Why is it exactly, that all the lunkheaded, tribal, macho, dunderhead sports fans choose to express their masculinity through such a wussy sport like football?
I don’t get the disconnect – loutish obnoxious behaviour, fans that have to be separated at venues and pubs lest they spill over into violence, actual violence outside these places, general mob mentality, and all over a non-contact sport whose prime exponents are all basically glamour models who’d rather not mess up their hair or their shiny tanned heads. Do these people not feel silly? They may as well support respective tribes of rhythmic gymnasts. I have no issue with football as a game – it’s as good as any other arbitrary competition to knock a ball around; it’s more the strange role that it plays in society.
What am I missing here?
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Maturity.
Yep, definitely me lacking maturity, not the people fighting outside the football stadium
No: it's not that hard to figure out. Sheeldz covers it pretty easily.
It's sheer weight of numbers. You put that many people in one go at any one time in a stadium/city etc, some of them are going to be cunts.
And yet, as much as I deplore the violence, it gets me about as half as angry as snotty superiority masked as some kind of Sherlock Holmes revelation.
I'm not so sure of this
In my experience, if you have a large number of people together regardless of how drunk/whatever they are, if they're happy they usually behave themselves.
For example, festivals are pretty much free of significant incidents, whereas protests often aren't. So the event itself and the effect the event has on the emotions on the people there seems to be a factor.
Is the problem that the football match is such a emotionally charged situation as one side has to lose and therefore a large portion of their fans are then unhappy, and a portion of those express that unhappiness through anger?
Even as someone lives very near a premiership team stadium and who really isn't arsed about club football and also finds it weird how it's SO popular, I've pretty much only ever seen people having a good time before and after matches.
There are reason why football pisses me off sometimes. The behaviour of the fans isn't top of the list.
festivals are pretty much free of significant incidents
show your working
^ this
that's bollocks I'm afraid. Crime stats have been significantly down of late, yes, but that's because a huge amount of work has been put in by covert ops teams and dedicated police presence - specifically officers have been trained to better understand the way that everything kicks off.
Tell me it doesn't happen at festivals after you've been bathed in the orange glow of tents aflame in Leeds, buddy.
and furthermore, the people causing problems
are often already known to police, and go there with the specific intent of getting into a ruck, which is an excellent parallel to draw with football: lots of good people, proportionally small number of cunts.
Leeds
I will admit that I went to Leeds last year, and if every festival was like that I would totally agree, but aside from pre-2002 Glastonbury I've never seen other festivals like that.
Leeds is well known for it
Saturday night riots are a part of the experience. They're even looked forward to in some quarters.
Leaving leeds festival on a sunday night...
never been so terrified in my life. People throwing gas cannisters into open fires and setting tents on fire, ffs.
Nah, that was awesome
I was there the year that everything got burnt down and the security just gave up and vanished. Great atmosphere, didnt feel intimidated once
Last year
we saw some kids who had a fire about a foot from a tent.
"You're brave, having the fire that near to your tent"
"It's not OUR tent"
It's not even a matter of me being old- even at my reckless and alcoholically overindulgent I've always known/cared how fire works.
OK
Here's what I'm basing it on:
- when bad things happen they always make the headlines as they're good copy (Latitude sexual assault, Leeds riots). These seem to be isolated incidents and are significant in their rarity. Even when the festivals publish their post-festival arrest stats they're always seem to have a very small amount of violence/theft related given how many 1000s were at the event.
- anecdotal, but I've been to a lot of festivals (you will have to take my word for this) and aside from pre-fence Glastonbury, I've never seen very little violence (in fact I've seen none, but I'm not suggesting that they don't occur but if they've managed to avoid my detection the figure can't be very high). Although Leeds did seem like a massive accident waiting to happen (drunk unco-ordinated teenagers + fire).
- Whenever you speak to a policeman at a festival, they seem quite open about it being incredibly easy work as everyone is just having a good time.
On the latter point - this was half of the problem
a lot of police used to say this...because they weren't doing their jobs properly. That's changed in recent years, mainly due to the fact that crime stats at a festival are now incorporated into the county's overall figures without any sort of special dispensation. So now, you can have the brightest annual record completely fuck-kicked if you let crime at a fest get out of control.
Of course I'm not saying it's as frequent as with football fans, obviously. But then again that's because there's a massively diminished level of rivalry involved.
So let me amend my first statement: put a load of people *who are supporting two opposing sides* in a stadium or city, and the cunts will end up clashing by default.
I'm not taking drug arrests into consideration
incidentally as my point wasn't about crime, so much as violence/intimidation. Not sure police ever ignored violent behaviour at festivals- that would be a bit remiss.
it was very remiss indeed.
it's not necessarily about ignoring either - surveillance used to be pretty poor, and you didn't even have checks on whether security staff themselves had a history of violence etc...
trust me on this.
