Oh, dear!
I too apologise for not being Malc, but also for not quite sharing in the general spirit of the replies in this forum, which I feel are coloured more than a tad by our common love and respect for the CBPFC supremo.
We have a World Cup just started, which, hopefully, will demonstrate over the next few weeks, an extraordinary spirit of sportsmanship, fair play and common decency throughout the length and breadth of every nation participating, and rubbing off on those that aren't. But I doubt that it will, and for very good reasons.
Soccer is nothing if not a game of high passions. I have played and watched the Beautiful Game all of my life, and have experienced too many highs and lows to count over those years. More often than not, those moments have occurred within the bounds of reasonable sportsmanship, although perfect sportsmanship is an extremely rare beast indeed. And often (yes, often), the passion spills over to behaviour that is most certainly not typical of everyday life, and in some cases can be thoroughly reprehensible.
In the extreme cases, it is ugly and deserving of utter condemnation. However, if soccer matches were ever to be scrutinised for, and judged upon the atypical language and aggression aroused through the passions of its players and supporters, and games brought to a premature end every time it was deemed inappropriate, then the game itself would grind to a speedy halt in no time at all, possibly never to be resuscitated. I don't condone abusive behaviour, but context is all here, and there are indeed rules of the game that can and should be enforced to protect against the more extreme behaviour such as violent conduct.
The 'lesser' behaviour (the verbal stuff mostly), though still unpleasant, is, I'm afraid, part and parcel of the game, and will almost certainly never be eradicated. Again, it is punishable through laws of the game, and laws of the land, but although I will not condone the vast majority of it, I see a functionality in much of it (letting off steam in a controlled environment has to be better than in an uncontrolled one), and quite often a high degree of creativity in some of it, that can make you both wince, and roar with laughter simultaneously. It ain't all bad! Sanitised football would be.
On a personal note, Diane, I'd ditch the "Ole, Ole!" along with that loudspeaker, and I believe many of your problems will be solved at a stroke. The hat's fine though. I wear a cowboy hat, and I am even attracted to women - doesn't make me a lesbian, I assure you.
