Boisterous, but good-humoured

In a recent column for the Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Strauss spoke of his disorientation as he arrived at Headingley for the second Test against New Zealand. "It feels like the first time I've been here," he wrote, explaining that the ground had changed beyond recognition in the seven years since his first and only match in Leeds.

That's the trouble with stereotypes. Once cast, they are incredibly difficult to break. Thanks to the jaundiced eye of TV, radio and the newspapers, I felt as though I had been coming to Headingley every summer since 1989, although this month was actually the first time I had ever set foot in the ground. And, like Strauss, I too found the reality to be vastly divorced from the myth.

Now, Headingley is never going to be the prettiest of Test venues, but neither is it the butt-ugly backwater that has been tattooed into my mind's eye over the past 15 years of cricket-watching. And nor, believe it or not, was the reviled Western Terrace quite the den of iniquity that it has always been portrayed.

Sure, it was noisy, it was boisterous - and at times, such as the moment it littered the outfield with shreds of newspaper - it veered beyond the moronic. But let's retain a sense of proportion. At no stage did it mislay its sense of humour, and in that respect alone, there was more to celebrate in the antics of the Headingley crowd than there was to condemn.

Seasoned observers have warned, and they will do so again, that the Western Terrace has an uncanny ability to be all sweetness and light one day, and unspeakably foul the next - and I'll admit, that if any opposition was designed to steal the halfwits' thunder, then it would have to be the low-profile Kiwis and their Beige Brigade supporters, who prompt neither racist invective, nor the intense rivalry of an Ashes series. But that did not prevent the press from going to town all the same, over a series of frivolous and essentially good-natured incidents. "That seedy enclosure," bellowed one. "A disgrace," echoed several others. Talk about giving a dog a bad name.

Admittedly, there is an incredibly fine line between high spirits and yobbishness, and Headingley sails closer to the wind than any other English Test venue, particularly during its now-traditional fancy-dress parade on the Saturday. But humour is an under-rated sedative - it cannot be easy to be cause genuine offence when you're wearing a large yellow emu around your waist, as was the case with many of the more raucous fans that day. Perhaps a shipment ought to be dispatched forthwith to Portugal, ahead of England's make-or-break showdown against Switzerland tonight.

It is perfectly understandable that cricket should be wary of the football culture that is infiltrating its fanbase. Once upon a time, before football took over the world, there was enough time in the year for the likes of Denis Compton and Willie Watson to excel at both sports. These days, however, you are more likely to find it is the supporters who are doubling up.

It is a state of affairs that horrifies the purists, who like to believe that cricket can somehow remain detached from football's terrace mentality. Sadly, that attitude is as dated as the thermos-and-tartan-rug image of the traditional fan. Personally, I prefer to pass the time between deliveries by doing the crossword, but each to their own. For a huge number of fans, chanting and Mexican waves have become as much a part of the modern game as the reverse-sweep.

There is a common misconception that, just because the modern fan is unconventional, he (or she) must also be ignorant. This may indeed be the case at first - for cricket is not the sort of game you "get" at your first attempt - but it is emphatically not the case across the board. The Sunday evening at Headingley provided an interesting case study. On an extended day's play, many of the fans had already left as the shadows lengthened. One raucous section remained to the end, however, and as the game began to drift, they livened things up by imploring the players to "give them a dance".

Marcus Trescothick responded with a touch of Saturday Night Fever; Geraint Jones gave them a moonwalk, even the umpire, Simon Taufel, got in on the act with a waltz. By the close, England had found their second wind, and all but wrapped up the match by taking four wickets in 19 balls. It would be overstating the case to suggest that the crowd had any direct part in the evening's events, but afterwards Jones, Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff all went out of their way to applaud the support they had been given.

In a team that consists almost entirely of twentysomething cricketers, the backing of a largely twentysomething crowd is bound to be appreciated by the players. It is unavoidable that there will be the occasional clash of ideologies, and at times the fans deserve to be pilloried for their actions - on a witless occasion in the West Indies, the Barmy Army started singing "Britain never, never shall be slaves", which was rightly castigated in the media.

But it is the absence of malice that must be taken into account. They don't help themselves at times, but in general, England's cricket fans are not a bad lot. The country could do a lot, lot worse - and judging by the bomb that is currently ticking away in Portugal, they already do.