Booing shows your lack of class

2011-10-18 10:58

It’s windy, chilly, drizzly and generally gloomy in Cape Town this morning. Despite the less than summery weather, though, I know that it’s cricket season in South Africa.

You know how I know that it’s cricket season? I know because it took exactly one match for the morons to crawl out of the woodwork, fill their cretinous guts with stupidity and barf it all over the Wanderers as Graeme Smith made his way to the crease on Sunday.

At present there is no way that you would confuse Smith as a batsman riding a wave of imperious form. Rather, he’s exactly the opposite. So out of it, so (seemingly) lacking in timing and confidence, that when he loses his wicket you breathe a sigh of relief because he’s been put out of his misery for another day or two, and you can now enjoy the cricket without the suffering on your sofa.

Perhaps even playing Smith in the two Twenty20 matches against the Aussies was a bit unfair. There are certainly more suitable candidates floating around to open the batting in the hit-and-giggle form of the game. Why rush the big man back?

If the Test captain is going to find any form before the criminally short Test series against Australia gets underway, surely he would be better served playing for his franchise in the SuperSport Series, battering average bowlers around the countryside as opposed to edging his way to an inglorious 26 in three overs (also, is the SuperSport Series the only tournament in the world sponsored by a television station, but gets no television coverage?).

Booing for braincells

Still, even if Smith was in sparkling form and walloping sixes over extra-cover with his eyes closed, he’d still get booed. And all that does, alleged cricket fans, is show your lack of class. The same can be said of those Springbok ‘fans’ who have (or had) nothing but ill-minded vitriol to spew towards John Smit.

It’s probably a small minority, but it’s an infuriating minority nonetheless. Booers should be treated with the same contempt as pitch invaders and New Zealand rugby referees. Booing is up there with texting in the cinema, jumping line in a winding queue or pooping on the pavement. An upstanding citizen would never consider doing any of the above, so why do they boo? And towards your own countrymen at that…

The same happens every year at the local leg of the IRB Sevens Series, previously in George but soon to be held in Port Elizabeth. Young South Africans, mostly in their early or mid-twenties run out to represent the BlitzBokke, and certain (local) elements in the crowd deem it appropriate to boo the team in green and gold.

I’m all for having an opinion. Like assholes, everyone has one. But booing doesn’t cut it as an informed outlook. It simply marks you as a being of lower class, too inarticulate to express your thoughts coherently or too dull to bite your tongue in the heat of the moment and too quick to go with the flow when the injudicious masses start to topple under the weight of their beer mug towers.

A man (or woman) who represents the country on the sports field (or anywhere on the international stage) does so because of talent, or because they have the necessary grit to make it where others can’t. I dare say that the typical booer has neither quality, and is stuck in some menial workplace day in and day out, enjoying those Excel spreadsheets, hey?

And I know. I know what you clowns think. “Oh, I pay the players salary. I pay to watch. I’m entitled to boo or shout because I pay blah blah I’m a dumbass.”

Actually, no, you’re not. You’re entitled to watch your team live, and remember how lucky you are that you have a national team to support. You’re entitled to enjoy it, or not enjoy it and discuss the reasons why in a civilised manner, but you’re not entitled to sit there, like a slobbering caveman, and boo. In short, shut the hell up and watch the cricket.

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