A Derby for Alex the Droog

It was cold on the morning of 6th February. Word had just got out that there was to be a major fracas near Stanley Park. As the morning ended, forty thousand spectators crammed themselves into a stadium waiting for their fighters to emerge.
They did. And for ninety minutes - plus a fifteen minute medical break - two teams of men - one team in red, the other in blue - kicked, punched and made rude faces at each other. Some were distracted by the appearance of a plastic spherical object and when they were unable to assail their opponents with sundry acts of violence, vented their frustration on the spherical object, kicking and headbutting it to and fro. This was a distraction, but only intermittently, as the main thrust of the encounter was a series of kicks, pushes, and elbows followed by rolling on the ground and pointing at anyone who was wearing a different shirt.
Oddly enough the spherical object - called a ball - was in fact part of the exposition, and much rapture ensued after a man in red pushed the ball into a net with his head. However, things returned to normal quite quickly, with mayhem and ultraviolence aplenty.