Soccer Violence

A few weeks ago I was at the A-League soccer match that took place at Aurora Stadium here in Launceston; with Melbourne Victory taking on Gold Coast in a hotly contested match. The score was nil-all at half time and it wasn’t until the 60^th minute, when Harry Kewell’s free kick outside the box found the back of the next, that the scoring was finally opened; 1-0 to Melbourne Victory.

The match was very tense after that, with the match threatening to boil over as players from both teams let their emotions known. Deep into stoppage time, Gold Coast Captain Ivan Thiwate managed to slip past the Melbourne defenders and score a goal with a thunderous shot outside the penalty box. The match ended in a 1-1 draw, with Gold Coast playing better out of the two teams. But the actual game itself was not the only talking point of the night.

Early in the second half the Melbourne Victory supporters in the Eastern Terrence of the stadium (I was in the Gunns Stand with my family), lit some flares. Firstly they lit up a smokescreen, which let off a lot of red smoke and also resulted in their being an ominous red glow that was very visible from the other side of the ground where I was seated. They then threw a flare into the penalty box of the Melbourne goalkeeper, who simply threw the flare back into the stands. Then they shot two flares across the ground using a flare gun. The two flares narrowly missed the Gunns stand, and they definitely gave me a fright. After the game the Melbourne Victory supporters let off flares in Tamar Street, which is not far from the stadium. No Melbourne victory supporters involved in both incidents were arrested by the police, with the police saying that they “couldn’t identify anyone”.

The next day, there were reports from Egypt saying that 74 people had died in a stadium disaster, with hundreds more injured. After soccer match spectators stormed onto the soccer, with many people being trampled to death. Fans then lit the stands on fire, which resulted in many people dying from burns, and others were beaten to death. The aftermath of the disaster was colossal, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the street and protesting. Two people died in the protest, which caused more anger in a country that was still dealing with the consequences for the Arab Spring protests; which resulted in the fall of the ruling Egyptian government. In the Egyptian disaster, it was reported that police failed to do anything as people were dying all around them. They did nothing as the riot started to take full shape.

Back to the A-League game; the police didn’t do anything until the flares were fired, and even then they didn’t do much. The police were on the other side of the ground, when it happened and had to walk all the way to the other side of the ground. What is even more disappointing is the fact that the police did not charge anybody for lighting the flares, which suggests that these hardcore fans can get away with anything.

Some people take their soccer too seriously. We look at these “thugs” and think that what they are doing is wrong, and yes it is wrong, but they are too involved in soccer violence that they can’t escape it. It’s like trying to get out of a gang, or escape a terrorist group. Poor police reaction has only fuelled more violence, as the police aren’t a deterrent for any of these people doing violent things.

It is a sad thing to say, but soccer violence has become a part of the sporting landscape now. We all know that it occurs and that these people aren’t easily intimidated. We, as soccer fans, are just going to have to live knowing that these things happen and continue supporting the game for the positives that it has. Sometimes it takes a tragic event to change a whole group of people’s, or even a whole country, to change someone’s perception on something. It took a tragedy like Hillsborough to change people’s perception of soccer violence in the UK, and hopefully it won’t take something like that to deter violent soccer fans here in Australia; as I don’t know what else we are able to do.

My Rock Star Moment

On Friday the 13^th of January, 2012, I had my first ever “rock star experience”. It was at Newstead College and I was on stage with a 5 piece band playing “Wreckage” by Parkway Drive (I was playing the bass guitar). Before going on stage we had coordinated our own stage moves; for example, we decided to do the “running man” during the verse, and in the chorus we decided to synchronised head banging. During the breakdown of the song I put my left foot onto the foldback and the people in the moshpit started yelling my name and reached out to touch me. At that moment I felt a massive rush of blood through my body and I felt like a rockstar at that moment. It was one of the most surreal and amazing moments of my life. At the end of the song my friend ran onto the stage and gave me a hug, which was incredibly unexpected and random. I just wish that somebody had film that performance (if anybody did film it then please let me know).

