Are Soccer Fans the Most Obnoxious People on Earth?

What the hell is it with those people?

The World Cup games in South Africa sound like they are being played inside a hornets' nest, with a constant drone of horns continuing throughout the entire game. The horns are vuvelezas - cheap plastic trumpets that any clear-thinking person would blow only during moments of celebration, if at all. But, unfortunately, the South African crowds deem it clever to blow the things as a constant noise, no matter what is going on down on the field.

But my scorn isn't reserved solely for the vuvulezas and the South Africans. Closer to home, what is the deal with people throwing junk on the field? After every goal, knuckleheads in the crowd will throw rolls of toilet paper onto the field. You'll have a dozen or more long streamers of toilet paper polluting the field, even at a Wizards game. And they don't stop play to have the crew clean it up, or for security to throw the throwers out of the stadium.

What the heck? You don't throw stuff onto a field of play! If you do, you get kicked out of the place. (Ice hockey's an exception - hat tosses happen everywhere, Detroit sees its share of octopi, and don't ask about Sweden.) There's no reason to TP the stadium just because your team scores a goal - it's visually distracting for the rest of the game.

I hope this blog post will help football (soccer) fans worldwide do a better job of living up to my expectations.