Soccer/Football

I was referring more to Hillsborough than Heysel, of course. It's the Juve fans that were the victims at Heysel. I think everyone understood what I meant but I just want to make sure I spell it out. Neither tragedy should have happened.

I was living in the US during both tragedies, and watched both being covered by ESPN in a "look at those animals. Well, what do you expect?" fashion that just infuriated me.

Some of us remember the cameraderie, the accessibility, the joy and togetherness of the terraces in the good old days. Football in the top flight these days is truly an anodyne experience by comparison.

I attended a Seattle Sounders game a few months ago. It was genuinely weird, I thought. Perfectly family friendly and all that, and with none of the sort of masculine abuse of opposition players European fans would expect, but it seemed most fans weren't even paying attention to the game itself. Eerie in a way.

I'll have to write an OP about that experience some day.