Cruel jokes
Paddy Lewis
Sport is cruel. One only had to witness the flood of jokes hitting the interweb thingy after England’s World Cup football match with the USA.
Before the game, the jokes were all aimed at the Americans (“Tim Howard, the American keeper, better watch out for all that friendly fire from his teammates”). Immediately after Robert Green’s howler to let the USA equalize, we had:
• There was a flu virus going round the England camp earlier this week. Funnily enough, Robert Green didn’t catch that either!
• Fabio Capello has said that as the World Cup final is such a special, one-off occasion, he’ll cancel training and let the England team watch it on the big screen.
• England players, protect yourself from Emile Heskey by disguising yourself as a goal.
The Australians (0-4 losers to Germany) weren’t exempt either:
Qantas have sent out another rescue plane! Apparently 11 Australians got slaughtered in South Africa last night...
France got some too: “I hear that France’s all white football kit was made out of surrender flags left over from World War II”.
Football does have a cutting clever element of sarcastic nastiness that other sports lack. For instance, if the All Blacks lose, we just have a public bar full of drunks calling the coaches relentless masturbators.
If the Black Caps lose, everyone just sighs and goes back to what they were doing beforehand.
Football fans make up a hilarious joke or chant about it.
While football humour might be cutting sarcastic nastiness, everyone (OK, nearly everyone) has to admit it makes them laugh.
In every game, there are jokes at the expense of the other team. There are great fan chants. A mate txted me from the England USA game to say after the English fans got over the shock of Robert Green letting in that goal, a block began singing “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”.
I suppose New Zealand is fortunate they are not in the same pool as England, as English football fans took great delight in making up chants about sheep-shaggers when Derby County took part in the Premier League.
As for All Whites’ chants? A media outlet ran a competition for local chants, but as of the time of writing, none had been released.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t have that clever cutting sarcastic nastiness, or maybe All Whites doesn’t rhyme that well.
But as it stands, let’s just rejoice that we aren’t England – and subjected to online jibes such as “there has been a massive increase in theft and violent crime in South Africa during the world cup. OTHER NEWS: Liverpool records its lowest crime rate in decades.”
As the World Cup reduces football fans to coffee-dependent jibbering wrecks, I noted a little story that slipped under the radar. A Zimbabwean politician had a meeting with Sports Minister Murray McCully early this week to plead the case for the Black Caps to tour Zimbabwe. The reason for the plea? “Cricketing tours by New Zealand and Australian teams would strengthen moves towards democracy in Zimbabwe, he said.”
What a crock. There has been a raft of recent reports out of Zimbabwe showing that nothing has changed there. Just last week, MPs from the Movement for Democratic Change were being arrested by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF thugs. Playing cricket won’t help democracy in that basket-case, and we should stay well away.
Before the game, the jokes were all aimed at the Americans (“Tim Howard, the American keeper, better watch out for all that friendly fire from his teammates”). Immediately after Robert Green’s howler to let the USA equalize, we had:
• There was a flu virus going round the England camp earlier this week. Funnily enough, Robert Green didn’t catch that either!
• Fabio Capello has said that as the World Cup final is such a special, one-off occasion, he’ll cancel training and let the England team watch it on the big screen.
• England players, protect yourself from Emile Heskey by disguising yourself as a goal.
The Australians (0-4 losers to Germany) weren’t exempt either:
Qantas have sent out another rescue plane! Apparently 11 Australians got slaughtered in South Africa last night...
France got some too: “I hear that France’s all white football kit was made out of surrender flags left over from World War II”.
Football does have a cutting clever element of sarcastic nastiness that other sports lack. For instance, if the All Blacks lose, we just have a public bar full of drunks calling the coaches relentless masturbators.
If the Black Caps lose, everyone just sighs and goes back to what they were doing beforehand.
Football fans make up a hilarious joke or chant about it.
While football humour might be cutting sarcastic nastiness, everyone (OK, nearly everyone) has to admit it makes them laugh.
In every game, there are jokes at the expense of the other team. There are great fan chants. A mate txted me from the England USA game to say after the English fans got over the shock of Robert Green letting in that goal, a block began singing “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”.
I suppose New Zealand is fortunate they are not in the same pool as England, as English football fans took great delight in making up chants about sheep-shaggers when Derby County took part in the Premier League.
As for All Whites’ chants? A media outlet ran a competition for local chants, but as of the time of writing, none had been released.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t have that clever cutting sarcastic nastiness, or maybe All Whites doesn’t rhyme that well.
But as it stands, let’s just rejoice that we aren’t England – and subjected to online jibes such as “there has been a massive increase in theft and violent crime in South Africa during the world cup. OTHER NEWS: Liverpool records its lowest crime rate in decades.”
As the World Cup reduces football fans to coffee-dependent jibbering wrecks, I noted a little story that slipped under the radar. A Zimbabwean politician had a meeting with Sports Minister Murray McCully early this week to plead the case for the Black Caps to tour Zimbabwe. The reason for the plea? “Cricketing tours by New Zealand and Australian teams would strengthen moves towards democracy in Zimbabwe, he said.”
What a crock. There has been a raft of recent reports out of Zimbabwe showing that nothing has changed there. Just last week, MPs from the Movement for Democratic Change were being arrested by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF thugs. Playing cricket won’t help democracy in that basket-case, and we should stay well away.
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