From Monday the 9^th, through to Friday the 13^th, I attended a summer program called Rock School, which was held at Newstead College. This was my eighth year at Rock School (I have been going since I was 10 years old), and even though I knew what to expect, I had a few surprises during the week. As well as learning about your specific musical instrument and have special masterclasses from very experienced musicians. Every person is also placed into a band, and at the end of the week (on the Friday), they perform a song in front of a large audience. In addition to the Friday concert, an acoustic performance was also held on the Thursday afternoon, in which people would go up onto the stage with their acoustic guitars and random assortment of percussion instruments, and perform to the Rock School students and supportive parents who came to support their child.

During the week I made new friends, caught up with old friends who I had met at previous rock schools, played a heavy metal song at the Friday concert, played another song where we had synchronised dance moves & towards the end of the song play the bass guitar behind my head (to a massive cheer from the energetic crowd), played the song “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake at the acoustic concert (it really impressed the ladies), asked every music tudor if they could play dubstep on their chosen instrument (none of them could), introduced the word “cray” into everybody’s vocabulary (thank you Kanye West), made inappropriate comments about a certain someone’s hot MILF mother (you know who you are), got told that I should become a stand up comedian (not the first time I have been told that), showed everybody a dance move I created (I called it “The Simmo”), taught Bollywood dance moves to people (“screw the light bulb, and pat the dog”), attempted to explain the plotline to the Bollywood film “Fanna”(they didn’t fully understand it), explained how I cried during the film “My Sisters Keeper” (the beach scene and when the main character dies), did the whole “skinny, fat, skinny, fat” thing (you have to see it to understand it), told everyone what the capital of Thailand was (Bangkok), and did a very weird dance around the Cafeteria to Sexyback (it was strange to say the least).

My mother pretty much summed up the week in a speech that she gave after Rock School finished: “When you go to rock school, you seem to come out of your shell. When you’re at school you act really shy and seem to feel uncomfortable at times. When you go to rock school you are around people who you feel more comfortable with and as a result, you do and say things that you would normally do at school. After your performance today a woman came up to me and asked whether my son was on drugs, and I replied by saying that I don’t know if he is on something or not. One of the mothers, who spent time around the school during the week said that you walked around the school as though you owned the place, and whenever people saw you they crowded around you and hanged off every word you said. She said that you were the centre of attention, and everybody loved you. Now hurry up and finish you Beef Vindaloo curry before it goes cold,” (she didn’t really say that last sentence).

I have been called a “Hipster” by many people, but I don’t think that I am one though. Yes, I do listen to obscure music and wear skinny jeans, but that is where my affiliation with the hipster subculture ends. In my opinion there are two factors that determine whether a person is a hipster or not; the music aspect, and the fashion aspect. I personally see myself to be only adhering to 1.25 aspects of the 2 aspects that determine if someone is a hipster; which is fine by me because apparently girls find hipster boys attractive and hot, so by being labelled a hipster, I have increased my chances of scoring with the sexy ladies.

A hipster is a person who is regarded highly for their eclectic music tastes; they are always on the lookout for new music, but still have a strong respect for older music as well. To find new music, hipster folk listen to independent or college radio stations (here in Australia hipsters listen to Triple J, and the presenters on the radio station are regarded to be music gods, even though they have no discernable musical talent), read various music publications (such as Pitchfork, NME, Triple J Magazine, Q Magazine and virtually every other music publication that has not had Justin Bieber on their front cover or homepage), and look at the millions of music blogs that exist on the internet (you are looking at one right now, although I don’t just write about music............obviously). To find old music, hipsters are usually found in independent music stores (not in JB Hi-Fi or the CD section of Kmart), and once you enter the store, I can guarantee that the hipster will be in the vinyl section of the store flicking vicariously through the large amounts of records on offer.

