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A rant from Mr Grumpy

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No footie, nothing to do...it's all making me grumpy...comment by George Dearnaley

No live matches, no fan fests, no fan miles, no drinking in the bars surrounded by international football nuts, no watching, analysing, discussing, swearing at the ref – nothing.

Two days of no World Cup football! How did we do without it for so long?

I’m busy trying to sort out transport to PE for the Brazil v Holland game – nightmare! How did PE get so many games? Each host city should have been awarded games on the basis of the number of actual live horses they possess… PE should have got one game.
And so now I find myself staring a one way fare of over R 2 000 down the barrel, and still no confirmation of my transport back to Cape Town for the Germany vs Argentina match…

But this is the life of an absolute football fan. And I shouldn’t complain – these are nice problems to deal with. At least I have tickets, paid for, no freebies. So while I have been doing all this, I have been contemplating some of the abusive idiots who claim themselves as ‘real’ football fans, and wondering whether they should just be banished to a small desert island...

1.  Mr Vuvuzela. He thinks he is a fan because he has a vuvuzela. He’s never been to a match before. He’s there to blow the vuvuzela because he heard it’s part of our ‘culture’ – easy excuse. He has no tune, no tone and no clue. He just blows and blows and blows. Then he asks you ‘who scored?’ Watch the game you idiot!

2.  Mr Abusive. He thinks he’s at the match to swear at the opposition for whatever reason. Like the group of eejits at the Spain vs Portugal match who spent the best part of the match all singing to each other about what a wally Ronaldo is. Errrrr…he’s earning R 2 million a week and playing in the World Cup while they stand around in their faded jeans and 1988 Liverpool replica tops drinking warm beer with their backs to the match! Define eejits!

3.  Mr Pick-a-team. He’s not that bad. He has one team’s flag in his one hand and another team’s replica jersey on, with some other team’s scarf and a Bafana jacket. He’s a global football fan and he can’t lose. He has the best seats in the house and keeps asking which team is in red. Then he spends 75% of the match buying hotdogs.

Perhaps the one acceptable sort of fan is:

4.  Mr Grumpy.
This is where I fit in. He’s been looking forward to this tournament all his life! He did everything by the book to get tickets. He studied the FIFA website and all the rules and could write an exam on FIFA’s ticketing procedures. He’s spent a lot of hard earned money for good category seats.

And when he finally gets to row 32 in block 320 with his expensive tickets to see that he is almost in the rafters of the stadium and can’t identify a single player except from the replays on the big screen (which is now the size of a small monitor) – he gets grumpy! How the hell did FIFA work out the ticket categories? And to make matters worse, Mr Vuvuzela and Mr Abusive have all got better seats. And they paid less.

Still, this won’t stop Mr Grumpy paying more money to fly on a cheap airline to a one-horse town to watch two great teams in action.
I suppose there are always bigger things to worry about. Like who ran the wrong advertising material in the big Brazilian newspaper in Sao Paulo that announced Brazil had been knocked out of the World Cup, but they were still in the hearts of the people? I sense a whole lot of Brazilian Mr Grumpys!


George Dearnaley played for Bafana in 1992/93 and was top goal scorer in SA in 1992. He is loving the World Cup but hates players who fake being injured to get other players sent off. He also thinks half the referees are rubbish. His money is on Argentina!

George Dearnaley will be writing exclusively for Sport24 for the duration of the Soccer World Cup.
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