Idiots getting drunk ruin the experience of watching sport

FOR the last three weeks I have not slept well. I wish I could say this wasn’t my fault. Unfortunately blame very much lies with me. That is because I have had Test Match Special playing on the radio as I listened with increasing disappointment to the Ashes in Australia from 2am every morning.

Every time there was a wicket I would wake up, groan or cheer, then roll over and go back to bed.

This has meant that when the Aussies are batting I have had hours of uninterrupted blissful sleep. When their captain Steve Smith is taking on our anemic bowling attack I can pretty much settle in for a full eight hours.

Enter the England batsmen and I am in for a rough night. Every 20-30 minutes I will sit up bolt upright in bed after hearing “he’s edged it” or “he’s gone”. This has now progressed on to “this is getting embarrassing” or “he’s edged it...again”.

When the Aussies were thinking about making England follow on I remember praying they wouldn’t so I would be able to get so kip.

I am not telling you this because I want your sympathy – I have done this to myself.

I tell you in order to point out that I really love watching and playing sport. I hate to use the phrase “sport mad” because everyone I know who describes themselves as such is a muppet, however I do love it.

I have played two sports to a fairly high level (tae kwon do at the British Championships and international korfball) and have been incredibly average at football, cricket and athletics.

Watching, I will happily kill an afternoon in front of anything except darts (don’t get me started on that arrow throwing borefest with a side of maths).

I was a West Brom season ticket holder from age five to 16 and I write this as an owner of WBA underwear.

Now that you understand that I love sport so much that I am prepared to sacrifice sleep, you will be able to comprehend the gravity of me saying that “live sport has been ruined for me”.

At the risk of sounding like a massive stick in the mud, the reason for this is alcohol.

Booze, or rather idiots getting drunk, have ruined almost all live sport to the point I don’t fancy going any more.

I hadn’t realised this was the really the case until last night. As I lay in bed listening to the Ashes, West Bromwich Albion bedding pulled in tight against the cold, I realised that I could hear a repetitive noise behind the soothing tones of Jonathan Agnew. That noise was hour after hour of the same chant“Barmy Army...Barmy Army”.

This chant is the epitome of everything that is wrong with excessive drinking at sport. Although I couldn’t see the people chanting, from attending many test matches I would hazard a pretty good guess at what they looked like.

They’re not watching the match, are eight beers in and probably wearing fancy dress (usually smurfs or knights). Exposed to the sun, they will gradually take on a deeper shade of lobster. Over the course of the match they will get louder and louder while lamenting the lack of passion shown by other fans for not joining in the Mexican wave. I feel I should confess that some of this is rooted in jealousy I don’t have the cash to go and watch cricket in the southern hemisphere for a month.

This sort of thing I can accept at football. Once at a West Brom game a rival fan threw his shoe at me in the style of Random Task (the bad guy in the first Austin Powers film). However, it has crept into other sports I love too. In our city, a debate has been raging after British Transport Police Chief Inspector for Wales Mark Cleland suggested that rugby fans were worse than football ones following the recent Wales game. Compare this to when I was younger and fans at Northampton Saints’ Franklin’s Gardens would turn on any member of the crowd who spoke during a kick (home or away players).

What annoys me most about these “fans” is that it actually distracts about what makes sport wonderful.

True passion and love of the game is demonstrated by a shared fear among supporters. All true sports fans are pessimistic and show their insight by living in perpetual fear of the goal/try/ wicket they have seen go against them so many times in the last minute of a match. If you are truly engrossed in the game you are watching you don’t have the energy to chant or leave the stands to buy watered down pints in a plastic cup.

You are living and breathing every ball, kick or throw in a cauldron of tension – not swimming around in a bowl of “banter”.