2008-2009 football(soccer) thread - Page 75

On June 18 2009 03:53 Daigomi wrote:


Haha, welcome to South Africa, and I'm glad that those horns are there, love the atmosphere.

For those not from South Africa, those horns are called Vuvuzelas (vu rhymes with poo, ze as in zeh not zee), and they look like this:



They're found at any South African sports event, although they're primarily used at football games. Recently with the world cup coming, there's been some controversy regarding vuvuzelas as some people have argued that they create enough noise to harm people nearby's hearing, or just generally that they're annoying. Banning them would suck though, as they're an integral part of South African football and footballing culture.

You also get a smaller version of the vuvuzela which is sometimes called a vuvizela (with the "ee" sound indicating a smaller object in many South African languages), which is supposed to make an even bigger noise than the vuvuzela. However, the bigger ones are sold more often and are still the noise making tool preferred by most fans.

There are quite a few traditions regarding the vuvuzela, but the most popular one is that the supporters who make the most noise in the last quarter of the game will blow their opponents off the pitch, so you'll generally hear the noise levels pick up at the end of the game.

Vuvuzelas were initially banned by FIFA for the 2010 and the confed cup, but the South African football association argued that the WC wouldn't be a proper South African WC without vuvuzelas, so the ban was lifted for both the WC and confed cup. So yeah, get used to them, and if you're coming to South Africa for some of the games, get your own vuvuzela and make some noise :p It's more difficult than it looks.