Another Reason to Hate Soccer: The Vuvuzela

As a Georgia fan, I hate anything remotely related to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. This includes the annoying buzz sound that the Nerds like to make. Does it sound really stupid? YES. But does that make it any less annoying? NO.

So, it was an unfortunate surprise to find out that Georgia Tech fans had infiltrated the World Cup and taught everyone their mating call. Or so I thought. Come to find out, the annoying noise you hear during World Cup games comes from this:

This is a vuvuzela, or more commonly known as a stadium horn. These instruments have been played traditionally at soccer games in South Africa and have been introduced to the world this summer. Like it or hate it, these things will be coming to American sports arenas over the coming months. The Florida Marlins ran a promotion last week giving away modified versions of these things. The noise was so loud (despite a typical small Marlins crowd) that Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez and the umpire had a miscommunication on a double switch. The Marlins ended up losing the game and Gonzalez has now lost his job.

SEC football stadiums are loud. Our fans are passionate about the teams we support and, when combined with a days worth of tailgaiting and drinking, can often make enough noise to register as an earthquake (see LSU at night). Do we need another way to make the crowds louder? No. But apparently, the SEC does not plan to stop fans from bringing these instruments into games. From the SEC's statement:

The vuvuzela, along with any artificial noisemaker, will fall under the revamped guidelines of the Mississippi State cowbell, according to SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom. Fans are only allowed to use the cowbells (or vuvuzelas) during pregame, between quarters, halftime, timeouts, after scores and during possession changes.

Yeah, we'll see how that flies at LSU. You want to be the person who tries to wrestle a vuvuzela away from a Cajun who has polished off a fifth of Jim beam for playing his noise maker during an Alabama possession? BE MY GUEST.

Once again, soccer is trying to upset the peaceful order of things in sports in this country. Football fans are rowdy because they are passionate and drunk, not because of damn noise makers. Soccer, take your "beautiful game" and annoying noise makers away, and leave football alone!

Georgia Football is 107 days and a whole bunch of boring soccer matches away...

Next Thursday, we will begin the 100 day countdown to the start of the 2010 football season for the Georgia Bulldogs. Be sure to come back each day and see who the next player is in our countdown of the 100 Greatest Players in Georgia History. Football season is just 107 days away, but for a good portion of those days, the media will telling us we need to like the other football. Yes, I am talking about soccer, and in case you have slept through every ESPN commercial break since December, you know the World Cup starts next month. Some people love soccer and that's fine. But personally, I could care less. Lewis Grizzard shared my sentiments in an article entitle, "Soccer is Boring".

Soccer Is Boring

By Lewis Grizzard

I don't want to sound flippant about all those people getting killed in European soccer riots, but I honestly think I know part of the reason for the violence that surrounds the sport in other parts of the world.

It's because soccer is boring to watch. If I had to watch a soccer match or a bowling match, I would take bowling every time.

At least in bowling, you always can laugh at those silly bowling shirts and shoes the bowlers wear. The only thing uglier than a bowling shoe is Gloria Vanderbilt.

Nothing ever happens in one soccer game to set it apart from another. The two teams run up and down the field for a couple of hours and then maybe - just maybe - one of the teams will score a goal.

I can give you the soccer scores for an entire season right here. They will be 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1 most of the time, and occasionally there will be a real slugfest that ends 2-1.

What happens in Europe is, all those people get together for a soccer match and they start drinking and they become bored with what's happening on the field, so they riot.
Bet, don't riot

Imagine a riot breaking out in the middle of a close American football game. There is too much head-knocking on the field for such a thing to take place, and since most of the people in the stands have a bet down on the game, they aren't going to get involved in a fight because they might have a week's salary wagered on the outcome.

I've never seen a soccer match in person. I avoid soccer matches with the same intensity that I avoid the dentist.

However, I did see a match on television once. I was in London and I turned on the set in my hotel room and the BBC was televising the English soccer version of the Super Bowl.

You don't have a lot of choices when it comes to watching the telly in London, so, fool that I was, I sat there and watched the soccer match.
The crowd sang.

The two teams kicked the ball up and down the field for an entire afternoon, but nobody could get the ball past the goalkeepers and the match ended 0-0.

No problem. They decided to try again in a couple of days. I found myself in front of the television in my hotel room watching the second stanza of this yawner. I had to see if anybody would ever score.

Late in the second match, somebody kicked the ball and it hit a player in the back of his head and accidentally went into the goal. Team A took the championship 1-0. I've seen more excitement at a K mart tire sale.

What the crowds at the two matches did most is sing. There was nothing to watch on the field, so they sang - which, of course, is better than rioting, but some of the best fights I've ever seen started with a bunch of drunks trying to sing at a bar.

What comes off the top of my head as a means of making soccer more exciting is to give the players baseball bats and if the match happens to end in a tie, then let the respective goalies fight it out in a bare knuckles tie-breaker.

As we have proved with many of our popular American sports, it is better to have the violence on the field than in the bleachers.

- This and other Lewis Grizzard articles can be found at www.lewisgrizzard.com