Welcome Soccer Hooligans to … Ohio?
It is the off season for the major soccer leagues in Europe, so they are traveling about the world to showcase their skills, build brand recognition, and add a few more quid to their bulging coffers. You didn’t ask, but before I go any further, I’m officially ranking the best leagues as: Premier, La Liga, Bundesliga, and finally Serie A (cheaters!). For the US soccer league, MLS, its mid-season. Makes perfect sense to schedule exhibition matches, right? Right.
Enter the West Ham Hammers to the Columbus, Ohio. The 50/50 swing state. Heart of the Midwest.
There is no doubt that as a soccer power we make a great imperialist overlord hellbent on natural resources. We just aren’t any good. And what goodness we do have either comes with an asterisk (see Landon Donovan* – choker) or imported (Thomas Dooley) or second generation imported (Claudia Reyna, Tab Ramos, etc). It’s fun for the big soccer powers (or West Ham) to come to our country play their second side and dominate us on every aspect of the game. For our part, as grateful hosts, we’re to sheepishly say thank you for gracing our shores with our hats in hand.
That is until you disrespect the average, drunk, American sports fan.
During the 3-1 loss, some of the loutish hooligans for West Ham (hereafter referred to as Those English Bastards) entered the most rowdy part of the Columbus Crew stadium to taunt the local fans – which under normal circumstances are soccer moms and little girls wearing a Brandy Chastain jersey. Apparently, they felt that dominance on the pitch gave them the right and invincibility to talk big afterwards.
If you’ve never seen the average Englishmen, imagine – red-faced, pasty skin, double chin, bald head, beer belly. There were 30 of Those English Bastards. Needless to say a riot ensued with over 100 fans. It was pandelirium.
God. Bless. America.
I guess all of that warm beer and ugly women went to their heads and they forget a few things about the US in their drunken revelry.
First, I’m surprised that a fight even started. Shouting drunk Englishmen are not the easiest to understand. I’m sure to half the stadium, the West Ham hooligans sounded like goat boy from SNL. I can imagine two college students sitting with their inflatable soccer ball giveaway debating what the red-faced, spit spewing hooligans were trying to say. Maybe Those English Bastards bit their thumb at our fans. According to Shakespeare, that’s a big insult over there (see Romeo & Juliet). Akin to our flip off and crotch grabbing.
Secondly, if nothing else, we Yankees think we’ve got the greatest country in the world. Let’s re-say that … if there were three planets in this solar system that were all inhabited with humans or mutoids that closely resembled humans, we’d be convinced that we’re still the best … even in the face of anti-gravity tanks and plasma cannons from our Martian brothers. For most Americans, insulated and xenophobic as we are, we never get to see how other countries see us. Which is potentially not #1. Gasp!
When we travel abroad, we’re shocked when other people of other countries talk bad about us (and not just our President). People make American jokes and snicker. In foreign lands, we’re caught off guard, embarrassed, or quietly irritated. In our country, we dump tea into the Boston harbor.
Luckily, this match didn’t take place in Texas. Between the gun toting rednecks, the gun toting soccer moms, and gun toting Latino machismo, we’d be sending Those English Bastards home in body bags (thank you Colonel Trautman). Or Atlanta? I’m sure that even drunk Englishmen have the white man’s survival instinct around the brothers.
And third, we like to fight. In all of our 200+ years, we’ve fought everywhere and anywhere for as little as bananas and tobacco (1920s). In the entire span of our history, we’ve only been at peace for 15 years. In all of that time, our record is 234-0-1 (Vietnam was a tie).
Remember, this is the country were sports dads kill each other during their sons’ games. This is the country were even our ice skaters vie for first place with Celebrity Deathmatch rules. This is the country wear our Vice President goes on a drunken bender with his buddies and ends up shooting someone in the face. This is country were a drunk father-son duo jumped out of the stands and beat up a 54-year old first base coach.
Oklahoma (my home sweet home) can be considered fringe Midwest. We’re one of the only states in the union that held a PRO-war rally prior to Iraq II: the Revenge. Boxing wasn’t violent enough, so we invented MMA to satisfy our bloodlust while the legal issues of the Running Man are worked out.
More importantly, we like to fight, but we like to win even more. In the reports that I’ve read, there were 30 of Those English Bastards. The end result was that the skirmish involved more than 100 fans. Kudos to us. Can I sing the Backyardigans?
