With the beginning of the season almost upon us with Sunday’s curtain raiser Community Shield match at Wembley, I’ve noticed some premiership clubs in London ( Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham) have already banned the vuvuzela, the plastic trumpet which made the buzzy noise in the background of many of the games during the successful World Cup in South Africa. This is very unfortunate.
Now, l confess that l didn’t particularly take to them at the beginning of the World Cup when I was watching the first matches of the tournament on TV from London, but while l was out there, from the quarter finals onwards, for the last two weeks, l took to them when I was at the Stadiums. I found they were not so hard on the ear, even when people were blowing their vuvuzela next to me! Indeed, l welcome this africanisation of football, not just the vuvuzela but also the makoya ( Football Fan Helmet ) because they are part of the legacy of the first world cup on African soil. Their inclusion is a continuation of the trend from previous World Cups that brought us the Mexican wave from the 1986 tournament.
Furthermore, it’s not going to help our World Cup bid for 2018 and 2022 this autumn if we are seen to be party poopers, particularly by the African FIFA members. So it’s good to see that the FA have not banned the vuvuzela from this season’s curtain raiser at Wembley between Chelsea and Man United this coming Sunday. This is in keeping with the best traditions of the FA, as l am sure they never banned the rattle during the 1950s!
I think you should stop talking about football as you’re clearly completely unaware of the feeling of average fans. You want to allow the Vuvuzela to promote the “Africanisation” of football? Great, lets go against the wishes of almost every English fan, to meet politically based ideals. England has built its own footballing culture, where atmosphere is built through singing and chanting, not through drums and megaphones like in other European nations, and certainly not through inane, annoying plastic horns that drown out any attempts to build some grass roots atmosphere at games.
On another note, don’t take the “anti-semitic” chants at Chelsea so seriously, I can guarantee you it’s not an expression of hatred of Jews, football fans sing far more inappropriate things directed at teams and individuals (Wenger paedophile for example) without meaning it seriously. The same goes with this, but clearly anything even mentioning a creed/religion/race is treated as a hate crime, when it’s simply not. This is the nature of football “banter”. The only people getting offended are people like yourself, who clearly have no understanding of the game and are over sensitive and PC.
Thank you.