'TIS the season to be jolly -- unless you are a football fan from East Lancashire.

In which case, this season -- more than any other in the last 17 years -- seems to be the season to be angry.

Fierce local rivalry is all well and good and part and parcel of being a passionate football fan.

But the out-and-out hatred shown in the build-up, during and aftermath of Sunday's derby is both baffling and despicable.

Let's try and put things into some kind of realistic perspective.

Football is a game, a leisure pursuit, a pastime. In what possible circumstances do these definitions merit any form of physical aggression from followers of one particular club.

Sure, the history, pageant and intensity of the sport create a uniquely passionate attraction.

This is a valid vehicle for partisanship, but never tribalism. There is only one 'sport' which deserves a hooligan following and that is the barbaric activity of boxing.

When two men step into a confined space with the deliberate intention of causing each other physical damage, how can that harmful intent fail to be transmitted to the audience?

And just how many young athletes like Paul Ingle have to be killed or permanently maimed before the odious spectacle is banned?

Having read and heard a wide selection of views and outbursts relating to derby matters, it is clear that some -- a huge minority, it has to be accepted -- would wish a similar fate on rival fans.

Their bile is based on the belief that anyone born 10 miles down the road is an enemy.

Now, if those feelings were put into the context of Kosovo and a 10-mile journey took you over the border into Yugoslavia, such aggressive intent might be justified.

When, however, the language of war is used in reaction to a newspaper column in which a passionate fan of one club proudly states his loyalty, albeit in gently taunting terms which innocently mock his rivals, then it is clear that feelings are out of control.

And when a pet shop is looted in order to satisfy a thwarted lust for violence, (I'm presuming this was not a ploy to release any captive terrapins), it really is time to despair.

Given the circumstances, it really is little wonder that tickets remain unsold.

And is the expense in policing the Blackburn fans justified by their collective joy at Turf Moor? I think not.

So, until some kind of reasonable tolerance exits, I think away fans should be excluded and the game beamed back to the respective grounds.