You can reprimand them, but you'll never understand them. You can take away their passports and prevent them travelling abroad, deport them and despise them.

You might flog, birch or fine them, administer short sharp shocks, incarcerate them in Young Offenders Institutions and bang them up in prisons.

You can thunder against them in print and call them scum until Oxford United win the Champions' League.

But truly to understand the average football hooligan, you have to understand only one, simple truth: they fight because they like it. They create havoc and terrorise innocent 'civilians' unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire simply because, to the committed hooligan, there's nothing better than a ruck it's better than their team actually winning. It's better than sex. No, there's nothing that beats a good 'play-up'.

It's a point that seems to be lost or is never mentioned and yet Oxford social psychologist Dr Peter Marsh readily concedes the truth of it.

"I couldn't agree more," he says. "Fighting is the biggest buzz that these people get all week it's a thrill that's as psychologically complex as that.

"For those involved in it, violence is an exciting and positive activity. But another point that seems to have been lost is that the football hooligan who exists in the perception of a whole set of people is someone like those who were in Belgium during Euro 2000. "At one point the Belgian police were rounding up everyone they could find and to identify a real hooligan in those circumstances is difficult.

"But to take a more sanguine, historical view, football hooliganism is not a product of post-world war, capitalist society.

"In Byzantium and at the Circus Maximus in Rome, fans of the charioteers exhibited identical patterns of behaviour to football hooligans. They wore togas in their team colours and cords around their arms, so that when they saluted, the team colours would be seen. There are timeless aspects here."

Dr Marsh's work with Oxford's Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) produced a profile of the English hooligan earlier this year. The average thug is white, working-class, poorly educated, aged between 24 and 44, has poor social recognition professionally or personally, and low self-esteem.

Dr Marsh says: "Hooliganism is reinvented every year just as the season is about to start. There are apocalyptic predictions in some newspapers. There were reporters in Belgium during Euro 2000 whose sole job was to file pictures and stories of fans fighting. Beforehand, there were stories of fans plotting to kill each other which was untrue.

"In a sense, it's all pre-scripted and, unfortunately, there are enough morons happy enough to play the role they have been given."

They're also happy enough to keep in touch via the Internet. On one hooligan site, you can witness the tribal talk at first hand.

There are also pictures of 'rucks' at home and away including one of a thug taking a spectacular punch in the mouth and of an unfortunate man having his head used for a football. This sort of stuff is hooligan heaven and the webmaster encourages users to contribute their favourite fight snaps be they against rival hoolies or the various police forces of Europe. There's even a site devoted to the hooligans of Croatia, as well as one devoted to a league table of Top Mobs.

Pc Paul Phillips has been Oxford football liaison officer for the past 10 years.

"We face a potentially busy season," he admits. "There are a lot of local derby fixtures and we can't be complacent, though it was relatively quiet last season.

"We will use the new legislation which means we can complain to the courts to have known troublemakers banned if need be.

"No, you probably can't stop them from being hooligans, but we can make life difficult for them though if someone is determined or intent on causing problems, they will.

"I don't think football hooliganism has ever gone away, but we simply have to police them positively and prevent them doing what they want to do.

"Hooligans come from all walks of life and use the Internet to communicate with one another. They don't even wear club colours it's all expensive designer clothing. "And when you consider that it can cost up to 50 to go to a match, it's obvious that a lot of these people must be in employment."

So the football season is with us again and so are the hooligans. Some thought the problem was dead and buried.

Instead, sadly, it's very much alive and kicking.