breakfast at murrayfield

Good evening, and welcome to “That oval shaped thing, you see – that’s a ball“.

Tonight we’ll try and explain those 80,000 people that attended the Italy v New Zealand game in Milan today that booing (even by means of whistling, like Italians usually do — yes, when you hear Italians whistling in a stadium or in a theatre, they’re actually booing.) during a rugby match only means you’re a footie nutter who only went to San Siro because it was *the event* — as you actually had no clue of who’s who on the pitch, why there are fifteen players per side, why they don’t make a scene every time they fall on the ground nor yell abuse to each other or to the referee like footballers do and — OMG, why aren’t there any goalkeepers?

Today issue of Gazzetta dello sport even had a two pages spread to explain you lot the basic rules, players positions and roles, what’s a scrum, what’s a ruck, what’s a maul, what’s a lineout, what’s a tackle et al, still I guess they forgot to tell you that YOU SHOULDN’T BOO.

That’s right, in rugby you cheer and don’t boo.

You don’t boo your team when they’re not playing well — you support them even more than when they’re playing well, as you’re the sixteenth player.

You don’t boo the opponents — that’s just an unsportive behaviour.

You don’t boo the referee, even if he didn’t award your team a try — because *you know* that the ref didn’t award something important to your team, now if only you could remember what’s the name of that thing they do when they smash that oval thing beyond the white line… ah, whatever. Let’s just boo! — as if you do so you’re not just plain unpolite towards the referee, but you actually end up annoying the players as well, as, in case you didn’t know, they can hear you, too. It’s not that you’re capable of selective booing so that only the ref will get that, everybody on the pitch will, even the ones your booing isn’t addressed to.

You just don’t boo. Period.

But of course you don’t know all this, you were there ‘cos you had to be there so that you can tell everything about that to la Leti, la Bubi, il Dudi and il Giangi during the next ape do while sipping spritz.

Next time, please, either keep these simple rules in mind and stick to them (it’s easy: don’t boo.) or do us all a favour: stay at home.