Saturday 21 January 2012

The Strange Game of Football

I went to Ibrox in Glasgow today to watch Rangers vs Aberdeen. Good fun. But a few crazy observations:

Crazy 1. Found the crowds quite negative, even toward their own players. Not the kind of fans I would want to have in my cheering squad, "terrible, rubbish, go home" … and a lot worse from the 75 year old grandma in the section beside me.

Crazy 2. As for violence, sectarianism, and racism, in the packed stands of 50,000, the organisers can only allow 1,000 away fans. They are kept segregated on the trains as they approach the venue, and then ushered direct to their wee corner (on the far left above). To protect both the home and away crowds (from each other), the away crowd are penned in with security guards throughout the whole game.  Check out the below zoom in of the away crowd.  Glen remembers it all - he was at Protestant school (rangers in blue) and across the playing fields was a Catholic school (celtic in green) - scrapping all the days away.  Madness.

Crazy 3. It is a lovely game, football, but in a nation of 5m people, how can the country get behind their team (by shouting abuse) and fill stadiums 50,000+ every weekend of the season, even when the teams are made of almost no Scots and play in a rubbish league (even by UK standards, let alone Europe).  The papers are full of football stories, and yet our very own Scots are doing wonders in the pool and the media, the people, don't care.

Crazy!

4 comments:

Nonno said...

You would be better going to Murrayfield to watch a proper game of football.

Megasmith said...

Good on the dons for getting a point though eh?

jacob said...

go to old Trafford no fight's (at least until they lose) :))

jacob said...

go to old Trafford no fight's (at least until they lose) :))