THE scene is the Arthur Ashe stadium at Flushing Meadows, NYC. The brilliance of a Roger Federer shot has suspended my neutrality and I clap gently.

The spectator in front of me turns and says: “Could you keep it down? I am trying to make a phone call here.” The Arthur Ashe seats 20,000-plus spectators and some of them have been known to watch the tennis. But the atmosphere is peculiarly New York. There is an irreverence, even a brashness. It can be as noisy as the outside of Glasgow Sheriff Court during a Charles Green exit.

Once on a humid Queens night, I saw the stadium emptying when Andy Murray had broken Taylor Dent, a home hero, who was now so far behind the eight ball he was nudging the cue ball on the next table. As Oor Andy served, the stadium got up and left. As Andy stared as if there had been a security alert, an American journalist said to me quietly: “There is a limited appetite in the USA for watching a local boy being beaten by a foreigner.”

The US Open is thus far removed from Wimbledon in terms of adherence to spectator decorum. It also differs from Wimbledon in that the spectators have no hopes of a home winner in the men’s side of the draw. The fairly recent exploits of such as Arthur Ashe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Andy Roddick now stand as distant pillars holding up an illustrious past. There may be those who insist that John Isner or Sam Querrey or Ryan Harrison or Donald Young can win a US Open soon. They will be accommodated by overweening courtesy and long odds by any bookmaker.

They are in the process of putting a roof on the Arthur Ashe stadium. Such is the tumult below they should just cover it with canvas in recognition of its debt to a circus ring. Unfortunately, for the US, the male of the country’s species could be auditioning for roles as clowns. This, of course, is inordinately harsh. Isner and the rest are polite, capable young men but these traits do not of themselves bring a grand slam title. American tennis can boast the greatest women’s player ever (incidentally one who was once not the best player at the family dining table) but the men’s game has been dominated by Europe for much of the millennium.

This has had the same effect on tennis in America as a pin has on a very large balloon. A limited exposure to the USA provides the irrefutable truth that three sports dominate in terms of media coverage and fan interest: American football, basketball and baseball. Tennis in the USA is thus squeezed so hard that it emits more pips than the speaking clock. There may be a wave of young American men preparing to break against the final rounds of grand slam tournaments. But there is as much sign of life there as there is in the Liberal Democrats.

Flushing Meadows, though, does carry a hint to coming strength. Outside the concrete behemoth that is the home of US tennis, there is a park that would be familiar to Scots of a certain age. Its scuffed grass and battered trees play host to a multitude of “pick-up soccer matches”. This, in our lingo, means that mates head to Flushing Meadows on a summer evening for a game of football.

Once passing these games, I seemed to be transported back to childhood. Every piece of land was parcelled out to accommodate matches that ranged from five-a-side to full, serious contests with temporary goalposts erected. There was a huge Hispanic presence but all races seemed to be represented. I watch football with the same focus as Scrooge checking a ledger. The standard was extraordinarily high. The games took place every night, the players only melting away when light faded. They always returned in vast numbers.

Repeated visits to the USA have informed me of several truths: immigration queues are longer than a Bubba Watson drive, there is no limit to the elastic of the waistband on a pair of trackie bottoms, and air-conditioning systems are like teenagers in that they should adhere to certain instructions but they don’t.

There is a further certainty: association football is in the rise and it is no fad. America flirted with fitba’ in the past. It is now embracing it. Like tennis, it is the women who have led the way. Unlike tennis, it is the men who are determined to follow.

The amateur matches on Flushing Meadows are bolstered by a league with big money and media exposure. Fitba’ is not, of course, ready to usurp any of the Big Three Sports. Indeed, it may never do so. But it is primed to be more than a niche sport.

Once sitting in Flushing Meadows, I came to the conclusion that the USA men’s team would win a World Cup before a USA male player won a grand slam. I was tempted to phone a bookie. But I had left my mobile phone behind. Given the beeps, rings and roars in a stadium of 20,000, I appeared to be the only one.