It does seem the Russians were the instigators in this instance and were far more intent on causing serious harm.

I know. It’s just a bunch of lads being lads, having a drink or two and a bit of a colourful singsong in the sunshine. It was the French and Russian Neanderthal thugs that caused all the trouble along with the twitchy, unprepared and poorly trained police.

Moscow football official to violent fans: well done lads, keep it up!

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ads-keep-it-up

Typical bloody Russians, they're always promoting their one-sided apologist nonsense.

Thats exactly what they are, perfect description, and it makes me so glad i now live in Canada during this overated tournament.

Violence and football go hand in hand.....its rarely in any other sport and anyone who tries who doesnt see that is in denial.

Ive been dragged along to a couple of team matches in England on a Saturday afternoon and witnessed it, the whole attitude of most of the fans sucks....why do they have to release opposing fans from the ground at staggered times? these are supposed to be adults we are talking about, not school kids from opposing schools wanting to fight each other.

Football has a strong tribal very primitive mentality woven into it....unlike most other sports. You would never get that behaviour at a rugby game for example.

Its the other way around...rugby is a barbarian game where the violence is on the pitch.

Although maybe slightly superseded by MMA, and bodybuilding, Rugby has to be one of the most homoerotic sports ever devised. Look where it was invented.

Well i will leave you to mention that opinion to a prop on any team!....

I'm sure there's going to be a certain amount of defensiveness and denial in that lifestyle as unfortunately its still not as wildly accepted as it should be but I wasn't casting an aspiration or making a judgement, rugby, like UFC, bodybuilding and wrestling is just as valid as any other sport.

...err, that's what I said. Although Pizzawheel disagrees so best take it up with him.

Pizzawheel has the expression correctly.

Football was the working class/ comprehensive school game.

Rugby was the middle class/ private school game.

And public school but I suspect most sports with a central premise of violence are substitutes for behaviours that weren't permitted in open society.

At my comprehensive school we had both. In theory.

Trouble was it was rugby for the first couple of months and it cut up the pitches for when it was football's turn so much that when it rained they became bog-like and were unplayable and when the cold weather came they were bumpy and rock solid and completely unsafe.

So, in reality, it was rugby and, later, cross country runs.

But that's not how I read your post....to simplify it, ive always heard it as, "rugby is a thugs game played by gentlemen, football a gentlemen's game played by thugs"

Which fits in what we were saying about football violence, and if you compare football players and rugby players they are different animals.

However Rugby isn't always known as the private school game, my Dad was as working class as they came, his sport was rugby, but then he was Welsh.

Rugby Union has more typically been played in Southern England, where as Rugby League was more played in the North. There were a number of professional players who switched from Union to League and vice versa.

I too could agree with Oink on the homoerotic suggestion. I went to quite a lot of Wasps games over a long period, there always seemed to be as much emphasis on the communal shower singing time as on the actual playing and training. It seemed an excellent mode for boy bonding and letting off an excess of male steam, safely.

We live in such a very repressed world now, if people so much as touch you in Canada they apologize! A good scrum and a shower would do the lot of them some good.