“What’s gonna work? TEAMWORK!”
How about we settle this the FOX way? You get your toughest English soccer player, say Wayne Rooney and we’ll put him against Ron Artest and just see what happens. Better yet, you grab your toughest soccer team and we’ll put him against Ron Artest and we’ll just see what happens. You’ll always have a place to play at Lucky’s, Ron-Ron.
So three cheers for the Yanks – sticking it to Those English Bastards with an iron toed boot to the arse. I’m not promoting violence. I’m not saying that we’re even decent at soccer. But I am saying if you send drunken soccer hooligans into our stadiums, they are going to catch a beat down.
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hahahaha vietnam were a tie? thats funny.
3o english supporters from west ham, who arent even hard… against 1oo columbus crew fans. and we still put up a better fight haha.
you said that you like to fight. but youve never won a war against us? (the american revolutionary war were seen as a civil war fought overseas). you cant fist-fight, thats why you ave guns n that. so in truth, you lot are jus a bunch of mouthy getts who bark but dont bite.
i’d love to see a fight between the more vicious hooligans (manchester united’s red army, millwall bushwackers, liverpool’s murderous firm, the list goes on…)
o and dont speak to me about gettin players to fight each other (you cant put a feirce, stocky lad against some bloke who is like 8ft tall, the two sports they play are different and it’d be suicide… for one of um). your argument is packed to th’ rim wi flaws. but in reality, any rugby player, of any nation, would tw*t the sh*t out of any of the USA’s sportsmen. yeah, even NFL.
you speak o’ the english as if they were all fat, bald blokes wi’ bad teeth, (btw the decription were quite funny) when actually, you lot are the ones who introduced processed, ‘angin food instead of a healthy leg of mutton. you think we’re all “queens english”, but your ignorance is mad cos there’s basically a different accent for every county, or even city, if you’d bothered to hear them, (yeah there is a north of england n all). even i can tell the difference between your country’s variation of accents, so you’re jus ignorant.
you say we’re all weak who dont like trouble, austrailia is made up of our convicts. you’ve obv never been t’towns and rough estates where people get killed with fist’s and knives (you dont like gettin up close and personal wi’ your enemy, smelling the blood as it drips from his eye, as you bite off his nose. no, you like to shoot and run (soz ‘ard).
but in fairness you lot are alright (even if you do kill half of our soldiers in iraq, c*nts), and i will return kindness to anyone who shows respect to my country and its history (every generation of people of england, have been involved in a war). we brought you knights, tanks, hobbits, pirates (yeah the tradition “argh” and “me hearties” is an english accent, get to kno), warm ale and a sh*tload more. but more importantly, we give life to a lot of you.
but because am strayng from the point, i want to finish wi the fact that footy is a game for the family and its jus a minority of mugging lads who buzz off punching and being punched who ruin it for everyone (who likes to fight now?).
all the best, n*bhead.
I’m not sure I understand half of what you wrote. But let me respond to what I think you said …
Firstly, I’m happy to commemorate our first soccer brawl and I’m happy it was with the old country. Normally, we only riot and loot after our teams win a World Series, NCAA championship, Superbowl, etc. So its nice to see us embracing true European hooliganism.
Secondly, don’t hate on Australia. Even though I’m not Australian, I live here and I like it. I like to think of it as England with nicer weather … and a lot of Asian influence. They took your games and handed it back to you. Ashes anyone? Also, how did noble England fair in the last World Cup? (Don’t mention the Yanks, I already know, and I’m still in therapy). Looks like this prison colony has one-upped you Pommies again.
Sure you could say that the USA just invented our own games to ensure that we’d be the best at them (baseball, gridiron, basketball, track & field … scratch that last one). You could call it cowardly … but I’m calling it ingenuity!
Yes, Vietnam was a tie and Iraq II is still undecided, but moving in that direction. Actually, it was a movie reference (A Fish Called Wanda) and very tongue-in-cheek. My wife is Southern Vietnamese, her father an ex-general, so I know full well our shortcomings over there.
England and the USA have fought twice. American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, both of which we won – which is evident, because we’re still Americans and not Brits. Thankfully, we haven’t had to face the ferocity of the English armies since … unlike the poor Falkland Islands. Oh, you lions you!
