Sheffield Wednesday played Accrington Stanley in the EFL Trophy. Alex Miller was there.

Apparently, Avocados were first marketed in the UK in 1968 as ‘avocado pears’ by Marks and Spencer. Customers were often confused about how to eat them - one famously stewed one and served it with custard - so retailers issued explanatory leaflets in their early rounds of issue.

They were marketed as something of a delicacy, were almost exclusively sold in winter time and were for a long time most widely associated with highfalutin London dinner parties. While they remained rare outside of London they steadily grew in popularity within the capital through the 1970s where they might most commonly be served in a prawn cocktail. It wasn’t until the break of Apartheid South Africa and their mid-1990s promotion by a British PR firm that they were accepted as a commonly-purchased year-round food.

Which begs the real question here; did John Lennon ever experience the joy of eating a perfectly ripe avocado? So tragically murdered outside his Dakota apartment building in New York in 1980, biographies suggest Lennon had a hearty appetite but wasn’t really one for fancy food. He had passed before they truly came into common usage in the UK, but then again he’d moved to America by 1971, though they weren’t popular in New York for a good decade after his death.

He did spend around six months living in Bel Air during his ‘Lost Weekend’ period with May Pang, where they’ve been growing avocados since the mid-to-late 1800s. He’d have been to loads of highfalutin parties in London and beyond of course. He toured the world over. But from meeting Yoko Ono in 1966 the pair ate only a macrobiotic diet and avocados are not a microbiotic food - famously so. Maybe John Lennon did eat an avocado. George Harrison did, he’s pretty much quoted as such. So yeah, probably. Who knows?

It’s incredible where your mind can wander in the first half-hour of an EFL Trophy match between Sheffield Wednesday and Accrington Stanley.

Overly facetious, I know. Sneering, even. But it allowed us to fill the requisite column inches here. As sporting spectacles go, a near-dead rubber Sarnie Cup clash in front of half a stand on a cold November evening ain’t one for the masses and so it proved.

The Owls made 11 changes to the side that ran out in the FA Cup at Oldham on Sunday and the bench had not a senior appearance between them. And while the evening was not one that live in the memory beyond tomorrow and may well feel inconsequential to a grumpy, shivering football writer in an empty Grandstand, it won’t have felt at all inconsequential to a good number of folk present for whom an avocado-munching Beatle probably never even entered their heads.

It will have meant a great deal to George Brown, returning to senior action for the first time since injury twice halted his steepling rise to Championship football last season. The 20-year-old forward played 45 minutes of the clash, manfully battling a brutish and experienced pair of centre-halves throughout and looking generally lively.

It will have meant a great deal to Gabriel Otegbayo, back in after a pile-up of errors saw him singled-out for criticism and taken out of the firing line in the final days of Henrik Pedersen’s management. A reasonable outing saw him too fight-off men of anger and exit his return display with no doubt increased confidence.

It’ll have meant a great deal to 21-year-old Sean Fusire, wearing the captain’s armband for the first time in an honour no matter the circumstances. So too the likes of Louis Poland and Samuel Duruh, Joel Akpobi, Kailen Hatfield and Denny Oliver, who saw his sweetly-struck free-kick sneak onto the top-netting in the first half. All made full Wednesday appearances in these embryonic stages of their careers.

Try telling James Kay, Fortune Onoh and Charlie Daniel Liddell - all Sheffield Wednesday debutants on the night - that the evening meant little. Kay has only relatively recently recovered from surgery and Liddell even forced a fabulous save second half. These are memories to be hung on walls for the rest of their lives.

Think of their families, some of whom are assumed to be responsible for the whooping and cheering heard from the South Stand throughout the match. Pride spilled out from that corner of Hillsborough and no doubt a tear or two, also.

There was a fine display from Connal Trueman, who may or may not be asked to take the gloves on Saturday in the absence of the keepers ahead of him, there was a return to a line-up for Jarvis Thornton and further match minutes for Ernie Weaver. Dave Challinor, Clint Hill and Tony Sweeney all sat in the Hillsborough dugout for the first time, which presumably goes for something.

For all the moaning and the snarkiness in this column and beyond, it’ll have meant a great deal to so many of the supporters who braved the elements to support their team. After all, there were times last year it was feared it wouldn’t exist. It’ll have meant a great deal to the Wednesday-supporting bloke The Star bumped into in Leeds, hot-footing it out of work and home to wrap up and get to S6. He couldn’t miss it.

It’ll have meant a great deal to the parents of kids for whom Tuesday evening provided an opportunity to offer their kids a quieter, calmer Hillsborough experience, perhaps for the first time. Memories to cherish.

Beneath the sneering, there is beauty to the Jersey Boys Trophy - or whatever it’s called these days. You just have to look a little further then your own lens.

After 18 seconds ‘thinking’, shortly after full-time, Grok returned the answer that ‘There is no known record or reliable account that John Lennon ever ate an avocado.’ Not exactly definitive, is it? Perhaps we’ll never know. Wednesday lost 4-0.