America is not the only "sport crazy" nation. All nations treat sport pretty much the same way.
Karl Marx may have said that "Religion is the Opiate of the People (Masses)", but he surely would acknowledge that sport runs it a very close second.
In England, the sport is Football (Soccer), with smaller, but equally vociferous followings for Rugby Football (NFL without padding), and Cricket (Don't ask).
But sports fandom is not without it's problems .... Let's take a look:
The videos in this Diary do not take long to watch, and they are a "must see".
English football, from the seventies through the nineties was blighted by "Football Hooliganism", a problem referred to by our European neighbours as "The English Disease".
The neighbours were being a little disingenuous here, because football hooliganism was rife in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland .... Well you get the picture. The fact was that the English abroad were blamed for every incident, whatever the cause of the violence, culminating in a Europe-wide ban on English teams playing anywhere other than in England, for a few years.
So what is this culture? Why is it so important to the followers, and so apparently redundant to those who are disinterested in sports?
Since time immemorial, or at least since 1969, when I saw my first football game, team sports have been competitive to the point of desperation. The competition, it seems, can also spill over to the fans.
Indeed, that first game I saw was on a Tuesday night in Barnsley, South Yorkdhire. It was a local rivalry between Barnsley and Halifax, a non-event of a game in world terms, yet Halifax, the visitors, had the temerity to win and the fans responded by smashing up the coaches of the visitors in the parking lot.
I was a wide-eyed 10-year-old, entrusted to the safe keeping of my Uncle Martin, who appeared to be a little perturbed at the potential reaction of my Mum, were he to take me home in pieces. So we hurried through the rain, and the parking lot, keeping close to the edge where we could see the events unfold, but not be harmed. We never did tell Mum what had happened, and I was hooked.
So, the following Saturday, the 10-year-old me, and a friend one year older, made the three mile walk to the ground of Huddersfield Town, to watch the game, and they became my team. We repeated that walk every other weekend for a year. We moved to Sheffield after that, and Sheffield Wednesday have remained my team ever since, so please don't try to tell me about disappointment!
From game one there was trouble. I had dropped into the scene, a child, at the worst time. My Mum and Dad were never big sports fans, or even any kind of sports fans and although they had heard of the violence, they rarely did any other than ask me if I was ok. I always was until one day, aged about 11 I met a Manchester City youth in town and when he spotted my scarf, he came over and hit me. Even at that age I knew why he had done it. It was okay, we beat the bastards 4-0. Something else I never told my Mum. (well I probably have now, she reads this stuff, but she lives in France so I guess I'm safe).
Since that time I have been a football supporter. Never a hooligan, violence is not my thing. That violence has been part of football is not in doubt, and it has to do with "Tribalism". This aspect of supporting a team is the least understood by non-sports fans, and the hardest to explain. What is it about sports that attracts such loyalty in the face of regular disappointment and commercial exploitation? After all, we wouldn't allow any other commercial organisation to exploit us every week, for fifty years, and still keep going back. There would come a point where the reality of Einstein's theory of insanity would dawn on even the dimmest of us, and we would quit going.
This doesn't happen with sport. We might physically stop attending, but "our team" is an absolute. We stick with them when all reason suggests the futility of the attraction. We defend them, sometimes with glee, more often with the rueful resignation known only to the true sports fan. After all, whatever league or competition out teams enter, there can only be one winner, and it is not usually us.
One Superbowl, One World Series, One National Championship, One FA Cup ... and in the case of the FA Cup several thousand individual teams start the competition in August, and in May only one team wins it. Everyone else is, by definition, a loser .... and still we go!
We make excuses too. Oklahoma University will never get the vote for the National Championship game unless and until we beat every opponent by at least three possessions. Not going to happen because they hate us, and we believe it. Bob Stoops, the Coach, doesn't even vote in the weekly poll. He says that is because he doesn't believe in the system, but I think he's a fan and wants his team to do their talking on the field.
Millwall Football Club supporters really were hated in the UK as being among the most violent in the country. They responded by developing their own "Chant", which they rehearsed at every opportunity:
"No one likes us, we don't care!"
