The game is too full of anger and hate. We hate all players for earning too much, we get angry when they don't justify this money against criteria we set in our head, we hate opposition fans for daring to align themselves to another club. We despise our own fans and rant about all of this at every opportunity via forums, radio or in the pub. We can't stand referees who always make bad decisions and we ignore it when they favour us. If any player dares to move on to another club, they are the devil and must be hounded and berated with horrendous language. We call our team shit, wankers and ****ing useless and make these feelings known to the players and management if we concede a goal or aren't winning enough. If we do win, we might cheer a bit and allow a smile, but then we mutter about the fact that it's papering over the cracks.
We then take all of this anger and negative energy and bottle it with a shiny label marked "passion" and say that it is what makes the sport so great. There is no room left in the bottle to applaud opposition teams or recognise that a player moved on to better things.
At least that's my experience of large sections of football support nowadays, both our fans and other teams.