Interesting
I have no reason to not trust you as my knowledge is based on my own observations and not from inside-knowledge of the police ops.
Still think there is VERY little violent crime at the vast majority of festivals.
i wasn't as aware until recently
wrote an article on festival security and ended up spending some time with the guys in the control rooms keeping an eye on everything. Absolutely astonishing to see how much of a handle they have on it too.
GET 'EM, BOYS!
Are you trying to be Russell Brand?
This thread has made me so angry.
Gonna punch you right in the face.
It's because it's frankly very simple at it's core
and as such has mass appeal. And, it also doesn't require attention beyond what happens at either end of the pitch. Many other sports are much more complicated to watch, master and play. All football needs is two jumpers and a ball.
this means that anyone can play - it's the true mass sport, which is why it is so prevalent across the world, and as such attracts all types, from our highest intellects all the way down to it's dullards and miscreants.
In truth, you could transfer this to any sport if it was successful enough. There are fights between fans in most American sports in the US, and it's not endemic to the sport, but the size of the fanbase and where the fan base pools from.
Yeah but the American sports, at least hockey and football
actually have aggression in them. (I'm not asking why football is popular).
ice hockey fans
great bunch o' lads.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13802221
Exactly
`cause hockey is a violent sport. Football though
im not sure of the point you are making.
It sorta makes sense for fans of aggressive sports
to behave aggressively and see their teams as extensions of their tribal strength. So a very soft sport like football shouldn't seem to attract fans who play out their tribal mentalities by engaging in aggression with rival fans, when their respective teams are engaged in such a timid contest.
Seriously though, it's such a girly sport
No problem with the father and son watching a game on the Saturday - just the oddballs who get all aggressive about it.
fuck you.
What about the daughter and her transgender guardian?
naturally ignore my sloppy hetero-normative language
thx
infinite lols
this is going to be a good thread
It's clearly loads better than most other move a ball about on some grass sports.
So the resulting popularity means there are more knobheads. So they're more visible. But there are more nice people, too.
I mean... look at some of the arseholes that follow rugby. Especially the ones who play at amateur level and perpetuate the initiation nonsense.
And I've got no beef with tennis, but I'd probably do myself a mischief if I had to sit amongst the henman hill set during a tennis match.
And all the man-centric high-powered bullshit apparently associated with golf... geez.
The only way to go from here is to turn this into a class thread... something something something Victorians, organised recreation, factories...
But what I'm saying is that it /kinda/ makes sense for rugby fans to be thuggish twats
because rugby is a thuggish sport where if you play you are repeatedly trying to wallop the other players as hard as possible. So supporters might see a rugby victory as a sign of some primal aggressive stamp of strength over another team.
Whereas football is dainty by comparison, so the thuggish element is mystifying.
I'd suggest that your characterisations the games relates only to recent times,
rather than the period which saw football develop a critical mass of popular appeal (whilst being a somewhat different proposition).
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the game has changed significantly, and the OP premise is just one big case of [citation needed].
Vancouver Canucks (iirc) ice hockey fans fucked shit up recently. But the Whitecaps footy team fans have, afaik, not.
It may only relate to recent times
but my question is about current fans (or rather, a small subset) rather than anything much about the sport itself.
I reckon what you're amplifying somewhat is an example of social entrenchment hangover.
A temporal disconnect.
</wankwankwank>
I don't follow your argument here
Yeah. You lot should try Greco-Roman Wrestling.
That's a real man's sport.
I won a Greco-Roman wrestling tournament at my junior school
ironically I was but a boy (but hard as fuck).
You might want to reconsider that 'hard as fuck' line.
for a second, I read White_Privilege
and thought 'wow, CG really dropped the ball, here.'.
but nevermind. this is some ignorant posting.
Danny Dyer to thread.
Oi Oooooi!!
You'd love this thread, big man
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4347581
Why do you keep drawing attention to your idiocy?
Good question
who'd win in a fight between CG and Antelope?
sub-thread! sub-thread!
Can I ask you a question?
Why is your username White Privilege and what is your stance on it?
*puts hand on shoulder*
no son. Walk away. You will win if you walk away. All other routes lead to embarrassment.
^This.
It's be easy to take it as a direct jibe at some of DarwinDude's posting, but thepostergormsllyknownas CG has previously indulged in similarly 'edgy' usernames.
Such a 'character'...
I see
I'll bear that in mind, didn't realise it was CG. Would explain a few things...
thepostergormsllyknownas?
*theposterformerlyknownas (/ thepostergormlesslyknownas?)
hasn't the incidence of rowdy 'macho' fandom gone down rapidly
Since football became more of a non-contact, prima-donna sport?
