Friday, June 18, 2010

Up Your Vuvuzela!


I just don't get it! World Cup Soccer that is. I am not the most sports minded person in the world but I know excitement when I see it and feel it and sorry folks but I just don't see it or feel it. Hockey has action and fighting and constant stimulation. Admittedly baseball can be slow but the game is built around planning and strategy. Football has lots of flash and instant replays giving the impression of constant action - and they have cheerleaders. Basketball has scores in the triple digits and even golf has the ability to build a sense of tension and drama. But soccer? Like I said - I just don't get it. The net is thirty freakin' feet wide by 10 feet high - why can't they score once in a while? They keep adding minutes to the clock and then half the time they don't even finish the game - hard to tell who the winners and losers are with all those tie scores.
There are more ties in soccer than at a father's day sale at Walmart! And is that a scoreboard they are using (1-0 0-1 1-1 0-0 1-0) or an exercise in binary math?

They say that soccer is immensely popular all over the world because it is so accessible and affordable for anyone to play - that may be true but you could say the same for kick the can and rattling a stick along a picket fence!

Crowd reaction is important to any sporting event too - cheering, clapping, booing and chanting; usually in response to some significant event or point scored. This may be happening at the World Cup but who can tell with all the horn blowing. Do these people wake up in the morning and start blowing on those vuvuzela horns? Stop it!

I know soccer fans are a breed apart and will wait patiently for years for their favorite team to score a goal - sort of like Toronto Maple Leaf fans. But I would like to suggest that this is a sport best viewed live. Preferably armed with a good set of ear plugs and your own vuvuzela - and may the best fan win!

2 comments:

Judy said...

Excellent commentary!! It seems the fans blow these constantly ( or round robin or something!!) as the hum is there the WHOLE time, so it's not like a response to some excitement on the field???? ear plugs or no ear plugs, I don't think I could take it!!!

John said...

They're such a foul "instrument", and I can't wait until they fade into the background as the World Cup wraps up.
I'm certain it's all over the mainstream media as well, but a number of digital audio blogs/sites I visit have had some interesting articles on how the various broadcasters have scrambled to find solutions to digitally filter the Vuvuzelas out of their footage. Definitely a first.

Oh - and happy early Father's Day!!! See ya tomorrow! :)