KEY POINTS:
If there is one thing in New Zealand sport you can always appreciate, it is the feeling of being safe in our stadiums.
They may have been built at about the same time as the Ark, but at least there aren't a load of animals inside.
The only
item under constant threat is the wallet, and apart from the meat pies, they don't contain dangers to life and limb.
There have been a few undesirable incidents over the years - attacks on a World Cup soccer referee and Aussie halfback George Gregan spring to mind, and an infamous sign held up by a youngster in Christchurch.
And in the days when you could bring your own (affordable) grog to the cricket, the terraces had an edge to them, shall we say.
But nothing here compares to the disastrous scenes of violence we have seen from European football grounds of late.
Soccer's violent tendencies are dormant at best. There are major fears in Europe that football thuggery is on the rise again.
My own experience of English soccer came after its worst years of violence when catching a train with a load of fans was like dropping into a war zone.
The remnants were still there, however, with the occasional outburst and shockingly brutal incident. In one, a lone "fan" visited the "wrong" pub near Charing Cross, was chased out, and stabbed to death. There were lasting reminders of this, in the form of police posters around the tube station.
I met plenty of men who refused to take their kids to the games, who could also cite the last match they had attended and the incident that had put them off making a return. And at an England v Scotland game at Wembley, I witnessed a burst of fisticuffs over a small dividing wall, a mild incident in the general scheme of things although it would have made headlines over here.
At most grounds, police and their horses were used to keep opposing fans separated. The one exception I recall was at Watford, where a patron told me that they had always promoted a family atmosphere. Apparently there are also strong family links at Millwall, although different sorts of families perhaps.
Before watching a match at Arsenal's old ground, Highbury, we visited a pub where the door greeter was a WWF wrestler-type, with accessories that included large attack-minded dogs attached by chains to his arms.
Inside, the barman looked as though Fred Astaire had tapped about 35 rounds on his head. Opposition fans had dropped by the previous week, and WWF man had felt the need to let the lads loose. The only problem was that a dog has trouble differentiating between a barman and a Chelsea supporter.
Who knows why sports violence attaches itself almost exclusively to soccer. And who knows what the answer is. Maybe soccer could follow cricket's lead and in times of trouble, leave the alleged adults out in the cold and bus loads of school kids to the grounds.
Even many years on from those experiences of English soccer, I can't enter a sports stadium in this country without casting a little vote of thanks that in terms of crowd behaviour, we play a clean game.
