Cash is still king, and Sunderland AFC ticketing illustrates the point

The match had an attendance of just 10,763 attendance, the lowest ever at the stadium in the competition, with some fans complaining about struggles buying tickets online.

Cashless is often tub-thumped as an “advance”, making life easier. For whom? Those who can recall ambling up to a turnstile, handing over a note then entering, are not traumatised by the memory.

Card payment has advantages too, but it’s a myth that cash will become obsolete. There is £70billion cash in the UK. It won’t be gone soon; even if we all use it to buy train tickets. Good.

One of the main reasons to continue using cash is privacy. Discomfitingly, card payments mean outside bodies can know what we buy. Why should anyone know what alcohol, hamburgers, legal drugs and other items of a personal nature we purchase?

For that matter, whose business it it if we buy so much as a loaf? Ours, the baker’s and nobody else.

Regrettably, cash does facilitate the black economy; traders being paid with banknotes to avoid tax. Boo to the cash-in-handers then.

But the Government can hardly feel genuine indignation at this when they do so little to combat the shameful, yet entirely legal world of offshore accounts, shell companies and non-doms.

I do personally use cards as sometimes it’s the only available method, but resent this. Leaving a tip, for example, should be a private matter between giver and recipient, as a tip is a gift. It should not be subjected to a 3% kick-back to a bank for doing zilch. Cash isn’t.

Then there are the nostalgic niceties of cash. Giving the kids their pocket money doesn’t have the same delight for either party by Direct Debit. Yet further “progress” could see the tooth fairy demanding biometric authentication for transactions over 50p.

Cash users also don’t have to snitch on themselves by receiving bank statements which reveal how many pints, fags and takeaways they have purchased. This makes them feel healthier.

Hurrah for cash. Let’s use it more.