Thursday, November 8, 2007

Beckham outshone by streaker

Here are the highlights of last night's game between the Vancouver Whitecaps and David Beckham. Oh, I mean the LA whatsits. Whoever he plays for.

  1. The streaker who managed a whole lap of the field before he got taken down.
  2. The guy who had the guts to propose to his girlfriend in front of 48,000 people (she said yes. Well, she kissed him a lot so that's what I'm assuming.)
  3. The crowd laughing and then taking over during O Canada when it became clear that the singer did not have a very firm grasp of the words.
  4. Some guy in a Beckham replica shirt getting taken out by 3 security guards when he tried to approach the player after the game.

The football? Meh. It wasn't exactly English Premier League standard, but they do let you drink beer in your seat so that's something. It must be pretty weird for Beckham if every one of his games is like last night's. The crowd cheered and screamed every time he touched the ball, and he got covered in paper streamers and confetti every time he took a corner kick. The percentage of the crowd who understood the offside rule was pretty low, but then again you could say the same about the Whitecaps in the first half1.

BC Place is a cool venue though. The roof is supported by air, so it's a bit of a scrum trying to get out of the tiny exits that are designed not to let too much of it out, but when you do make it you're rewarded by a huge rush of air that pushes you through the door. Awesome.

1To be fair to the Caps, I've seen them destroy an alleged Premiership team before - the Mackems on a pre-season tour. It was excellent. I wore my Newcastle United shirt and got lots of abuse from the travelling fans, most of it friendly. They have some decent players (the Whitecaps, not the Mackems) and I think I might start going to some more games.

4 comments:

  1. Must be a tough life to be cheered and showered by confetti all the time at work! :-)

    And what is it with these singers not knowing the words to national anthems? It's not like they didn't know which song they were expected to perform....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, the anthem singing was pretty disgraceful.

    You know, I kinda felt sorry for Beckham. At Man Utd and Real Madrid he was a great player in an excellent team. He played games that people actually cared about. Now he's a good player reduced to a freak show. I hope he likes all the confetti because the football can't be as satisfying as it was in the Premiership / La Liga / Champions League / World Cup.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, I see your point. But he must have known this is what he was signing up for with the Galaxy.

    He's actually one of the fortunate ones. All professional athletes have a limited "lifespan" in the sport, and few have the star power to command this kind of salary toward the end of their careers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess so. I wonder if he'll see out his entire 5 year contract? The Galaxy just got rid of their manager and appointed Ruud Gullit, who almost destroyed my beloved Newcastle United when he was manager, so it will be interesting to see what happens!

    ReplyDelete

I promise to respond to all respectful non-spam comments! Don't be shy! Oh, and please don't type my surname in your comments; I know you all know what it is, but I'd prefer Google to rank other pages before this blog.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.