Football hooliganism isn’t a new thing: during a match in Derby in 1846, two squads of soldiers had to be called in to deal with a disorderly crowd. It came to the fore again in the 1960s, reaching a peak from the late 1970s to mid-1980s.

Although international and derby matches are previewed in the media as potential trouble-spots, football hooliganism is not in the news so much these days. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone away; it’s just changed location, become less obvious and is less reported upon.

The majority of people attending football matches are, of course, well-behaved; it’s the actions of a few – and it’s probably a misnomer to call them football supporters - that have led to the perceived view of football fans as aggressive, narrow-minded hooligans.

A big soccer game involves careful supporter-management planning and large numbers of police reinforcements are brought in. The same is true of a rugby union international – but on a much smaller scale. The greatest concern is not whether the different factions will end up fighting each other but rather whether the pubs will have got in enough beer. To misquote Monty Python: ‘Nobody expects a rugby riot.’

But why not? Why is there such a clear-cut distinction between the two groups of fans? Is it alcohol that makes the difference?

Blamed in large measure for violence erupting before, during or after football matches, alcohol consumption is strictly controlled e.g. it is illegal to be in possession of or to consume alcohol within view of the pitch during the period of a football match. This is taken so seriously that in Shrewsbury, where a hotel overlooks the football pitch, curtains are drawn in the restaurant during games.

In Swansea Valley, the Liberty Stadium is home to both the Ospreys rugby team and Swansea City FC. During football matches, no alcohol can be consumed in the stadium but during rugby games, spectators are allowed – and are happy to miss bits of the action - to visit the bar to top up their pints to take back to their seats.

Drunken rugby supporters tend to be jovial, and if they’re still capable of remembering the final score, they accept it, whatever it was. I don’t know what drunken football supporters are like: I make a point of avoiding them.

Incidents of violence in the last quarter of the 20th century in a number of football stadia led to the segregation of home and visiting fans, while fans from opposing rugby camps mingle, deriding each other’s team good-naturedly. (But don’t think that means the passion is any the less!)

Visiting football fans – particularly when the two teams are local or deadly rivals - have a police escort to their coaches; rugby supporters of both teams meet up afterwards to carry on drinking in the pub.

There is an old saying that "football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligans’ game played by gentlemen".

The story that rugby was invented at Rugby School, when a boy named William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it, is apparently apocryphal, but nevertheless rugby in England is traditionally a game played by the middle and upper classes. In Wales - where it could be argued that the fervour for the game and the intensity of rivalry between local clubs is greatest - it is a working-man’s game. We don’t really have upper classes and although a working man can be a gentleman, it’s not the sort of gentleman toff referred to in the saying. So the background – or class – of the players doesn’t seem to be the issue.

A rugby game is certainly physically violent. All right, violent might be too strong a word but the sound of flesh thudding against flesh and bones splintering certainly gives the appearance of violence. When a stretcher is rushed onto the pitch during a rugby match, a broken ankle is the least worrying of the possible injuries. ‘He’s moving his head,’ the commentator says. ‘That’s a good sign.’

You only have to consider the All Blacks haka to see that, once on the pitch, these men mean business: no hostages taken here. No wonder former British Lions hero Willie John McBride is credited with saying: 'Get your retaliation in first.' The physicality is part and parcel of the game but there’s a clearly defined limit and any sidestepping of the rules is quickly stamped upon by the referee – the safety, and even lives, of players are at stake.

When the referee has to take action, it is rare for there to be much complaining from the players. Occasionally one player might query the decision, but the rest are quick to hold him back and apologise to ‘sir’.

And at the end of the game the players leave the field, lining up to clap and shake the other team’s hands, before returning to the clubhouse to drink together, the handbags-at-dawn duels that threatened having been forgotten in the steam of the communal bath.

Afterwards, for the losing team, there will be a shrugging of shoulders and the acceptance that ‘‘decisions go against you sometimes’’ and ‘‘we must learn from our mistakes’’. In a very gentlemanly fashion, of course.

Consider now a football match where the art of amateur dramatics has been brought in to compensate for the lack of body contact. At the slightest trip, the player rolls on the floor, having perfected the move in front of the full-wall mirror in his bedroom. The referee is instantly surrounded by the rest of his team, waving their arms and shouting, demanding justice – and a penalty. When the fouled player has achieved his objective of getting his opponent sent off, he stumbles to his feet where he limps for three steps before forgetting his injury and running on.

In the newspaper next day, the manager of team A is appalled at the behaviour of team B’s player; his manager in turn accuses team A player of unprofessionalism. A game played by hooligans.

Maybe the answer is that while rugby could be described as legalised violence, football, with its pretty-boy players and precocious attitudes, is eviscerated. Its supporters don’t have a vehicle on to which to offload their aggression, to see it being acted out in a controlled and responsible fashion. And like a mirror held up to the game, the supporters reflect what they see.

Or maybe it’s the humour underlying the sport of rugby that runs through its supporters. After all, who can take entirely seriously a game that involves grown men grabbing each other’s tackle before cuddling down for a scrum?

Why do you think rugby fans tend to be better behaved than their football counterparts? Leave a comment below or write and article for Sportingo.