Chairs bring out the beast in academics.
Anyone in a university knows different. All the competitive urges that drive researchers to be first in their fields and get their names on those all-important journal publications come into play when a professorship is within their grasp. Basically, there aren't enough to go round. For the thousands of scholars who would like to be addressed as professor, there are a strictly limited number of chairs. Nobody knows quite how many - it's not a figure the funding council or the Higher Education Statistics Agency collect.