Vuvuzelas stir online debate at World Cup

reply to post by felonius

If Holland (I"m backing Deutschland myself) was to win the cup, it will cause MASSIVE uproar in SA. Murder and rape of the white Afrikaaners will dwarf anything to date. They would have to throw the game.

That is the silliest comment I have read in a long time. Why on earth would the Dutch winning the WC cause the mayhem you expect?

Do you have any idea what a respected team they are here? They have huge local black support - you should see the flags and banners ... and those flags and banners are not being waved by white tourists.
We even have a Premier league team in Cape Town (Ajax Cape Town) that is a sister club of AFC AJAX Netherlands.

Our government may be a bit screwy, but the local soocer fan just wants a good clean WC, and they especially want their beloved Bafana Bafana to get through the Group Stages.

Enough with the fear mongering - right now, the reality in South Africa is that everyone of every colour (perhaps just for these four weeks) has joined together in an impossible frenzy of goodwill.

reply to post by deltaalphanovember


Good to hear that from someone actually there!

It looks like this World Cup could be amazing for South Africa,
and the fact that these horns jeopardize that as well just adds to the mystery.

With the cultural history of these horns being disputed, the big question here is, "do they really add to the overall atmosphere?"

IMO, they don't, since 40.000+ of them just end up drowning out all dynamic range and melodic content of the crowd, all the while sounding like a long monotonous drone, regardless of the action, or lack thereof, on the field.

the trumphets of APOCALYPSE!
I hate them. I have seen 2 matches today (argentina and england) and GOD, they're so irritant. Tv commentarists were joking about that they were going straight to an ENT specialist when coming back home due the heavy sound of that things.

reply to post by Conspiracy Pianist


The vuvu should have never gotten Fifa's blessing.

I can get along with muting the sound on tv but everywhere i drive there are people blowing them non-bloody-stop. Friday at every stop street and robot they were basically blown. Irritating as hell.

Then there were the busses with Mexican supporters going absolutely crazy with vuvu's, so not only the S.African supporters were guilty.

In all, ban them. It will end up being blamed for some disappointment in the cup.

They used to sell very similar horns at a lot of U.S. baseball stadiums. I know we had them in Baltimore but I think they stopped selling them sometime around the mid-1980's (I think). People hated them, for the most part, but there was always one or a few people in each section that had them and they annoyed the piss out of everyone else in their area. I think the fact that so few actually liked those things and everyone else couldn't stand them led to them no longer being sold. I don't know if they were outright banned from being brought to games, but I can't remember the last time I've seen one.

reply to post by Conspiracy Pianist


Agreed, I liked it much better hearing the crowd cheer with the opportunity of goal, or with goal, now it is just a 90 minute buzz, you don't hear anything else.

Soccer did have a culture of joint singing and chanting, and the wave, and the cheers, and the screams.

This instrument just made it dull, a buzz from start to end just kills it.

If the buzz increased when the opportunity of goal came then it is at least understandable, but the same freaken buzz omg I don't even feel like watching another match.

These things are annoying to the TV view, but i imagine if your at the game live they sound great.

am loving the whole African vibe of this world cup. Could just do with a bit more goal mouth action.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


There's been quite a few cracking goals so far and yesterdays England - USA game produced some tense moments at both ends of the pitch. Teams are naturally cautious anyway in the first game, wait until a few more games are done then we should have some right corkers.

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by woodwardjnr

 

There's been quite a few cracking goals so far and yesterdays England - USA game produced some tense moments at both ends of the pitch. Teams are naturally cautious anyway in the first game, wait until a few more games are done then we should have some right corkers.

I'm not sure if i saw the same game as you. The England - USA game looked like a 2nd rate English championship game from where I was sitting.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Really? It is the general consensus from most pundits that both teams, especially England, played well. Granted, the finishing left alot to be desired, but the build up play was good and certain players had cracking games. England pressed very well, made some good breaks and moved the ball around. The Yanks too played better than expected.

However, the opinion amongst my work colleagues today was "Typical England, total bollocks", which makes me wonder what exactly were people expecting? Us to whitewash the USA? They're a good side and have qualified for the past 6 world cups on the bounce, which is better than we can say!

Seems to me that England fans can be massively over critical when it comes to the National Team, which seems to cloud their judgement of the game.

In my opinion, it was a good game.

[edit on 13/6/10 by stumason]

I watched the Sth Korea vs. Greece game last night on TV and the incessant droning of those horns was driving me nuts.

More irritating was that usually you hear the crowd cheering, clapping or chanting for their team/country but last night all you could hear was the horns. You could hear a faint roar when the ball got near the Korean end but other than that it was like being stuck next to a very loud wasp's nest.

