Is Booing in Football Acceptable Behavior?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dr Wu
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
Sign up Log in
9 replies · 1K views
Dr Wu
Messages
184
Reaction score
42
I don't know if my ears were playing tricks on me, but while watching the England v Croatia match the other day, I distinctly heard what sounded like massed booing being directed at the Croatian players, invariably while Croatia had the ball. What really struck home, however, was the dearth of any criticism coming from the media afterwards about this unsporting behaviour. Indeed, I don't recall either of the two BBC match commentators drawing attention to it while it was happening. It could be, of course, that I imagined it, or else I'm in urgent need of treatment from an ear specialist. . . what?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Dr Wu said:
I don't know if my ears were playing tricks on me, but while watching the England v Croatia match the other day, I distinctly heard what sounded like massed booing being directed at the Croatian players, invariably while Croatia had the ball. What really struck home, however, was the dearth of any criticism coming from the media afterwards about this unsporting behaviour. Indeed, I don't recall either of the two BBC match commentators drawing attention to it while it was happening. It could be, of course, that I imagined it, or else I'm in urgent need of treatment from an ear specialist. . . what?
As long as it's not racially-motivated booing, it's all part of the beautiful game.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: russ_watters, pinball1970 and DrClaude
I think it interesting that the "approved" level of booing varies from sport to sport. American baseball: absolutely. Soccer (yeah soccer): certainly. Ice Hockey: ye. Pugilism: surely Basketball: less I think. Football (yeah football): less ? Golf: You get the point. Maybe it has more to do with crowd size. Although British fans are legend.
 
I think they are at 1/3 or 1/4 capacity but I have no idea whether the sound we hear is purely from the fans or is at least in part artificially generated - they've had quite a while now to perfect the artificial crowd noise.

Booing of opposition players is par for the course, but booing the anthem of the opposing team is disappointing. I try to tell myself that it comes from a small minority of the crowd but who knows?
 
hutchphd said:
I think it interesting that the "approved" level of booing varies from sport to sport. American baseball: absolutely. Soccer (yeah soccer): certainly. Ice Hockey: ye. Pugilism: surely Basketball: less I think. Football (yeah football): less ? Golf: You get the point. Maybe it has more to do with crowd size. Although British fans are legend.
And frowned upon in tennis.
 
Dr Wu said:
I don't know if my ears were playing tricks on me, but while watching the England v Croatia match the other day, I distinctly heard what sounded like massed booing being directed at the Croatian players, invariably while Croatia had the ball. What really struck home, however, was the dearth of any criticism coming from the media afterwards about this unsporting behaviour. Indeed, I don't recall either of the two BBC match commentators drawing attention to it while it was happening. It could be, of course, that I imagined it, or else I'm in urgent need of treatment from an ear specialist. . . what?
Nothing wrong with booing, it’s a sign of disapproval.
I have booed the opposition, the referee, the opposing fans and my own players.
For foul play poor play poor ref-fing or for being Liverpool.
If there was no booing the game would not sound competitive or even real.

There was about 22,000 fans at that match and its worth noting that when we were in lock down with no fans allowed they dubbed fan sounds onto the games.

That included booing and disapproval whistling.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: hutchphd and PeroK
DrClaude said:
And frowned upon in tennis.
Depends on the context

I will never forget this guy, he ended up being a commentator in the UK too!
Very calm measured and professional these days!

Worth watching all the way through but 5.50 onwards for a bit of jeering and booing