Most of my American friends are a bit confused about the background noise during the recent soccer/football match between USA & England. Maybe it is because they don't have a horn themselves.
They are blaming the English for noise pollution, using words like annoying, irritating and obnoxious, unaware that other countries might be even more enthusiastic. Wait until you get African teams in play. They place a lot of heart in football, often because it is the one sport they can play that requires little equipment.
I once attended a USA Women's international match in Costa Rica and was very impressed by the energy in the stands. Mia Hamm was on the team and the quality of play was up there! Even I started cheering and I know next to nothing about football/soccer. It was just fun being there.
Living in distant former British colonies for most of the past 25
years means I know a little about the derivative cultural tendencies of people with British roots. I await correction from Angela, Gareth or Wayne.
Enthusiasm can be couched in different forms than an American might think obvious. I've had the descriptor "enthusiastic" used against me as an insult. Go figure! I'm a choleric/sanguine, Type A woman with initiative and a bent to curiosity and adventure. Enthusiastic doesn't touch it.
An example quote from an English source,
"For fear that even the slightest display of enthusiasm could rapidly build into a very un-British display of exuberance, I am staying deliberately passive on the subject."
Speaking of New Zealanders, Gordon McLauchlan said in A Passionless People,
‘The outstanding characteristics of the New Zealander, are his drab sameness and his emotional numbness, his inability to relate one to another with warmth, and his fear, even horror, of change.’
While these writers, we would presume, were both focused on a certain context, their comments are not true of either the English or the Kiwi sports fan. Maybe it is the face paint, the mob mentality or the hype of the arena or stadium, but sports sometimes brings out exuberance in even the most passive Brit or Kiwi.
Having grown up in Indiana where Hoosier Hysteria turns into March Madness, I know a sports fan when I see one.
Fan, by the way, is short for fanatic;
seemingly acceptable in sports but
not so much in politics or religion.
While the rest of the world was watching soccer/football, a few million of us were intensely focused on a rugby match between men in green and men in black. The Irish showed guts, sometimes having only 13 men on the paddock while the All Blacks had the full complement of 15. The score reflects something, but not the heart of the men. Six new All Blacks got a chance to play as did a couple of new Irishmen.
With it being winter here, it is nice to sit cosily in front of the TV cheering for my favourite rugby team. I'm glad USA's soccer team ended in a draw with England's football team, but not entranced enough to change my schedule to watch it.
All the horns blowing in South Africa did not wake me here in New Zealand, but I must say that whoever invented the mute button should get an award. Just wait 'til Italy plays Brazil.
I still say Spain will win it.
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