The crowd enthusiasm is one of the most important parts of building the atmosphere... and I have to say, there wasn't a whole lot of it in the game last night... Sth Koreans usually chant alot but you couldn't hear any of it.

makes me feel like i'm in the middle of a mosquitoes invasion

Seriously....those horribly loud horns have been used for years. They're part of the experience, if I didn't hear thousands of them going off it would feel like something was missing.

Go to a concert....everyone sings along so loud you can barely hear the artist sometimes, but thats not an annoyance it's atmosphere.

Are we going to ask the croud to be queit aswell...? Because surely the multitude of different phrases coming from the croud would be more offputting than a contant drone which you zone out after a while.

reply to post by stumason


we should be discussing this elsewhere, but, the reason why people have high expectations of England is because they are meant to be some of the best players in the world. They all under performed. America were pretty poor, the equivilant of a champioship team. England played like a poor premiership team.
look at how Argentina played, passing the ball around with ease, flashes of genius by Messi. I saw nothing from England apart from the usual.

I find some people can let their patriotism cloud their judgement

reply to post by stumason


well i listen to talk sport and not one english pundit or fan predicted a draw. It was all 3-0, 3-1, 2-0 to england. In fairness the english media has been really subdued going into this world cup not heard any "england expects" stuff yet. Although 1 good win and im sure it will change

on topic. Those horns are really annoying it sounds like a giant swarm of killer bees or something. :/

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by woodwardjnr

 

Really? It is the general consensus from most pundits that both teams, especially England, played well.

[edit on 13/6/10 by stumason]

The English consensus, perhaps Here, the pundits ripped them to bits. England didn't have a central midfield - all that passing along the back four in the last 20mins, leading to an inevitable aimless Terry hoof up the pitch? An anonymous Rooney against a Championship defence? Heskey starting?? Heskey's there for the long ball game because you don't have anyone in midfield who can pick up the ball from the back four to start moves off. But they showed here that he was only heading the ball to someone on his own team less than one in four times. Crouch did a much better job when he came on. Milner off after 20mins? Altidore hitting the woodwork? And Altidore destroying Carragher for pace just before that chance?

My view was that Bradley and Findlay had great games for the US. The US played as well as I expected after watching the Confederations Cup. Much more is expected of a lot of the English players, because England have a team of top players at top clubs who should challenge. England need to be beating teams like the US if they want to win the competition. It was very disappointing that they don't have anyone who can play with their head up in the centre of midfield. It looks like they'd get outpassed by most teams in the tournament bar perhaps Greece.

Originally posted by LittleSecret
reply to post by Conspiracy Pianist

 

Agreed, I liked it much better hearing the crowd cheer with the opportunity of goal, or with goal, now it is just a 90 minute buzz, you don't hear anything else.
.

I agree This is what kills me about it, it's flattened out the atmosphere to a terrible degree. There's no ebb and flow with the sound, no building of excitement when there's a chance, no cheers of celebration, no shouts of outrage at a bad decision. It's desperate.

Well, the usual "England should win every time" nonsense which gives no credit to the opposition.

I suppose Germany, Brazil, France and Italy always win their opening games too? You say Argentina played well, but they are against Nigeria, who are significantly lower quality than the US, most of whom either play or have played in Europe.

Don't forget, we drew our first game in 1966. We don't want to peak in the first game otherwise it's a downward spiral from thereon in.

Anyhoo, don't wish to drag this anymore off topic. Some people think England played ok, others don't. Lets just see how things progressed, I think there is alot to take away from that game and it's nothing to do with patriotism, otherwise I'd be baying for blood like the rest of The Sun's readership....

Originally posted by charlie_the_loafer
makes me feel like i'm in the middle of a mosquitoes invasion

We said the same in our house. We just had to turn the sound right down because it was totally ruining the matches we watched.

We would have loved to have watched more matches but we most definitely won't be - just the ones with England, Spain and Germany playing because we're a multi-cultural household with different members backing different countries.

We're going to try watching with the TV muted and the radio commentary to listen to and will see if it's easier on the ear.

I think they need an urgent telegram to Paul Scholes

You're right, first game etc, but of the teams who could claim to be challengers (which I think England should, you have superb players) you're unlikely to see another one with noone who can pass in the centre of the pitch. They're missing their out-half or quarterback. Maybe Joe Cole can do it.. but I reckon regardless you'll see 5 in midfield for the next match, with Gerrard playing behind lone striker Rooney.

Now back to how annoyed our ears are.