Personally, I’m Angry Because I’m Terrified

Barney Ronay nails the epidemic of moral outrage that’s sweeping through English football, leaving broken syringes scattered over the pillaged Red Cross stations in its wake:

Perhaps it might be more useful to wonder why we’re so angry. My theory is that the Premier League has become a bit like one of those Pandora’s Box-themed disaster/horror movies where the avaricious and hubristic white-coated scientists unwittingly release the rapacious virus into the atmosphere. Or, in this case, assorted TV companies, newspapers and websites repeatedly trade off the tribal loyalties, rivalries and feuds that provide a vital part of the game’s visceral appeal, until suddenly the needles begin to quiver, the electrode-plugged monkey comes screeching out of its splintered Perspex cage and there we all are frothing and stumbling about the place desperate to bite someone’s head off. Or at the very least post a really cross comment on the internet with capital letters and a swear word sneakily inserted using the $*@&% symbols.