They do things properly at Wimbledon. Oh yes, they do.

After all, it has taken this forward-thinking place until the ancient year of 2023 finally to permit female players to wear suitable clothing.

Dress code for all players, meanwhile, retains such sage limitations as: “Shoes with pimples around the outside of the toes shall not be permitted. The foxing around the toes must be smooth.”

Well, thank goodness for that. You wouldn’t want to be seen dead on a grass court with toe-foxing that wasn’t smooth, would you?

Wimbledon, then. Reckons it knows what’s what, and is inclined to tell you as much, even if you don’t ask.

So, if there was ever a place in the sporting land most likely to spit out its strawberries at the sight of some actual to-hell-with-it sporting fashion, it was probably SW19.

Yep, the Fruit Salad has its first victim. Carlisle United’s away kit, sported by a couple of spectators at this summer’s tournament, caught a cameraman’s eye and then laid siege to the commentator’s retinas.

“Who on earth…is that Carlisle United?" he spluttered. "Let’s hope they don’t play in that shirt very often.”

No, no, dear fellow. Let us hope they do, as often as possible.

Let’s hope to see that glorious fusion of pink and yellow and black and general sartorial carnage everywhere you look.

Let us see it at Wimbledon and Lord's. Let us see it in fine restaurants and at garden parties. Let us see it on public transport and on private planes. Let us see it in courts and cells, Botchergate and Buckingham Palace. Let us see it at home and abroad.

Let us see it in every god-damn place you can think of, as long as it’s getting up the nose of some stuffy so-and-so.

Let the entire nation witness the explosion in a Liquorice Allsorts factory for the glory it is. And let it sour the gin and tonics of anyone who cannot cope with it.

March on, Fruit Salad. We're with you all the way.