When do spectators become fans and when do fans become fanatic? I have never really asked myself if ‘fan’ is a derivation of fanatic but soon after India had been outplayed by Sri Lanka in the World Cup T20 finals Sunday I received a message from a colleague in Delhi saying police had to rush to Yuvraj Singh’s house in Chandigarh because a bunch of fans were pelting his residence with stones.

These must have been the same people who were raising the national flag and singing hosannas when Yuvraj brought home the trophy in 2011.

For one, they are not fans, they cause terror, and are, therefore, terrorists, and should be seen as such. They invaded a man’s home and I believe that is his castle and they should be arrested. The dismay of losing the match was replaced by one of disgust. Imagine if there had been little kids in that home, his nieces and nephews scared out of their minds. Prosecute the vandals.

In a chain link of thoughts my mind went back to Monica Seles and her knifing on court by Gunter Parche because he was a fan of Steffi Graf and wanted her back in first place. That was one of the worst incidents of singular sports violence.

Of course, nothing will ever remove the ignominy that tainted global sport following the killing of Colombian soccer player Escobar in a 1994 World Cup match against the US for scoring a self-goal. When he went home to Colombia he was shot 12 times.

I remember members of the Pakistani cricket team telling me how they would pack their families off to the Murree Hills or some unknown destination on the night before they had to play India. The pressure of keeping them safe was often paramount.

These days there is a lot of stuff about racism in sport and warning signs are plastered all over sports stadiums about the anti-racism code and that is a good thing but verbal abuse though hurtful is always trumped by violence in terms of threat.

The 2009 assault on the Sri Lankan bus in Pakistan was horrific with a dozen men peppering the chassis with bullets.

While that sort of planned militancy is still rare, the placement of security at sports events is no longer an escort service. It is now a professional job calling for a professional cadre and you will see that in action at the IPL games. The hounding that cricketers and soccer players face from groupies is frightening. They get chased, harassed, people want to touch them, hold them, pluck their sleeve, it can drive you crazy. I recall Imran Khan once swinging a bat in the direction of two guys who just would not let him practice, they just kept coming in the way and trying to touch him.

The crazies lie in ambush and now the ‘angry fan’ has begun to believe he has a right to more than vocal support. While one understands ‘sports rage’ up to a point and heckling being the tax paid on the celebrity status hurting folks cannot be tolerated. Tiger Woods once had a hot dog thrown at him and he shrugged it off, saying: “When I looked up, the hot dog was already in the air. The bun was kind of disintegrating.” What if it had been a grenade?

Soccer refs have had dislocated shoulders given them by irate fans, a far cry from the tame ‘wear your specs’ insult of the past.

In one of the most bizarre acts a defrocked priest pushed runner Vanderlei de Lima while he was racing to victory in the 2004 Summer Olympics marathon. He fell, picked himself up but came in third. In the Romanian Cup a guy fired a rocket (firework) at the very moment his team, Dinamo, were about to score, bringing the play to a stop. Dinamo lost a match that should have been a draw.,

So, the prosecution rests. The word ‘fan’ is a derivative of fanatic…will the jury stay out on that one for very long?