The beautiful game....

Seems to be an implicit assumption that just because a sport has a large fan base this confers an intrinsic superiority over other sports. Not sure this logic is justified...

Equal to the explicit assumption that footy fans are yobbos?

Football attendances prove nothing other than the popularity of the game. Those attending have chosen to pay their hard-earned to watch football rather than the water polo / rugby match down the road. That said, those playing water polo / rugby doubtless enjoy it as much as those playing football so on a participant level who cares?

I think a picture says a lot on a parallel from another sport:

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out?

No Jason - that is a famous picture (in hockey circles anyway) taken in 1952 (which was, thankfully, solidly before I was born) of Montreal's Maurice "the Rocket" Richard and Boston goalie Jim Henry after the 7th and deciding game of the Stanley Cup semifinals. If it didn't mean I would have to be well into my 70's, I wish I had taken it!

In NHL hockey playoffs they always line up at the end of the series and shake hands.  Of note in this photo is the gash over Richard's left eye that required 6 stitches to close (and he probably barely missed a shift) and the massive black eye on Henry.  (This was in the day when goalies did not yet wear masks.)  Despite the physical punishment administered to each other for the best of 7 games, they always shake hands at the end...and these guys are the epitome of tough.

I must have missed this - or are you raising a straw man?

The original protagonists have agreed to disagree so not really minded to go through this again. However, reading and comprehension skills are often most useful in combination.

If you are a rugby / Chelsea / Fulham / Brentford fan looking to deliver my come-uppance then declare yourself and lets have it

If a sports moralist / etiquette specialist then my position is clear but I will add that there is cheating in the shape of drugs in all pro sports where money is at stake. Cycling is the current poster-child but how bizarre if the only example. This along with all the other cheating well reflects modern society. No amount of mutual adulation at the end changes that. It is eat or be eaten. Amateur sport often different.

As for rugby being so progressive, clearly only the Kiwis might claim that in their boycott of the establishment sponsored SA tour of the late eighties. Was there clapping at the end of those games too? That's ok then!

...that's all I need after the result....the fake hoops putting the boot in. Suspect one of us will be 'offline' next weekend