fever pitch

To be extremely, extremely excited or agitated.

With his fiery oration, Goldberg worked up the angry mob up to a fever pitch.

Fever Pitch (1996) is also the name of a book by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy). It chronicles Hornby's obsession with the English soccer team Arsenal and his recovery from that addiction. It makes an interesting tandem with Bill Buford's book, Among the Thugs (1993, about football hooliganism.) I believe that it was made into a movie.

A film by David Evans II, 1997
Screenplay by Nick Hornby

Luke Aikman..........Young Paul
Bea Guard............Paul's Sister
Neil Pearson (I).....Paul's Dad
Ruth Gemmell.........Sarah Hughes
Colin Firth..........Paul Ashworth
Richard Claxton......Robert
Ken Stott............Ted, the Headmaster
Holly Aird...........Jo
Mark Strong (II).....Steve
Lorraine Ashbourne...Paul's Mum

Nick Hornby adapted his Memoir about a lifetime obsession with Football (English) and belonging into a film staring Colin Firth (Shakespeare In Love, Bridget Jones' Diary).

The film is set up for us through a series of flashbacks intermixed with present action. Paul's family was broken by divorce when he was young, and his father, on one of the rare visitation weekends, introduced him to the world of English football. In football, Paul finds the family which lies broken and dying at home, and it becomes a lifelong passion for him.

However, in the here and now, Paul is a teacher and a football coach at school, and has met a girl, and must decide between the family of the past...or the future which must exist apart from the perceived belonging of the sport...