ONCE upon a time if you weren’t wearing shoes you’d be limited in your choice of late night drinking establishments.

I thought this pointless anti-trainers policy was a thing of the past.

But earlier this month I was denied entry to two karaoke bars (don’t ask where or why) because my footwear was deemed inappropriate.

The ‘no trainers’ rule was originally designed to protect revellers from a yobbish element who would conduct their night-time campaigns of senseless violence in athletic wear.

But nowadays such a dress code has no function.

The yobs simply wear shoes – and the procession of scary-looking, shaven-head punters leaving one bar bore testament to it.

Night-time thugs are very sheep-like creatures, favouring specific labels.

And one Huddersfield club, in its wisdom, banned them.

Of course the idiots, who go out to cause trouble, will simply change their outfits to obtain entry.

Twenty years into the future I can picture a bar owner – after he’s swept up the blood and broken class – saying: “Well, they smashed up the whole bar and put three people in hospital, but at least they were wearing flip-flops.”