The sudden disappearance of Chelsea and Manchester United fans from Sportingo’s rapidly-growing reader base last week was clearly sparked by the respective exits of their teams from the Champions League.

For a couple of days in United’s case and even longer in Chelsea’s, there was scarcely a murmur in the comments section from the normally loquacious hordes of Reds and Blues.

Of course, the United contingent were out in force again after Saturday’s derby victory at Eastlands to demonstrate just how fickle we football supporters are. When our team win and others lose, we are quick to gloat at our own conquests and belittle the opposition. But when we are on the receiving end, we just don’t want to talk about it - let alone suffer the taunts of our rivals.

I confessed in an article a while ago that I actually deserted my beloved Cardiff City during their latest massive blip in the Championship. Yet when they were leading the league last autumn I just couldn’t get enough of them. I spent most of my waking hours trawling the Bluebirds’ websites, both official and unofficial, and even switched my computer screensaver from a picture of my kids to one of Michael Chopra.

However, once it started to go pear-shaped and Chops stopped scoring, I lost heart. And that falling interest dwindled to nothing as Cardiff plummeted into the bottom half of the table (how on earth was that possible for a team that was six points clear at the top in October?)

It was bad enough for me, even though I’ve become used to failure over more years than I care to remember. But defeat and failure are much harder to accept for supporters of the big boys because, apart from the depression that losing invariably brings on, they also have to suffer the brickbats of masses of rival fans. So what better to do than just disappear for a while?

The pity of all this is that these days there is precious little respect for rival teams and players from those who watch the game, however talented those stars may be. For example, some of the comments posted about Cristiano Ronaldo following Michael Ball’s notorious stamp last weekend were positively disgusting - and he was the offended party!

I grew up in an era when opposing fans actually stood together on the terraces and exchanged friendly banter. Not so many women attended games in those days, but those who did were 100 per cent safe at all times - and we didn't need to cover our ears, either!

That’s how it still is at rugby matches and why, if things don’t change, more and more decent people will start switching their allegiance to the oval-ball code. And those changes need to be made both on and off the field, because rugby is light-years ahead in the use of technology as well as the non-use of obscenities.

While I have only rarely felt physically threatened at a football match, the language, aggressive behaviour and unwarranted verbal attacks on players from the terraces can be positively frightening. When I traveled to Sunderland in November to watch the Bluebirds (can you believe Cardiff actually won?), a group of brain-dead yobs immediately in front of me spent the entire evening trying to enrage the large contingent of visiting fans away to our right. Maybe they should just herd the sort of creatures who want to fight together rather than segregate them - and leave watching the football to us humans.

The same sort of moronic behaviour goes on just about everywhere - but why on earth is it necessary? It’s a disease that’s endemic in English football; to taunt and goad opposing teams and fans at every opportunity. But it is so illogical and smacks of animal mentality.

The comments that appeared under my recent article about Ball’s attack on Ronaldo sum it all up. Some idiots actually suggested the Manchester City thug should have stamped on Ronaldo’s face rather than his body - and even worse.

If that's their idea of a joke, I don’t find it funny. If they were serious, then heaven help the future of football.

Why are football fans so much more aggressive and disrespectful than their rugby counterparts? Leave a comment or, better still, write an article for Sportingo.