World Cup: The hell of Vuvuzela

The World Cup may not have officially begun but I’m already viewing the tournament with grave concern. I’m currently in New York and kicked off my World Cup with Saturday’s innocently billed friendly between the USA and Australia. Other than existing in the confused world of ESPN, the game initially appeared an enticing proposition – two teams who try and play football and each possessing a player always worth watching in Landon Donovan and Marco Bresciano. But then the game started and everything went terribly wrong.

You’ve maybe already heard of the Vuvuzela, if not you soon will. It’s a long, thin plastic trumpet that South African football fans take great delight in blowing during football matches. Some people, morons I think is the term, say that the Vuvuzela adds colour and atmosphere to the occasion. It doesn’t add either of those things. What the Vuvuzela does is drive you to sanity’s troubled fringes.

For the USA-Australia game the small stadium had probably five thousand people in it. It must also be assumed that only a minority of those in attendance were in possession of a Vuvuzela. Yet the racket generated was horrific. Similar to a herd of baby elephants in distress, it swamped any other sound coming from the crowd and the commentators had to battle to be heard. In the full or nearly full stadiums that are to come, the effect will be ludicrous.

It might seem churlish for an armchair supporter to begrudge paying customers their enjoyment but my concern is for a far greater good – the mental health of British commentators Clive Tyldesley and Guy Mowbray . They have six weeks of the Vuvuzela ahead of them. In the opening matches, as they sit perched above the hooting masses, they’ll swap wry observations with the studio about trying to “hear themselves think”. Then the matter will be quietly dropped and then the two men will sink into very private hells. Just watch them in the World Cup’s fagend stage. Gone will be the thumbs up to camera when they do the changeover. Instead you will see two pale and drawn men, jumpy and easily rattled.

For Tyldesley and Mowbray, I fear this won’t be an affliction that ends with the World Cup. I hope the Vuvuzela users have their fun but come Christmas, when Tyldesley’s great aunt, or Mowbray’s brother-in-law lets rip with a toy trumpet fresh from the cracker and the commentator involuntarily leaps over the turkey and strangles them in front of a horrified family, who wins then? At least I for one can say I offered a warning.

Getty Images

Recent Posts on Sport - Latest analysis on the Sporting world -

• Via the World: From the Kuroshiocurrent to capsizing
• UFC: Dan 'The Outlaw' Hardy to make last stand
• 'Everyone will be crossing their fingers for Bayern Munich' - and so they should
• iBet: The next Aston Villa manager
• 'The things you have to do to throw a stick a long way'