On The Premier League:One player banned for fracturing a fellow professional's eye-socket in an appalling act of thuggery. An international captain suspended for deliberately trampling on an opponent. And another top-level pro arrested and charged with assault following an unseemly brawl at a boozy party, all in the last 10 days.
You would be forgiven for thinking this forms the latest charge-sheet compiled against Premier League footballers, rampaging, brain-dead yobs that they are. And you would be wrong. In fact, the three miscreants in question - Perry Freshwater, Phil Vickery and Olly Barkley respectively - are all English rugby players plying their trade at the top of their sport, but seemingly incapable of doing so without causing actual bodily harm. And this, apparently, is a hooligans' game played by gentlemen.
Rugby's extraordinarily blase attitude to incidents of despicable ultra-violence has always baffled me. Then again, when the sport's governing body in England describes Freshwater's savage attack - which left Kieran Roche, the London Irish flanker, with a crumpled face and a four-week lay-off - as "mid-range in the level of seriousness" we shouldn't be too surprised.
Maybe, given his fellow professionals' penchant for gouging, we should just be grateful Freshwater chose to stop at the eye-socket.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that had footballers been in the dock for similar offences, Brian Barwick would personally be wheeling a gallows on to Wembley's lush turf, racing track or whatever surface best pays the bills this month in readiness for a public execution. In fact, as a letter-writer to the Daily Mail would almost certainly splutter, hanging would be too good for 'em.
It is fair to say that footballers - never a popular bunch - are not feeling much Christmas love at the moment. If they are not being accused of rape at seedy parties, they are busy testing out the strength of their studs on each other's nether regions or flicking V-signs at the people who help pay their wages, and all the while appealing for more protection against beastly supporters shouting at them from the terraces.
It all adds up, not for the first time, to a spectacular PR disaster, but as much as we all enjoy giving Premier League players - and Ashley Cole in particular - a good shoeing, perhaps it is time for a little perspective.
Leaving aside the charges levelled against a 19-year-old in the wake of the Manchester United Christmas bash - an event which, regardless of whether there is any truth in the rape allegations, seems to have been organised with the expressed intention of proving that money buys you everything except class - the reaction to recent on-field indiscretions has been little short of preposterous.
Arsenal might not be one of the top flight's most vociferous coliseums - if West Ham or Portsmouth are bear pits, the Emirates is more of a giant rabbit hutch - but the invective being hurled Cole's way was still unpleasant enough to make his two-fingered salute seem quite restrained. Rather than sanctioning him for having the temerity to lose his temper, the Football Association should embrace the spirit of the season and applaud the way he played up to his role as north London's pantomime villain.
There has also been a lot of guff about how the spate of recent two-footed tackles is proof of the modern player's contempt for his fellow professional. First, not one of the challenges which has prompted such outrage seems to have been made with the intention of hurting an opponent.
Even Craig Gardner's ugly lunge at Dwight Yorke's groin at Sunderland two weeks ago - which could well have ended the Trinidadian's reputation as the top flight's greatest Lothario at a stroke - was more clumsy than confrontational, whatever Match of the Day's po-faced pundits might say.
If blame has to be attached, the targets should be the game's lawmakers whose unnecessary tampering ensured that the art of tackling - which, at its best, can be every bit as beautiful as a sweetly hit set-piece or crisp crossfield pass - became virtually obsolete and the referees who cannot decide among themselves what constitutes serious foul play. If players see one shin-high lunge go unpunished, it is inevitable they will push their luck.
But let's not kid ourselves that we are about to enter a second dark age where shinpads will need to be clad in steel and overworked St John's ambulance crews will be dropping like badly hung tinsel by the side of the pitch where the gladiators collide.
Players have never been more protected and, in general, the game has never been cleaner or more entertaining. There is still only one ball game that encourages thuggery, and it isn't football.
