh, and what a glorious threesome it is. Jamie Vardy has already belted in two beautiful goals for Leicester, and the match is but ten minutes old. Anthony Martial’s ball control is more delicate than you’d ever have thought possible.Alexis Sanchez’s thighs make you question your sexuality.

The scores are 2-0, 3-1 and 2-2 at half time and you’re buzzing. Elsewhere, there are goals all over the shop. Chelsea are still awful. Agüero is having a frustrating game over at the Etihad, but Mark Noble has inexplicably scored a brace. Back in the studio Gary Neville can hardly contain his excitement as he dissects a sumptuous Everton set piece. Your voracious appetite for football is being fulfilled, and you’re loving every minute of it.

The second halves of the matches kick off – you now have six streams open and are beginning to perspire – and footballs are flying across the LG monitor. The monitor that you bought primarily for this purpose, knowing you wouldn’t be able to resist the old pull and tug. Sanchez bangs in another, looking like Adonis in his skin-tight Puma shirt. Vardy has scored seven goals by the 65th. Trembling, you look at the footballs while Martin Tyler and Alan Smith’s voices smother you like a warm blanket. You live for the football and nothing else matters.

And then it’s all over. Mouth agape, you sit back in your chair, staring at the ceiling. The imprints of a thousand balls flicker across your vision. It’s quarter to five and French Colonial New Orleans still sounds utterly unappealing. There is no time for work. This is like Trainspotting; you’ve been sucked in by a dangerous drug and time doesn’t exist. Later, once the football has finished, you can play it virtually on FIFA and tinker with your fantasy football team. And you’ve still only read twenty pages of French Colonial New Orleans - oh well, maybe next Saturday.

Over the years the trappings of Saturday afternoon football have led many a person astray. And do you know what? Tomorrow’s no exception.