The World of Football Fandom

Call them devotees at the bare end of a live electric wire.  Football fans are the most rabid on the planet they may as well be earthling extremists who brook no opposition for their team, or else.

Football fandom gave hooliganism to the English lexicon.  While England doesn’t have sole dominion over this species, it was always at the head of this crocodile gone amok.  Before they were reined in, hooligans left destruction and death in their wake, from wrecked stadiums to street fights.  For football is also about the face of tragedy and comedy brought to extremes where games on the pitch are matched by emotionally charged fans.

In 2002, one died in Moscow’s streets when fans rioted, destroying Japanese cars the night the Russian team lost to Japan.

Colombia’s star defender Andres Escobar in 1994 unwittingly deflected a ball from his own goal in a game against the US, and had their team eliminated.  He went back home to his country, and was shot 12 times in the chest.

The late Uday, Saddam’s son, was said to have lined up a defeated Iraqi football team and whipped the players’ insteps.  And there was North Korea that marked the Korean War of more than 50 years ago by broadcasting the loss of the US to Germany in a quarterfinal game.

Topping all these is the extreme care host countries invest in security that can match the world-renowned security our country lays out for Papal visits.  The last World Cups had thousands, mostly English, prevented from traveling to World Cup sites.  This year’s host Germany fielded a most efficient security system of digital, human and canine mix, with some help from neighboring countries.

But football fandom has its share of great moments too.  Amid the temper and theatrics of players on the pitch and chances for grudge fests (Argentina vs. England, the US vs. Iran; think Falklands and Gulf Wars), there was the Saudi king who oiled the Saudi team with more cash that rare time it qualified for the World Cup.

Color and tribal fun are for fans.  Mexicans who invented the pleasing football weapon of mass distraction called the ‘Mexican wave’ come in giant sombreros.  The cheerful Irish are in leprechaun hats and faces painted green and orange, naturally.

Brazilians are in their samba bands and bikinis, the Senegalese their congas, the English their St. George Cross flags and, in the past, their deadly brew of hooliganism.  The Germans, thank heavens for their sensitivity to history, never come with the Panzer Division.  (Yes, I am an unrepentant German football fan.)

It is the Scots though who lord it over football fandom.  As the world’s greatest losers, they come as the Tartan Army, in kilts, the easier for them to flash what lies beneath those kilts.

Marching with this army is thirsty work, declared a Scottish fan/writer. They have a football team that has qualified in five of the last seven World Cups, with the ability of being eliminated at once in the first round.  So Tartans imbibe whisky and laugh some more.  In a match in Spain that banned the sale of alcohol, the Tartans stockpiled oranges injected with vodka.

The Soviets knocked out the Scots in World Cup ‘82.  “Communism vs. Alcoholism,” proclaimed the big banner of the Tartan Army as they marched into the stadium.  This was a far cry from the time the Scots had a rare win in London and 90,000 Tartans celebrated by “invading the pitch, and removing it.”

Thousands of Tartans voyaged to Argentina for World Cup ‘78, including, it was said, a group who tried to make the Atlantic crossing in a decommissioned submarine.

The Tartans also cheer for any team that plays against England.  (Braveheart, remember?)  In World Cup ’98 in France, they were welcomed by the French as ancient allies against the English.  France’s Bordeaux chamber of commerce placed this ad in a Scots newspaper after the games, “Thanks and see you soon… we are missing you already.”

When the noisome singing Tartans were rebuked by the Norwegians with the chant, “You only sing when you’re winning,” they chanted back, “You only sing when you’re fishing.”

Doubtless the husband and I are less creative fans, but we’re just as rabid.  ‘Ronaldinho’s effigies have been burned by Brazilian fans,’ he said as he broke the news of his team’s defeat at the quarterfinals.  (Yes, he is a Brazilian football team fan.)

‘Then it’s time for us to have one team; Germany, please,’ I begged.  ‘I’m set on Portugal,’ he answered.  There’s no end to our football bickering.  I realized Brazilians speak Portuguese.

-(2006)