THIS IS NOT FOOTBALL

At Old Trafford on Sunday, they brought two lads out on to the pitch before the kick-off and told them they were friends. The crowd booed.

The Manchester United fan and the Liverpool fan smiled awkwardly, swapped pennants, posed for images of reconciliation and then wandered back to the touchline. We're all supposed to be buddies now in the Premiership's profitable happy family - and I can't stand it.

I'm not condoning Liverpool fans attacking the ambulance taking Alan Smith to hospital last season. I'm not saying that songs about people dying on a runway in Munich or on a terrace at Hillsborough don't make my stomach turn.

And I'm certainly not advocating a return to the dark days of the 70s and 80s when the stain of hooliganism spread throughout the game.

But I don't want the alternative the Premier League are putting forward either. I don't want the Glazers' vision of football where a club is reduced to a 'stable brand'.

I don't want a sanitised version of football. I don't want the Americanisation of football where there are no away supporters and no atmosphere and little enmity.

But that seems to be what the authorities want. They're driving the traditional fans away and shipping in the corporates faster than you can say "hospitality package". They're trying to anaesthetise the experience of watching football.

Well, I don't want everyone to be friends.

One of the things I used to love most about football was its tribalism and its sense of belonging. If we're not careful, we're going to rid English football of the one thing that still makes it special - the atmosphere inside the stadia.