Soccer Madness
It has long been said that people are smart, but crowds are stupid. That definitely applies to football (as in soccer) fans.
Today, after the Japanese scored a goal against the Russians in the World Cup finals, riots involving as many as 8,000 people broke out in central Moscow near the Kremlin. One man died of stab wounds, 27 others were wounded, including a policeman, a group of Japanese music students, photographers and cameramen. It was the usual car-overturning, windshield-smashing, beer-bottle-throwing mayhem one now unfortunately expects from football fans.
Their furor didn’t end with the Japanese. At the riots height, all things foreign to Mother Russian were a target: foreign-made cars, a Tiffany jewelry store, a Sbarro pizzeria. The aggressive, shaved-head fanatics rampaged until about an hour after the match, which Russian ending up losing 1-0, before they eventually dispersed.
I remember that when I was a child we lived in the Hotel München in Germany for several months before we found suitable accommodations. In the tower across from us, a crazed fan threw his television set through his hotelroom window after a key goal was scored by an opposing team.
And, if memory serves, a Darwin Award, one given posthumously to humans who support Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by preventing their genes being passed on by committing a senseless act that eventually results in their own demise, was given to another man who, after a pivotal lost point in a match, threw his television set out the window, too. His claim to fame came when he became tangled up in the attached wires, was subsequently dragged out his open window, and plummeted to his death. D’oh!
We’ve almost regressed to 14th century England’s version of the “sport”, when King Edward banned the game as a result of its violence and mob-like tendencies, “for as much as there is a great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls from which many evils may arise which we forbid on pain of imprisonment such game to be used in the city future.” Even the earliest-known origins of the game in the 2nd and 3rd centuries stem from perversity; enemy’s skulls were used as balls, most likely as a sign of disrespect and superiority.
In Mexico and Central America, long before Columbus’ New World “discovery” and long before today’s modern game, players competed in a 40-foot-long recessed arena, kicking a hard rubber ball through a stone or wooden ring mounted several feet high on a vertical wall. The players on the losing team were often executed.
Maybe today’s psychotic fans should meet similar fates.
What is the obsession all about? It’s just a stupid game, a trivial contest, a meaningless moment in sports history. Wouldn’t it have been just as ridiculous if riots had ensued due to some poor kid botching his chance at the championship by misspelling his word during last month’s 75th Annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee finals?
A week from now, the only people who will care about the game’s outcome will be those still suffering in the hospital, paying for their new cars, rebuilding their stores, or mourning the loss of their loved ones.
There is an important point that you missed in the story of the guy who threw the TV out the window.
The soccer game that he was watching was recorded on a video tape. I believe the game was 2 years old.
Actually, I’ve hear that the blood sports attributed to the early Central American cultures have been overstated. What actually happened at sporting events, what the rules were, what equipment was used (skulls or balls), what penalties (in any) were paid by the losing team. All are open to changing interpretations.
I’ll have to see if I can dredge up from my memory what the source of this was. But the main point was that, like opinions of dinosaurs (They’re dumb, slow and cold blooded. No, they’re smart, fast and communal. Or maybe they’re…) a lot of inferences have to be drawn from very few clear resources and many interpretations are possible.
(And if you’re gonna revise these things, how ever are we to keep up?)