Stupidly, I hadn't remembered to Sky-plus the game. And I didn't have my notebook with me to jot down presenter Adrian Chiles' actual words verbatim. But he definitely said it, I swear he did.
And TV-wise, make no mistake: it was truly ground-breaking stuff.
"Don't worry," ITV1's Chiles assured us, half-way through the thunder-and-lightning-delayed Ukraine-v-France encounter. "You won't have to miss a minute of the England match." Or words to that effect.
Now, I know this may not have sounded a particularly big deal - I don't suppose it'll be popping up one day on Channel 4's Most Shocking Throwaway Remarks On Telly Ever - but don't let's underestimate its significance.
What Chiles was effectively saying, you see, was: stuff Emmerdale.
That was the programme due to follow ITV1's coverage of Ukraine-v-France. But instead of insulting our intelligence, as has been the habit of TV sports presenters for as long as I can remember, by avoiding any reference to a rival channel's imminent live coverage of another crucial match - and pretending instead that Euro 2012 fans were all going to stay loyally tuned to ITV1 to catch up with the Dingle family's latest scrapes - Chiles openly acknowledged that we'd all be switching over to England v Sweden, his remark alerting us to the fact that it had been delayed until 8pm.
Now, I happen to be quite a fan of Emmerdale, thanks to my day job as Britain's fourth best TV Critic - I think it's desperately sad, don't you, the way the village's former vicar Ashley has recently found himself homeless and destitute? - but even I wasn't dim enough to believe this was the only terrestrial viewing option available to us football fans once the current game's coverage was over. I don't suppose many people were.
So top marks to Chiles, for cutting the traditional nonsense and just telling it how it was. They don't tend to do that, do they, sports presenters? They rarely go, "Ooh, well, you're obviously a football fan, or else you wouldn't have stayed tuned to this so-so game for the last two hours, so I guess you're going to be switching over to the other side for the big one in a few minutes' time, right? Can't say I blame you..."
And yet this was effectively what Chiles had done.
As I say, its significance may well have been lost of many viewers, but significant it most certainly was. Here was an unprecedented level of honesty and realism on a sports presenter's part - a willingness to address us viewers as if we weren't all idiots, to acknowledge that the coverage of this tournament was being shared with ITV's biggest rival, and that this was where, Dingle crisis or not, most fans would be turning in a few minutes' time. Usually they'll refuse to acknowledge the rival channel's coverage of any game, simply drawing our attention instead to their own late-night highlights package. And we'll quietly chuckle / seethe at their daftness, amused by the fact they think we'd fall for such a transparently lame tactic.
As to where all this honesty will eventually lead, we can only speculate. But the possibilities for TV are endless:
"And now on BBC1, Panorama investigates the crisis in the Eurozone. But if I were you, I'd switch over to Corrie, where there's a really good riot brewing in the knicker factory..."