Actually, from what I’ve read in Tom Clancy your SAS are supposedly the best special ops in the world. So congrats on that. I’m sure that didn’t include Chuck Norris in the evaluation, though.
By the way, I play soccer with a bunch of Englishmen (and Bosnians, Chinese, French, etc) every Saturday. You can tell who they are because they are the fat, bald guys that like to play long ball and commence with cursing and headbutting after every play.
You are correct, I do have English blood running in my veins mixed in with German and American Indian. So instead of saying, we Americans fought you English in Columbus, I’ll say we Americans fought us English in Columbus. Now I’m confused.
Rugby is a tough sport. A boring sport, but tough. But the NFL? C’mon … clearly you haven’t seen Ray-Ray (that’s Ray Lewis). By the way, I’ll take the All Blacks any day over any side. Haka!
So thanks for the Beatles, Snatch, David Beckham, the 4th of July, and wool sweaters. You can take back Hugh Grant, English food in general, the Spice Girls, and Robbie Williams. And you can keep Madonna, as well.
Looking forward to the next brawl. Thanks for reading. Cheers!
well since you basically left on the subject of gridiron vs rugby now. you can have your views and i’ll ave mine. you can say that they wear armour, because obv its a rough contact sport. but methinks rugby is a lot feircer, considering the stamping etc. but you dont take into account that if rugby allowed high tackles (neck, head), it might make you thinks different. and its continuous, unlike NFL. but if you put jay jay against lawrence dallaglio, andrew sheridan or mike tindall, there would be no chance for his steroid-filled body (probably, the drug system is f*cked)against either of their pure natural power… but no doubt if you put him against sebastien chabal, he would get merked (and what if he’s french? we’re talkin bout rugby now).
am pretty sure the vietnamese won the vietnam war btw, considering many americans said that the “body count” theory were exaggerated, and did not reflect the true numbers. like i said… at the time, the american revolutionary war were seen as a civil war fought overseas. and am gunna look up on the war of 1812 so i can bitch about it (me not familiar wi it).
we do pack the meanest headbutts in the world – fact. and we ave also been in continuous wars, just alot longer than you. hence we love to fight morerer.
all am sayin is dont be so f*ckin stereotypical about us. its insults like that which are the reason most of us hate you.
… and bleedin’ cricket is better than baseball >:D
I can’t say that baseball is better than cricket … because they both suck. Living in Australia though, I’ve garnered a liking to Andrew Symonds and even Andrew Flintoff. But I will say that baseball is hardly the American pasttime anymore, more like the Dominican Republic or Cuba.
I first saw Sebastien Chabal at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and I’ll even admit that l’Homme des Cavernes is freaking cool … even for a Frenchie.
Since you’re not catching the sarcasm, let me say it outright. We lost the Vietnam War. Body counts don’t matter as it was their primary strategy anyway. We had one objective, keep South Vietnam from being communist and avoid the Domino Effect in Asia. I was in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) last year and let me assure you, its pretty damned communist.
BTW, being stereotypical about English soccer hooligans rioting in Ohio (soccer moms and mini-vans) is funny. We fought 100 vs. 30 against the Hammer fans – that is funny. We fought at an exhibition game – that is funny.
You have to understand that the average person in the stadium, its different than England. 1. Mum and her soccer playing kids. 2. The little league coach. 3. The occassional Latino (but not in Columbus). And 4. Corporate seats for uninterested suits. We don’t have rabid fans (notable exception Boston vs. New York) and for the most part we don’t understand hooliganism. Why spend so much money for tickets, flight, and hotel only to get arrested?
And its American soccer. It’d be like the Canadians wanted to fight during a curling match or something.
I’m just taking the piss out of you Brits – Lord knows that we Americans have had our fair share.
lmfao! soz am a bit thick mate but this argument has gone on long enough, it pisses me off how you’re not gettin angry and sendin back abuse (however retarded it is over the internet). cricket is sh*t, that were a joke, never watched baseball. you did win the war of 1812 (even though we killed more and lost less >:D). in the falklands we werent fghtin the actual population, we were merkin the argie bargie’s.
ive read some of your other post’s and they are quite funny, you’ve won me over and i am sorry for the initial ill-feeling.
we are the world…. We are the children… We are the ones to make a brighter day, so let’s start giving…
There can be peace in our time!
Pussycat-
I adore the way you’re able to write like limey’s really sound!