As many of you know, I love football. I enjoy the drama of the beautiful game and watching it with my friends, analysing the ups and downs and looking forward to the next fixture. The League. The Cup. Europe..

I like the excitement. I like the unpredictability, the thrills and spills. And the exhilaration of winning a great match.

Losing’s not so good, but at the end of the day, it’s just a game.

Of course, I recognise it’s not me doing the winning and losing. It’s a lot of very well-paid privileged athletes who work for clubs whose owners often want quick profits, global marketing, or a high-value asset to flip.

I don’t like that aspect of it so much. Or the ‘us versus them’ attitude. I don’t like noise and nastiness and bullying. Football’s a game. It’s not warfare.

Last season, several things happened that I didn’t like. The homophobia and vindictive hatred shown to Trent Alexander Arnold because he left the club. The constant spiteful criticism of players who underperformed. The sense that fans had a right to judge each player negatively, single them out and say really appalling things on social media.

Gone are the days when fans waved scarves and sang for ninety minutes, then went home happy.

Of course, looking at past crowd behaviour through rose tinted glasses is unwise. I’ve seen my fair share of bad behaviour at games, and I’ve heard a few words my mother wouldn’t have approved of. During the era of “terrace culture,” football was predominantly a working-class, male-dominated game filled with ritual. The atmosphere at matches shifted heavily between incredible community passion, good natured banter and intense, unregulated violence. There was a time when the primary goal on match days could be fighting rival supporters rather than watching the game. Football chants reflected the culture of homophobia, hatred and  and racism.

Alcohol was allowed at games, and supporters in the terraces were packed so tightly that fans often moved as a fluid mass, experiencing “surges” whenever a goal was scored. It wasn’t safe.

Things have changed. Football culture has shifted from a local, working-class pastime into a global, highly commercialized entertainment industry. Broadcast rights have skyrocketed from modest domestic packages to multi-billion-pound global media cycles. Player transfers and weekly wages have increased from millions to hundreds of millions. Clubs are now transformed from community organizations into worldwide corporate entities with international fanbases.

Coaching styles haves shifted from basic physical play to high-pressing, highly technical, and data-driven systems. Coaches are sacked regularly, criticised openly. Often fans make huge assumptions about players’ form and performance based on hearsay, half-truths and a sense of entitlement.

Not loyalty. Not facts.

On a positive note, football is more inclusive, and respect is expected these days. The game has become a symbol of diversity. The women’s game is competitive and highly successful. Over the years, football has embraced players from different racial and cultural backgrounds.

Homosexuality is widely accepted and openly expressed in women’s professional football but it remains a heavily stigmatized taboo in the elite men’s professional game.

So, this season, I have made a conscious decision to shut out the excess noise. That’s not part of the game for me.

Players and coaches will always lose games. They are human. And no-one has the right to bully them, whatever the outcome.

I remember last season, how defender Ibou Konaté faced regular blistering criticism for not playing well in several games. Vile racist abuse was directed at him on social media following a Champions League match.

He was battling depression caused by personal tragedies, the loss of a team mate, his father’s illness and subsequent death.

Fans didn’t know this. And they were appallingly mean to him. It was horrible to listen to. He plays for Real Madrid now. I wish him every success.

Fans of the team I watch have always had a reputation for being loyal, passionate and fair. And good humoured. Support is unwavering. The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 saw a city impressively united in grief, soldarity and the desire for justice.

I think that passion remains the same generally. But also, from the minoriry of anonymous fans, there’s a huge wave of entitlement, resulting in online abuse, blatant xenophobia and racism. Meanness and bullying directed at a whole team or targeted individuals. Abuse, scathing language. Often words such as ‘poor’ and ‘shocking’ are regularly used for simple human error.

Thankfully, many fans say openly that if you can’t support a club when they lose, don’t support them at all. Those people are real fans. Apparently, Bill Shankly said something similar many years ago – I think that might just be a myth. But being a fan is about being unwaveringly loyal, sharing good and bad times, being philosophical and standing together, just as any family group would.

I’m a huge admirer of the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus. He loved football too. He played in goal. He said, apparently, that everything he knew about duty and morality, he learned on the football field.

He also said playing the game and watching it taught him how unpredictable people and life can be.

He learned how to win without feeling like a god and how to lose without feeling like trash.

I’m with Albert here. Absolutely.

Nice one, Albert!