The Sock of Poskett
The best is yet to come (spoiler alert)
- Jun 12, 2009
- 2,802
The man talks a lot of sense ... even if the dynamics of a rugby crowd are a little different to a football crowd. Thoughts?
Loud but far from proud at Twickenham
The trouble with attending live sports matches is that the people responsible for staging them have lost faith in sport. They no longer believe that sport works as a spectator experience. So they fill it up with excitement as phoney as a whore’s smile.
At Twickenham I’d prefer to abseil in two seconds before kick-off, as curious representatives of the military often do, for reasons that elude me (mad on the military, Twickenham). That way I’d avoid the literally deafening music over the PA that means you have to shout hoarse, curt sentences if you wish to communicate with your neighbour, and I’d miss the operatic soprano wheeled out freezing to death in a tarty frock to sing the National Anthem with all three Vs on full show — vim, vibrato and volume.
And then comes the exhortation to shout for “YOUR ENGLAND”, and there’s a lot of explosions. Calm down, dear, it’s just a bloody rugby match. I’ll get excited by good sport, not by hysterical PA announcers and things that go bang. All this bunkum destroys rather than builds the sense of participation. What they want is “atmosphere” and they believe it is a synonym for “noise”. Which they believe they need for television.
This, of course, goes along with the kowtowing to the sponsor. They painted the pitch, as usual, with the sponsor’s logo because pleasing the sponsor is much more important than the dignity of the spectacle or the players — such as Marland Yarde — who ended up covered in paint and looking like the victims of ritual humiliation. Which they were. Sport is about sport. That’s why we’re all there.
So (1) try not to sell us something we’ve already bought, (2) try to remember we’re not stupid, (3) realise that we’re not all 8 years old and (4) remember players are more important than sponsors.
Loud but far from proud at Twickenham
The trouble with attending live sports matches is that the people responsible for staging them have lost faith in sport. They no longer believe that sport works as a spectator experience. So they fill it up with excitement as phoney as a whore’s smile.
At Twickenham I’d prefer to abseil in two seconds before kick-off, as curious representatives of the military often do, for reasons that elude me (mad on the military, Twickenham). That way I’d avoid the literally deafening music over the PA that means you have to shout hoarse, curt sentences if you wish to communicate with your neighbour, and I’d miss the operatic soprano wheeled out freezing to death in a tarty frock to sing the National Anthem with all three Vs on full show — vim, vibrato and volume.
And then comes the exhortation to shout for “YOUR ENGLAND”, and there’s a lot of explosions. Calm down, dear, it’s just a bloody rugby match. I’ll get excited by good sport, not by hysterical PA announcers and things that go bang. All this bunkum destroys rather than builds the sense of participation. What they want is “atmosphere” and they believe it is a synonym for “noise”. Which they believe they need for television.
This, of course, goes along with the kowtowing to the sponsor. They painted the pitch, as usual, with the sponsor’s logo because pleasing the sponsor is much more important than the dignity of the spectacle or the players — such as Marland Yarde — who ended up covered in paint and looking like the victims of ritual humiliation. Which they were. Sport is about sport. That’s why we’re all there.
So (1) try not to sell us something we’ve already bought, (2) try to remember we’re not stupid, (3) realise that we’re not all 8 years old and (4) remember players are more important than sponsors.
