The whole point of a little black dress is supposed to be that you can wear it to any occasion and fit in. So, after a protracted wardrobe crisis, I have chosen, for a midweek footballers’ wives’ night out, a simple, beaded, knee-length black crêpe cocktail dress. My plan is that I will blend into the crowd, all the better to observe.

Big mistake. Huge mistake, in fact. Walking into Cricket, the Liverpool boutique where owner Justine Mills is drinking pink champagne with Harry Kewell’s wife Sheree Murphy, Lesley Owen (sister of Michael, and fiancée of Richie Partridge, a Liverpool player), and Malene Holst, girlfriend of Liverpool defender Djimi Traore, I blend in like a black cat in a butterfly house.

Colourfully dressed and impeccably groomed (Owen has had acrylic nails since she was 14, she tells me), these girls flutter about the store in green and white and pink, like a little flock of Tinkerbells.