I make no apology for picking out a copper’s quote as last week’s front page headline.

‘They’ve gone feral’ was too good a soundbite not to use as a screaming indictment of a genuine issue in the Island’s county town.

For those who missed it, kids were causing mighty ructions around the bus station and the town’s streets, kicking in windows, scuffling and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

The issue is a deep one and as long in the tooth as my time on the planet.

“There’s nothing to do”, opine the yoof of the Wight, making a bit of petty vandalism (better than the mindless adjective which usually accompanies the V word...what vandalism is mindful?) sound like the only possible alternative.

Whatever happened to a game of football, a gig or hanging round your mates’ houses listening to the latest LP — all activities of choice when I was their age.

Acting Sgt Martin Egerton, drafted in from the Wild West of Yarmouth to sort out the issue like some sort of kindergarten Wyatt Earp, told our chief reporter Emily Pearce there really was nothing for them to to other than gathering outside McDonald’s for a dust up and fries.

As I say, it is not a new problem and it was nice to see the burghers of Newport this week pledging an 86 per cent council tax rise would be partly used to fund a new town youth club and youth co-ordinator.

I guess a lot of the issue is there is plenty to do if you have an interest, be it drama, dancing or swimming, but for a lot of kids discovering their passions in life and mapping a pathway to enjoying those hobbies is not as simple as it may sound.

Parents are stretched by anti-social working hours, domestic chores and other ties, so are not always able to give the lifts, backing and money kids need to take up a sport or other recreational activity.

Many clubs and societies are begging for new blood to sustain them, so could there be a match-making service between bored kids and organisations such as football clubs and the like?

I know Groucho Marx’s oft-repeated quote: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”, rings true but if the teenagers give a bit, go as a group and realise you have to put something in to get something back; and the organisers are not expecting model members from day one, then maybe, just maybe, we could start to see fewer kids hanging round the Golden Arches and more gaining a fulfilling pathway to constructive leisure time.

And that’s not forgetting the inestimable benefit to all those groups who are on the brink of folding because there is no new blood coming through.