Footballing weirdos
A few years back now, the English football team I follow quite passionately - West Ham (although i was born in, and live in - Australia...my maternal Grandad was English, and introduced me very early to the joys of supporting the Hammers.) were playing in an important FA Cup tie...

So I searched online for a likely place to watch this game amongst fellow antipodean West Ham supporters - and found an internet forum for such people as I (well so i thought, anyway)...and lo and behold, they were planning a get together to watch this very game - at the main sports bar at the Sydney Casino - where the main TV screen is a good 25-30 feet acrross, so I thought 'You Beauty!'

Anyway - I joined & chatted with them on this forum for a fortnight or 3 weeks or so - and they seemed relatively normal, and being mad keen sports fans - I thought 'No problem! We'll all get along like a house on fire!'...and so then headed off on game night to meet them at said sports bar at the appointed time in positive spirits - Getting there about 2hrs before kickoff the idea being to give us time to get a few drinks in before kickoff and get to introduce ourselves, and get to know one another etc etc...

And well - OH MY!!!...A bigger bunch of freaky-ass geek-freaks I have rarely encountered before!...And most of them ex-pat Englishmen, it must be said!...And akin to one of the above stories - the first thing to start to clang the alarm bells was the fact they all INSISTED on referring to one another by Usernames the whole time, and indeed pretty much - actively FROWNED upon using real names - despite me asking politely at least half a dozen times that they call me by my Christian name - and not my username.

This disturbed me for one...then when we went one goal down early on - the tears - the actual TEARS that flowed - from grown men - despite this goal coming only about halfway in the first half - just ONE goal - disturbed me even further...then, when West Ham equalised just before halftime - the hugs and kisses - full on the lips in some cases - that followed were bizarre...and then - one completely uninvited bear hug and a sloppy whiskery beery smacker from a 100kg+ almost total stranger on a completely unwilling cheek - was the absolute last straw for me!

So come halftime a few minutes later, I excused myself, saying I was off to the pisser...and then headed immediately to one of the upstairs sports bars at the casino to watch the 2nd half by myself.

I have never since tried to meet up with any such groups off the internet...And I don;t think I ever will. Scarred for life.
(Ecky Thump Mozzarella you eh?!, Fri 17 Mar 2006, 11:27, Reply)