Playing In Front of No Crowd

April 13th, 2005

Filed under:
Sports

Playing In Front of No Crowd

On Tuesday night, there was a nasty spot of violence between the fans of AC Milan and Inter Milan, two soccer teams playing a Champion’s League match in, you guessed it, Milan.

UEFA’s disciplinary panel meets on Friday to pass judgement on the derby quarter-final at the San Siro which was abandoned after AC Milan’s goalkeeper Dida was struck and burned by a flare thrown during a barrage of missiles from Inter fans.

I’ve never been able to grasp the systemic football violence that plagues Europe. Regardless, I was interested to hear the Italian Prime Minister comment on this incident. He implied that future games might be played “behind closed doors”. This means, and I understand this has occurred on rare occasions in the past, that they’ll play the game with no fans in the stadium. That must be a truly surreal event.

In related news, go on the Pool.

Comments: 13 Responses so far

Paul Le Comte
April 13th, 2005
7:07 pm

Hey,

for an outstanding documentary on Football violence check out, MacIntyre Undercover (BBC): Football violence (1999). http://www.macintyre.com/.

This show was fantastic in that he got undercover and showed us from the ‘fans’ point of view what it was to be a thug.

Still theres something very tribal and strange about football violence.

Cheers

Paul

[Reply]

Anonymous
April 13th, 2005
10:24 pm

Back in 1989 Siena College played a number of men’s basketball games in front of no fans due to a measles outbreak on campus. The last game during the quarantine was the ECAC North Atlantic Conference game referred to in #10 on the upset list at this link http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/Onions/031804.htm

[Reply]

Andrea
April 14th, 2005
12:20 am

Wikipedia has a good article on violence in sports, including a decent section on fan violence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_in_sports.

[Reply]

Matthew
April 14th, 2005
1:33 am

I watched an audience-less game sometime in the last season or so of play. It was quite surreal - the football cameras tend to take in great stretches of stadium in the background, and having no one there made the players seem… insignificant. I wonder if the players felt that way. The commentators also seemed unnerved by the quiet and kept cracking jokes about it.

[Reply]

John Keyes
April 14th, 2005
3:32 am

Darren, there wasn’t trouble between both sets of fans. The inter fans bombarded the pitch with bottles and flares as a sign of dissatisfaction with the referee.

I think the game Matthew is referring to was AS Roma v Real Madrid from the opening phase of this years Champions League.

In a previous match v Dynamo Kiev the referee Anders Frisk (famous for the Nou Camp incident with Frank Rijkard this year, and since retired) was struck by an object (I think it was a coin) thrown by the Roma fans for sending off their French defender Philippe Mexes. This resulted in the game being abandoned and a 0-3 result in Kiev’s favour. UEFA punished AS Roma by making them play their remaining home fixtures behind closed doors.

[Reply]

andy
April 14th, 2005
6:43 am

Darren, you have your facts wrong here AC supporters were acttually not involved in the violence you mention.

[Reply]

Toma Susi
April 14th, 2005
10:34 am

Hello!

My friend and I liked so much this http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/hall/slides/John%20Deer.html warning picture by John Deere that we made T-Shirts about it. :)

I got a bit curious and decided to e-mail John Deere and ask about the picture. And it seems courtesy still is rewarded, for I received a scan of the original manual page! For your viewing pleasure, here it is: http://www.diversion.org/~tototo/Safety.pdf

Your sincerely,
Toma Susi

[Reply]

Jack
April 14th, 2005
2:07 pm

I don’t recall where I heard this… probably on NPR… maybe it was This American Life…

There was this high school girl’s basketball game. And the “visitors” were all native American or came from a predominantly native American school.

The “home” crowd was jeering them right before they came onto the court. Making all these palm-to-mouth “woo woo woo” cartoon indian noises and such. The visitors were kind of shaken up by it.

One of the girls slowly walked to the center of the court and slowly started doing this tribal dance. The whooping and such stopped and the crowd watched in shamed silence. God, what a great sixty-second story that was.

—-

On the topic of football hooligans: couldn’t they have a couple camera’s trained on the stands. Something gets thrown or something, the guy gets kicked out, charged, and banned from the arena?

[Reply]

Peach
April 14th, 2005
2:15 pm

Reminds me of hockey parents.

[Reply]

Luna Zoloq
April 14th, 2005
8:14 pm

Okay, maybe I’m just a typically dense American, but what is this “football” stuff? I thought Darren said soccer. I’m so confused!

[Reply]

harp
April 15th, 2005
6:46 am

Jack: that IS done to catch the hoolies in the stands, maybe in this instance there was someone missed due to the smoke from the flares but I know it happens in England all the time.

Reds for their fifth Cup? I think so, nothing I’d love more than for Chel$ki to get knocked out…

[Reply]

Jack
April 15th, 2005
12:51 pm

Sorry, I tend to call soccer “football” now that I’m out of the US.

[Reply]