BANTER, according to no less an authority than the Oxford Dictionary, is: “good-humoured teasing; ridicule of something in a good-humoured way”.

Banter, according to the unlamented Sky Sports resignee Richard Keys, is what he and sacked co-Premier League football presenter Andy Gray indulged in when referring to woman referee’s assistant Sian Massey ahead of her officiating one of the linesman’s duties at the Wolves v Liverpool duel a week ago.

Rib-nudging remarks along the lines of the need to explain the offside rule to Miss Massey or questioning whether “any woman” could grasp the alleged rocket- science rudiments of the offside rule were fired between them as if they were some sort of football double act a la Morecambe and Wise.

In reality they had all the charisma and comic timing of Burke and Hare.

It appears that for all the money Sky had spent remorselessly banging on about 3D, for ages they already broadcast in 2D – two-dinosaur definition.

Many supporters of the dead-hand duo, swelled by advocates of “what’s wrong with a bit of sexism in the workplace – it goes on all the time, darling”, have rounded in their droves in letters columns, radio phone-ins, tube-face, twittering-wittering and other multi-media formats, about the so-called Draconian measures applied to the Sky guys.

Gray sacked. Keys resigning – “come on, love, give us a break”.

Molehills into mountains was the argument of the “political correctness gone mad” brigade, but they would have trotted out the same spiel about Ron Atkinson, whose career in punditry was rightly terminated by his descent into racist abuse.

But never mind the previous outbursts of the axis of jokey-blokey excess – to be subsequently revealed in all their tawdriness – what they actually levelled at Massey was not merely sexist but slanderous.

Off-air or not, those statements alleged that, because she was a woman, she could not know the offside rule. In so doing they questioned her actual competence as an official.

Can you ever envisage a moment when Messrs Gray and Keys would dare to suggest in pre-match banter whether a male referee’s assista…, damn it, linesman needed to have the offside rule explained to him? No because they are blokes and therefore know what the offside rule is.

Listen, once outside comfy warm studios crammed with high-tech, even higher-spec, whiz-bang, state of the art graphics, laser pens and other flim-flam gadgetry, just go along to a match and watch it in the raw and you will wonder whether any of the players, paid or unpaid, ever know what the offside rule is.

And what of Sky’s involvement?

It was with almost indecent haste that previous evidence of Gray’s sexist remarks was produced and released, while the culpable Keys, also with “previous”, did not meet the same fate.

Did the conspiracy theory that the first excuse to get rid of the former Scottish international striker was jumped upon in the wake of him taking legal action against the News Of The World newspaper over alleged phone hacking, hold a smidgeon of truth?

After all, Rupert Murdoch owns the Sunday’s most infamous red-top rag as well as having a stake in Sky Television.

And aren’t Sky, their sports division in particular, displaying more than a semblance of two-facedness when their channel always features female presenters under a certain age and clad in less than nun’s apparel?

“Sky – We do sexism BIGGER and BETTER and in hype-definition” might go the new ad campaign.

But amid all the furore the one person who seems to have been relegated to obscurity is Sian Massey.

She was castigated and then dragged into the blinding glare of 21st-century multi-media scrutiny and for what? For actually not doing anything wrong.

Indeed, the one crucial interpretation of the offside rule that she made in the Wolves v Liverpool encounter was spot-on and praised all round. Her reward though was to be withdrawn from her next two matches.

When she finally does take to the field welding a flag she will no doubt be accompanied by a phalanx of lens-pointing photographers and television cameramen poring over her every move.

It may be what a way to end a career for the oafish Gray and Keys, but it is a wretched way for Sian Massey to have begun her career.