The violence in Marseille around the England-Russia game at Euro 2016 was probably the worst in international football this century. But it was also exaggerated by a hooligan industry consisting of media, police and hardcore fans. Football hooliganism is a smaller problem than it looks on television.

Yes, there was disgusting fighting between Russians, English, locals and over-aggressive police — with Russians the worst culprits, according to many reports. If Fifa were a decent organisation, it would be considering stripping Russia of the right to host the next World Cup. People in Marseille threw punches and beer bottles and smashed café chairs over each other’s heads. But the death toll of three days of violence currently appears to be zero. In fact, the only Briton killed in France during Euro 2016 was a young Northern Irishman who fell off a wall in Nice.

Yes, 35 people were injured in Marseille, almost all of them English, according to French authorities. One English fan was left in mortal danger.

However, this sort of violence is a common feature of Saturday nights in Russian and British towns and Spanish beach resorts. It’s just that nightlife fights don’t become international news.

I spent nearly 24 hours in Marseille, around fans in the city centre and at the match. I saw no acts of violence. Neither the hardcore Russian nor English supporters are people I would choose to spend a weekend with. But most England fans in particular appear to have been drunk and obnoxious rather than violent.

Much of the supposed violence was symbolic. Throwing beer bottles and raising middle fingers at police with riot shields doesn’t do much damage. Nor did even the much-touted Russian “attack” on English fans in the stands at the end of the match. Rather, those Russians appear to have indulged in the 1980s’ English custom of “running”: charging at the other team’s fans, gloating as they flee and then stealing their banners as trophies of war. Nick Hornby in his 1992 memoir Fever Pitch called running “the practice that half the juvenile fans in the country had indulged in, and which was intended to do nothing more than frighten the opposition and amuse the runners”.

Given the situation, we should be grateful that nothing worse happened in Marseille. The match brought together two immediately identifiable groups of mostly macho young men from two different countries, drinking for days in the heart of possibly the most violent French big city. It’s almost surprising how little violence there was.

Yet television viewers could be mistaken for thinking they were watching the third world war. That is partly because hooliganism makes great television. The hordes of TV cameras in Marseille’s Vieux Port closed in on every single punch and flying beer bottle. As the media maxim goes: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

The media exaggerate hooliganism. So sometimes do the police, who want the publicity and the increased budgets. And so do many fans themselves, who crave reputations as tough nuts. Few of them actually want to fight and risk real injury though that will not stop boasting otherwise. No doubt for decades to come, ageing Russians and Englishmen will be telling tales about the weekend it “went off in Marseille”.

The French have recently suffered some rather bigger traumas. If the Marseille violence is the worst thing that happens at Euro 2016, they will be delighted.