18th September:

I have never had a huge interest in the game of rugby (for any of our North American cousins out there, it's just like American Football but without the 16 layers of padding, body armour or helmets) but there is clearly something to be said about a sport where the fans of the two opposing teams can happily mingle inside the stadium and then go to the pub and get pissed together afterwards.

Football (sorry, but I refuse to use the word soccer - who invented it first, eh?) has never quite managed to pull this same achievement off, the two sets fans seemingly preferring to taunt each other with insulting and occasionally bigoted chants before having a mass brawl either in the car park or on the way to the train station after the match. Surely it's not a class thing, though? Or is it?

Your congenial host has always been deeply suspicious of those people who declare a passionate interest in the fortunes of their preferred football team. Especially those who wear the strip on non-match days or buy any of the official licensed merchandise. A poster or two on the wall of a boyhood bedroom is all well and good, but branded leisurewear, luggage and crockery is clearly the wrong kind of fashion statement. I once saw a young gentleman with the crest of his preferred club tattooed on his left breast. This is lunacy of the highest order, and immediately marks out the man (or woman) in question as being someone of questionable parentage and intelligence. The infamous football manager Bill Shankly once offered an oft-repeated pithy quote to a journalist who commented "Football seems to be life and death to you" by replying "no, it's more important than that". So he was clearly certifiable.

Sport is obviously big business these days and needs a passionate fanbase to help it thrive, but I've seen people who take the whole thing far too seriously. Any violence or blood spilled in the name of a team or sport is simply unacceptable. At the end of the day, it really is only a game. No, really. Matches come and go, championships are retained or conceded, cups won or lost in the last minute due to a dubious penalty decision but it is never life or death, and anyone who claims so doesn't have the intelligence to make their opinion worth listening to.

And if you want to argue with me, I'll be down the pub with the rugby fans.