WE’VE all got bills to pay, and so maybe Mike Dean – who was thankfully forced to retire due to reaching a mandatory age limit – can be forgiven for looking for exciting new projects.

Everybody’s hatewatch referee, however, surely has other options than, at 56, going on podcasts with obviously inflated stories about his time in the Premier League.

Last week, he sounded like a nerd trying to ride with the jocks by impressing them with a list daring pranks that he had ­– or more likely hadn’t done. They’re not going to be your mates, Mike.

After telling a bemused Jamie Vardy how he once amused himself by going as long as he could without blowing his whistle, Dean upped the ante and claimed he had also – listen to this, guys – gone 15 minutes of a match without leaving the centre circle. This was all, he claimed, a secret game amongst the officials, but you have to wonder why Dean was sharing his please-look-at-me anecdotes.

Of course, if you are invited on to a podcast you’d want to be an engaging guest with the best stories to tell and I would probably share how I once fought off a shark with a lollipop stick, scarring my arm in the process but saving the lives of many swimmers. And it’s true: Dean had been invited to be on Vardy’s show because of the likelihood of over egging his role in everything. In turn, Dean did just that but predictably just sounded more annoying than ever.

This is the end result of the podcast economy, a world which began with people whispering about novels or discussing foreign affairs to dedicated listeners but is now dominated by clip-chasing producers and open to anybody with a mic and a light with wavy neon writing spelling out ‘it’s a funny old game’ in the background.

That’s the clip!, you can hear Vardy’s social media producers shouting, as the words came out of Dean’s mouth. The more we need apparently need clips to scroll through, the more outrageous and silly the football anecdotes will be.

Next week: Mike Dean on how he smuggled an elephant – for larks – into the changing room at Selhurst Park.

We can only hope the current refs do not buy the model. Are they storing up insider tales for the podcasts of the future? Are they living in the now or thinking about what they can reflect animatedly about for money in retirement?

Seen and not heard, would be preferable.