I watched the late night news on the night of the UEFA Champions League final with slight bemusement but not surprise due to some of the antics that the Chelsea fans were getting up to just down the road in Fulham. My house mate on his arrival home also told the story of a group of Chelsea fans getting stuck into one another on a Tube train. They may be one of the richest clubs in the league but it doesn’t mean a lot of their fans are generally much more than thugs. Chelsea wasn’t always a rich club, prior to the current owner pumping in millions of pounds I believe (and actually don’t care) it was actually quite a poor club.
There’s a quote that floats around and gets pulled out by various people and media on occasion that goes something like this “Football: a game for thugs played by gentleman, Rugby: a game for gentlemen played by thugs”. I’m not sure who originally said it, a quick google revealed nothing concrete. How true! I mean how many sports do fellow fans belt each other up. I can vaguely understand the supporters of opposing teams belting each other up, but its incredible that they beat each other up.
The other thing that has provided amusement to me is the little girl that is John Terry. Apparently he was crying for hours after the game. Why? Its only a fucking game! Its not like he’s lost a close family member or is crying for all the death and despair in China and Burma. His team mate Frank Lampard sums up my thoughts perfectly with his quote “I can probably speak better than anyone at the moment that it’s just a game of football and there are more important things in life” (he recently lost his mother to pneumonia). Terry deserves all the jokes that are getting published about him. The Telegraph has some choice ones here. Maybe he’s crying for the despicable behaviour of his fans or the fact that the loss of the game means a loss of money for the club and London where they’re based to the tune of £35 million pounds in prize money, tourism and promotions. Damn, he probably won’t get a pay rise this year, after all with inflation and the price of fuel £110,000 a week probably doesn’t cut it.
Don’t get me wrong, I like watching a good game, not necessarily football, and have no problems what so ever with celebration or commiseration except when it hurts others… which it seems invariably happens most of the time that Chelsea win or lose.
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