Competitive sports, especially team sports, are male aggression and violence, sublimated. As such they perform a vital role in civilising society, by facilitating the controlled, lawful discharge of male aggression in a harmless manner. This holds for the crowds spectating as much as the actual participants. The partisan, team and city based hostility, so channelled, is healthy. Of course unlawful abuse based on race and sexuality and gender and disability cannot be supported, but we must be careful of emasculating the game so much that it loses any passion, and the unintended consequences of innate male aggression being discharged elsewhere in damaging forms.