Here’s a dirty little secret about sporting crowds. The things that create the most incredible atmospheres – that din that smothers your senses, those epic roars that vibrate in your soul – are things you don’t want to look at too closely. It lives in the aggression, the intensity that can’t help but spill over into vulgarity. Often it lives in the consumption of too much alcohol. Truly buzzing crowds exist on the edge of chaos, barely contained and on the verge of bursting their banks. There is something wild in them.

A Carlton fan wears tape over her mouth to protest against the AFL's crowd behaviour measures. Credit:Channel Seven

I’ll never forget the moments before the 2016 NRL grand final between the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla, which felt more like a title fight than a footy match. I remember the roar in the 2013 AFL finals series when Richmond made its first appearance in 12 years, and how the players later spoke of being able to feel the ground shake. We wanted to rip Carlton’s heads off that day. It was much the same four years later when Richmond beat Greater Western Sydney to make its first grand final for 35 years.

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And then there’s European football. What struck me most last year when I went to see Paris Saint-Germain host Liverpool in the Champions League was the implicit violence in the air. Perhaps it was in my head, planted there by reputation and the ring of police officers I had to pass on my way into the ground. But I’ll never forget the way the crowd howled at every half-incident with a desperation that hovered constantly around tipping point. It was deafening. It was intimidating. And it was awesome.