Yet hundreds of fans at today's Old Trafford international will have spent hours conjuring up ways of smuggling alcohol into the ground.
The most favoured method, according to those experienced in such dark deeds, is to wrap the beer cans in newspaper, push them to the bottom of a large cool bag, and add layers of tin foil and fragile grub, such as crisps and biccies. Even better - quiches and pastries.
Next step is to arrive at the turnstiles at peak time, when the high-level security inevitably slips a degree or two.
Then there is the old trick of mixing spirits and pop, as long as you put the brew into the right bottle, not like the prat who blended vodka and orange and tried to pretend it was Coca-Cola.
Some just try to blag it. One well-heeled gentleman, immaculately attired, wearing a Panama hat, had a suspicious bottle of `orange squash', snaffled by an alert gateman at Old Trafford last year, and complained, bitterly along the lines of: "How dare you . . . I'm a chartered accountant!"
Accountant, lawyer, whoever. If there's too much drink around, it can result in mayhem. Even the then chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality fell foul of the normal rules of cricketing etiquette after enjoying too much liquid hospitality at Lord's a couple of years back.
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He threatened a bobby, telling him he could have him sacked by `my friend Blair' . . . Ian (of the Metropolitan Force) rather than Tony (of the I Am The Force), although, apparently, it was the attempted head-butt rather than the toe-crunching name-dropping which landed him in court.
But, usually at the big matches, the people most at risk are not the police but the perfectly sober and respectable fans who have their view blocked and their ears assailed by the foul-mouthed idiots in front.
Ask them to sit down, or shut up, or both, and you will get another, even more filthy volley, and possibly worse.
Of course it is a tiny minority responsible. Tanked up from their illicit cool bag 'stills', bawling abuse, intimidating, threatening.
Enjoying their sort of day at the cricket. But, in a crowd of 20,000 plus, what more can you expect? Well, a lot more actually. I don't see why anyone should get away with it.
All grounds staging ODIs, Tests, and big cup games, are affected. Over the years, Lancashire have worked hard at it, banning the importation of alcohol, limiting the amount which can be bought in the ground, and producing a strict set of rules for behaviour.
Overall it has been a successful strategy, but things have deteriorated - comparatively speaking - in the last couple of seasons and now a special 'hit squad' of stewards, who will crack down hard on alcohol-fuelled antics, have been introduced.
All credit to Lancashire, but they still need the support of the decent fans in pointing out the troublemakers and that takes a lot of courage.
"There were four or five of them, and the language was terrible all day, then they sprayed beer over my brother and I," one spectator told me last summer. "But we couldn't say anything. They said they would do us if we did."
But it is up to the good guys in the crowd to set the ball rolling.
Maybe he is impossible to eradicate, but if complaints are backed up by strong, immediate action from the stewards and police, the cricketing yob can be cut down to size.
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