Football fans were placed in brain scanners to study schadenfreude.

Fans' reward centres lit up when rival fans got electric shocks.

Schadenfreude can tip into aggression if we are not careful.

The pleasure I feel from the potential demise of Manchester City feels chemical, not dissimilar to a party drug. It is a feeling that is very familiar; I also felt it deeply when I saw Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes getting sent off against my team, Wolves, on Sky Sports on Boxing Day in 2024. His clear distress—I’m sure he was actually crying—was a little festive pleasure for all the family.

On another occasion, I opted to watch a flailing Liverpool on a Sunday afternoon last season instead of a pre-arranged movie (Frankenstein) with my wife. I suspected, correctly, that Liverpool would get beaten as they were on a terrible run. I could picture my plastic Scouser of a brother sitting deflated and solemn in his Brighton flat surrounded by his fellow plastic Scousers, a cabal of Southerners who have probably been to Anfield fewer times than they have big toenails.

This is a brother I love and would do anything for in normal circumstances. Normally, his pain would open my heart, not send me sprinting up and down the kitchen muttering ‘ha ha ha’ and ‘good’, with an evil grin I would find clinically concerning on anyone else.

My wife got to spend the........

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