Last week I went with my husband to watch Perth Glory play Victory (Melbourne), it was a bitterly cold night, so we were both rugged up with our scarfs and hats. There was a crystal clear sky and thank goodness no rain. There was approximately 8000 people watching, and I have to say the majority were male, some women and children. The testosterone was clearly flying through the air; occasionally I felt its foul swipe.
I really do not understand the passion of football, come to think of it I do not understand the passion of totally loosing self control at a concert, I never have had the desire too, have watched others do it and just don’t get it.
We sat amongst the opposition. Out of the 8000 people who attended approximately 100 people had the Melbourne colours on and we were sitting next to them. This was not an all together pleasant experience. They started off very noisily, shouting all sorts of chants, which I did not find partially pleasing. It was at this stage I was pleased I took my ipod. Now we were all watching the same game, so when clearly play is in front of you and the Glory player gets smacked in the jaw and lands on the deck, and the referee picks up the Victory player for rough play (Melbourne) and gives him a yellow card, the Melbourne supports did not see the same action – and did not agree with the ref – how does this happen? It was as clear as the nose on my face, there in front of us all. Ian then explains to me that they can only see out of one eye, this seems preposterous to me, the play is there for everyone to see.
There was screaming and shouting at the ref, the shed was going ballistic, the Melbourne crowd were chanting, have you got the picture! in the beginning the Melbourne crowd were very vocal about wining and how Perth was a sleepy backwater town (in some respects I agree with this comment), the score was 1 all at this stage, but when Glory scored the second goal strangely enough the Melbourne supports changed their chat from we are going to win, to we will be in the finals. I do think this is rather funny, unfortunately there were a few men who had too much to drink and there bravado become more aggressive and abusive, this is when it becomes ugly.
Now the game was won by Perth Glory, and the badly behaved supporters for Victory started mouthing off to the Glory boys and like idiots they rose to the occasion and right in front of us they started, testosterone was flying, security was on hand and we walked away. It is very easy to see how it all gets out of hand - and on what a grand scale it is in the UK a country well entrenched in its football hooliganism.
Looking forward to the next home game, but will make sure we are not sitting with the opposition.
