Pitch Invasion

The Booing of Frank Lampard is, according to Reuters Soccer Blog (generally a great blog, by the way), a reflection of the worst of English culture over the past several hundred years. Mr. Frank Lampard, the Victim, has been randomly selected by England fans to be the subject of bizarre and unjustified criticism.

The case against Frank seems to be this: He had a poor World Cup for England last year. He plays for Chelsea. He kisses the badge every time he scores and he earns a fortune. Ergo, he has come to embody the very worst aspects of the money-laden Premier League.

But a number of those points apply to other members of the England team. True, they might not play for Chelsea, but they all earn a fortune and many of them had a poor World Cup.

Why is the Random Booing of Frank Lampard, the Victim, taking place? It’s all down to today’s “blame culture spawned by reality TV shows that owe much of their popularity to public humiliation.” This culture is the heir to “the type who would have enjoyed throwing rotten apples at some jackanape in the village stocks 300 years ago.”

We must not take the vilification of Mr. Frank Lampard, the Victim, lightly. Some might think it’s as harmless as panto, but let us not be mistaken as to the Seriousness of all of this.

England fans were vilified for their thuggery throughout the 1970s and 1980s. That may have changed for the better, but is booing one of their own players really much better?

Well, yes: it is indeed “better” to subject a very rich, arrogant and overrated footballer to some not particularly vile verbal abuse than to go around Europe beating the shit out of everyone and smashing the hell out of the place. It might not be the Height of Civilisation to boo one’s own player, but it’s not actually a crime.

Photo courtesy of lisam2002 on Flickr.