Sporting events are perfectly capable of creating their own atmosphere – if it didn’t then we wouldn’t watch it.
So why on earth is there an obsession these days with forcibly creating a buzz whether spectators – and for that matter the competitors – want it or not?
Anyone who has regularly watched sport over the years can tell you that it almost necessarily is the action that creates the buzz.
Attendance numbers or the size of the arena has absolutely nothing to do with it.
To draw a simple comparison, I have been at an FA Vase match in East Lancashire where a crowd of 600 has been bouncing with excitement, while I have stood among tens of thousands in that huge arena owned by the FA and it has been as quiet as a library – that is why I gave up attending England friendlies years ago.
However, organisers of sporting events these days are possessed by the notion that without loud music and pyrotechnics, then a BIG event is not worthy of the name.
Personally, I have never been overly impressed by fireworks.
Once you have seen Kiss, Megadeth and Silverwing (the latter a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band from Macclesfield who ploughed all the profit they made into buying stuff to set fire to the stage with, when most groups of that ilk would have spent it on beer) set off their explosives in the confines of a concert hall, some of the ‘spectaculars’ at sports events can seem a little tame.
Among the seemingly most pointless are the effects known as fire cannons, which are really only fleetingly spectacular.
fancy flame-throwers
You can barely get a team onto the field for a soccer showpiece, rugby union international or rugby league final without these things shooting sheets of flame into the air for no known reason – and potentially risking scorching the poor cheerleaders who always seem to end up being positioned closest to the fancy flame-throwers.
To my knowledge there have been no accidents or injuries, though this might purely be down to ignorance on my part, until some of the things were set off at the Birmingham Grand Prix athletics meeting at the city’s Alexander Stadium.
As Adam Gemili clocked 9.97 to become only the sixth British sprinter to go sub 10 seconds for the 100m, the pyrotechnics went off and he somersaulted to the ground and was left clutching a damaged right hamstring.
As he was taken away for treatment the 21-year-old told BBC Five Live commentator and Mancunian legend Darren Campbell what had happened, and the 2003 world championship bronze medalist revealed: “Adam told me he got a shock by the pyrotechnics going off at the end of the race.”
It is hard to understand how, as a race reaches its conclusion, letting off a load of fireworks really adds to the excitement of the situation.
And Campbell concluded: “It’s madness. You can’t manufacture atmosphere!”
He might be a United fan, but you can’t help but totally agree with the man from Moss Side.
Cycling is pointing the way forward for those who are interested in making oodles of spondoolicks out of sport.
Why on earth do you need to pay large amounts of cash to teams of sportsmen when it is possible to fill an arena and have to write only one pay cheque?
A capacity crowd at the Lee Valley VeloPark in London roared on Sir Bradley Wiggins as he became the sixth rider to claim a Tour de France title and the hour record. While it must have been exciting to watch the 35-year-old smash the previous mark – which was held by fellow Briton Alex Dowsett, who set the record in May of 52.937km or 32.89 miles – by riding 54.526km or 33.88 miles, I have to admit I am stunned that so many wanted to watch one man go round a track on his own.
Would anybody turn up to watch Mo Farah run round a track on his own to try and break the world 10,000m record, or to see Lewis Hamilton drive 70-odd laps in a car with no rivals or wish to see Ronnie O’Sullivan make a 147 break without any opposition?
Perhaps poor examples as Farah may be capable of doing just that, Hamilton arguably does that anyway and I am not sure just how possible it is to sink a red from the break and continue through for a snooker maximum.
But really the concept of watching one guy ride a bike for an hour has more to do with those who enjoy the same kind of voyeurism that made Roy Castle’s Record Breakers a hit television show for the best part of three decades, appealing to people who regard having a copy of the Guinness Book of Records as a ‘must have’, rather than to those of us who prefer sport to be competitive.
However, there will have been money-makers who will have sat up and taken notice.
And you can imagine the FIFA committee were all sat at home – or wherever the FBI are keeping them – cursing the fact that instead of having the World Cup final they could have just had Lionel Messi keeping a ball off the floor for an hour while pocketing the wages they haven’t had to pay to 20-odd other footballers.
The entire football world is imploding – if you believe some of the headlines – but in the bubble that is inhabited by Jose Mourinho there are bigger issues.
While global football waits to see how FIFA and the game emerges post-Blatter, the Chelsea manager was more concerned that he might have been diddled out of the 2012 FIFA coach of the year award – won by then Spanish boss Vicente Del Bosque who, after all, had merely guided his country to World Cup and European Championship success.
Mourinho is convinced that votes were either not counted properly or even changed after they had been submitted.
However, the hilarious part of this tale is not just Mourinho’s self-obsession, but the fact that he apparently has a nickname that I was certainly unaware of.
Quoted on the issue Mourinho said: “My former player, a national team captain, called me and said ‘Mister, there is something wrong because I gave you the vote, then in the list they put another coach’s name.
“A few minutes later my Portuguese friend, a national team coach, called me and said ‘Mister, don’t believe what you see in the list because obviously I voted for you – they changed my vote’”
On this evidence I urge every follower of Premier League clubs – and those of teams who get to play Chelsea in the cups – to welcome Mourinho at each game with a chant of ‘Meester, Meester,’ in an extremely exaggerated Speedy Gonzales accent.