By dedicating this time and effort to finding new and old music, hipsters can brag to all of their non-hipster friends (hipsters usually hang out with other hipsters, but I am presuming that a hipster would have at least one normal friend), explaining how they have found the next big thing in avant-garde Hip-Hop, or how they have discovered a new genre of music called Witch House (if I was writing this blog post in 2010 I would have said Chillwave instead of Witch House), and they would show their friends the limited edition vinyl of Kraftwerk’s first album (the vinyl CD would also contain 3-D cover artwork, demos of all the songs that feature on the album, B-sides, and cover versions of all the songs on the album by now forgotten 70’s disco bands, as well as the album itself.........................which has been remastered so that the backing vocals on all the tracks are actually cat noises that the band recorded in their homes while being stoned). Hipsters also brag about how they knew about indie bands before they became mainstream; telling everyone how they knew about Foster The People more than a year ago (I actually told people that), how they listened to Gotye’s songs and albums years before he had his “hit song” (I also told people that), how they heard La Roux months before they had their “one hit wonder” (I told people that, and I made it very clear that I had heard other songs by them as well),  how they knew R.E.M when they were actually a indie band (if I was a teenager I would have definitely have told people that), they would tell people how they discovered Adele before she was famous (I actually heard her three years ago and hated her), and how they were listening to Dubstep before everyone else was(I was actually listening to it when I was 13, no joke).

A hipster’s worse nightmare is when their favourite band enters the mainstream. In the 70’s hipsters would have cried tears of sadness when Kraftwerk started entering the charts, 80’s hipsters would have a nervous breakdown when the Cure became the biggest band after spending years under the radar, and hipsters from the 90’s would have committed suicide when Nirvana suddenly became the biggest band in the world (it was ridiculously sudden, not even psychics would have predicted the revolution that was about to occur). I have experienced the pain of my favourite band of my primary school years became mainstream, Gorillaz. It was only meant to be a side project for Blur lead singer Damon Albarn and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, who both collaborated to create the world’s first virtual band. Their self titled debut album was moderately successful, it surpassed all expectations, but wasn’t an out-of-this-world success. I absolutely loved this band from the start. The band could loosely be described as Hip-Hop, but they combined Hip-Hop, Rock, Electro, Pop, World and soul music together in a strange combination that became the Gorillaz trademark style. Their second album, Demon Days, was released in 2005 and is still one of my favourite albums of all time. The album was a massive hit; thanks to the success of the debut single Feel Good Inc. The song was number 1 on charts around the world and suddenly my favourite band, my little secret (it wasn’t that secret, they weren’t exactly an unknown band), was now known to the whole world.

The second aspect of hipsterism (is that even a word???), is the fashion side. Without hipster fashion it is hard to tell whether a person is a hipster or not. Male hipsters typically wear the following:

• -        Loafers or Doc Martins shoes (or just any shiny shoe)
• -        Skinny Jeans
• -        Chequered button shirts
• -        Cardigans
• -        Scarves (not completely necessary, but they make you look more like a douche, which is what the objective of hipster fashion is)
• -        Glasses (again it’s not completely necessary, but even hipsters who don’t have any problems with their eyesight wear them)

A  As a result, this is what a typical male hipster will look like:

Female hipsters follow the same fashion style as male hipsters, but they wear “cute” shoes with heels and colourful, arty dresses. Personally, I find female hipsters to be very pretty and super hot; I don’t know why, but I have a thing for them. Just like how some guys have foot fetishes and schoolgirl fetishes (that kind of thing creepy, because if you want to see that type of porn you have to be over 18, and therefore people who look at schoolgirl porn are paedophiles), I have a thing for hot hipster girls (I don’t think that type of porn exists, not that I have tried looking it up or anything). When you type “hot hipster girls” into Google images (with safesearch on, of course), this is what you will find:

Hipsters are cool and uncool at the same time. They are cutting edge and ahead of the pack in terms of music and fashion, which makes them cool; but they also don’t listen to the same music and wear the same clothes as people who are generally considered to be cool, so they are uncool. I have actually come to the conclusion that Hipsters do not exist, because there is not a way to define a hipster; they are just a stereotype that everyone else (who isn’t a hipster), has created. So therefore this 1,236 word blog post is pointless and stupid..................................great.