The new football and rugby seasons had barely opened when both sports were thrown immediately into controversy.  This is of no real surprise, since bipolar histrionics and hyperbole are the stock-in-trade of tribal team affiliations. But serious violence at a West Ham game was a different order of ignominy. Equally, rugby's Bloodgate scandal, which involved a bullied player ripping a gash into his own mouth to escape detection as a cheat, did not endear competitive exercise to ...