Real men, the men who used to watch football and riot and stuff, now watch UFC and MMA.
And curling
seriously I have fucked some people up at curling matches
:'D
No, since
Rave.
If it has gone down, that would make sense
leaving the nonsensical minority
Football hooliganism as a culture was nearly killed off entirely by rave culture and E
Unfortunately so was the brewing industry hence The Sun went from free acid house smiley tshirt offers to OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN scare stories and the whole thing was made illegal and now we have the leftover weak dregs of both cultures. :(
It's because all soccer fans are repressed homosexuals.
That's true.
Anyone who tells you that the abolition of the terraces was due to safety reasons, and not to put a stop to the tradition of unfettered covert bumming, is a downright liar.
I like a big man at the back, I do.
Sounds like it could get MESSI!
Darren Bent, Marcus Bent
we're all 'bent'.
this would have made a more interesting thread
exploring the connection between macho violence and repressed homosexuality.
Stars have a song about this
I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU1eG0zzr0w
But what about fans of non-USian association football?
NOT TRUE. Murray Mexted to thread:
"There's a couple of Hores on display tonight" (the brothers Charlie Hore (Highlanders) and Andrew Hore
(Hurricanes) playing on opposing teams)
"As you know, I've been pumping Marty Leslie for a couple of years now."
"You don't like to see hookers going down on players like that."
"I haven't had a knee operation on any other part of my body."
"He's looking for some meaningful penetration into the backline."
"Spencer's running across field calling out, 'come inside me, come inside me.'"
"I can tell you it's a magnificent sensation when the gap opens up like that and you just burst right through."
"I don't like this new law, because your first instinct when you see a man on the ground is to go down on him"
"Darryl Gibson has been quite magnificent coming inside Andrew Mehrtens, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the same today."
"There's nothing that a tight forward likes more than a loosie right up his backside"
"The turf here (Newlands) never took properly and it isn't very well rooted...in fact you could say it is rooted.....did I just say that?". (N.B. rooted means something similar to screwed, a root in New Zealand/Australian slang means sex)
"Paul Tito looked like a blind man in a brothel, just left groping."
"The lineouts of course are a great artform, I've always fantisized about lineouts, even in my sleep sometimes..."
"Well it was a great kick. We know Matthew Cooper's got tremendous rhythm now, he's smooth, smooth as a baby's bum... By Joves, that didn't slip out did it?"
"It's very easy to be exposed as an open side (flanker) if you don't have your mate up your backside"
"Well it still does it for me, the tingle up the spine, the tingle in the loins"
Do you have a little book that you write all these down in?
I'm impressed.
yes, the Muzza Mexted book of double entendre
Solid posting.
Look mate, I'm not having a go at you or anything
but if seeing and hearing stuff like this doesn't get the hairs on the back of your neck standing, fill the blood with testosterone and make you want to punch the person next to you in sheer euphoria then there is no hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_YiG7yN7PY
I see a LOLMole in your future.....
is this the football thread?
so Torres maybe wants to leave Chelsea. how about that.
Footballers are pretty much the worse people in society
so equally terrible people will be drawn to follow them i.e. DanielKelly flying to Germany to watch John Terry and then presumably pay his respects at the Fuhrer bunker and do other things terrible people do.
At this juncture, I'd like to remind the forum that James Corden supports West Ham
I rest my case
Do me a favour, Lucien.
Royter is trying really hard to get me to chase him in the football thread but I'm not interested and off out now. I'd feel pretty bad if no-one plays along with him. Can you sort something out? I know I'm leaving him in capable hands.
Do I have to do it in character as a Chelsea fan?
So the character I'm playing has to admire Ashley Cole and tacitly support racism...so much inner conflict.
This will be my greatest ever role.
He looks like he's had a fair bit of Ham.
pretty sure he drove to Germany in his Tiger I
Nice use of "lunkheaded" AND "dunderhead" there.
do you feel good being you?
`salright.
Et vous?
yeah good cheers
See also
PEOPLE WHO call some foreign/art house film "boring" but will happily sit staring from a great distance at some guys in shorts running around a green rectangle for 2 hours.
A load of men kicking a bit of leather around a field! You men, the things you think are "great fun". Like going to the films, a load of men sitting around looking at films! And rollercoasters, a load of men in a rollercoaster going up and down on a big metal track! And sailing, a load of men in a big boat floating around in the sea! And shouting, a load of men going around shouting! And so forth
Don't think the interesting part of films is the people sat there watching them though
wat
that's really dumb
how dumb of you
You must have missed this one
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4347845#r6770044
wow truthbomb!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no you've actually just embarrassed yourself, shut up
haha lols jokes you got me right in the gonads
which is fitting!!!!!1111
i don't think you fundamentally understand why people watch any sport