We see this attitude everywhere. It is certainly not confined to sport. Other places we call it "Nationalism" or "Uber-Patriotism". It has many negative connotations but has a positive side too. A pride in one's Country, or Team need not be negative, and it is fair to say that the violence attached to football was a symptom of ills in society, rather than a problem specific to a game.
In the UK the unrest was formented amongst football supporters because those supporters were drawn largely from working class, and working poor, men. The same group were heavily recruited by the National Front and the British National Party. On a larger scale, civil disquiet created the opportunity for National Socialism to develop in Germany ... it's the same process. In the US this process has different roots, but it is a broadly similar mechanic that fuels the militias and white supremacists. Here race often features, but the recruiting and "fear-based" metric is ruthlessly employed.
However, sport is not about that. It is about healthy physical competition. Stripped of the negativity it can be inspirational. The very nature of sporting competition feeds straight into our most primitive needs. The need to be part of a social group. One we can identify with. One we can share with our friends and family. One we can take pride in.
Don't think, even for a moment, that the feelings expressed for all to see in that Chicago Park on the night that the Obama family took the stage, and the Presidency, were any different. They weren't. They were just the same. Our Team Won!!
At the heart of every soccer fan is this simple idea:
Whatever your station in life, whatever the struggles, or triumphs that you face daily as you toil to make your way in the world, none of them matter. Regardless of your health, your wealth or your standing in the community, it's a secondary matter. Through ill-health or glowing countenance, through rain or shine, all that is forgotten because when you enter a stadium and take your seat, for the next ninety minutes, you BELONG!
Right here, right now you have a family of fifty thousand who you don't personally know from Eve, but if your team scores a goal you are going to yell and shout and hug your neighbour, and nothing can intrude on that. It is as close to a perfect expression of sheer joy that we are able to get.
When you understand that, and can relate to it, then you have found your team.
It becomes very easy to see how that very natural "sense of belonging" can be perverted, into something very ugly. Europe has quelled the worst excesses of tribalism, in the US they never did attach themselves to sport, but they do exist just the same.
The positive side of sport, as a spectator, is the enjoyment of the competition, and it helps if the teams share it. The following video shows the ritual display performed by the New Zealand Rugby Team (The All Blacks) before every game. It is a Maori War Dance called "The Haka". Here it is performed in England in front of a crowd of eighty thousand, and an England team not quite knowing where to look. The idea is that the All Blacks are trying to win the game before it even begins. The crowd watches in respectful silence.
In this second video, we have a repeat of the first scene. The venue is Twickenham, London, and the teams are the same. This time the English supporters are having none of it. If their team can't meet the challenge of the All Blacks, then the supporters are determined to show them how:
There, that was better ... Bring it on!
I have seen the All Blacks play England at Twickenham and, believe me, you do not want to give them that kind of advantage, they are difficult enough to beat without it.
The supporters in Europe behave a little differently to here in the US. They don't wave things, they sing. Boy do they sing, and if one set of supporters stops singing, then the other set taunts them with refrains of "It's all gone quiet over there" and "Sing when you're winning, you only sing when you're winning". Next up is one of the most well respected football crowds singing. The scene is Anfield, Liverpool, and the crowd are happy:
This story would never be complete without the Welsh. They have to be heard to be understood, and they sure know how to be heard. Eat your heart out, Christine Aguilera:
Divorced from the negative political connotations, sports, and sports crowds are peaceful and joyous. Sure we lose, but the losing doesn't matter. The players, board members, coaches and owners don't count. They are not the club. We are. The supporters are the team and, on their day, they are both a celebration of life and a joy to behold.
Just ask the England Cricket fans who not only are completing a three month tour of Australia ... a long way to go for the English ... but so devoted are they to the cause, that the supporters even took their own band with them. This crowd is smaller, but they were 12000 miles from home. Their ability to raise the teams performance is legendary. So demoralised were the Aussie supporters that they went home leading a BBC Radio commentator to Tweet: "60 000 Australian supporters appear to have turned up disguised as seats!"
This is the "English Disease" that infected me at an early age, and one for which I seek no cure.