4 does certainly not go into 3

My mouth has always gotten me into trouble. Back chatting matrics in Std 6, sniggering at the big fat Dutchmen’s purple LA Gear’s in the Wheel shopping centre, laughing at the ridiculously short lady from down the road coz she sat on a cushion to drive. But they only ever ended in a black eye, a bloody lip or a severe hiding. When you suddenly start posting things online you discover the anonymity you thought you had isn’t so anonymous. Here’s the story.

Few weekends back we had an all you can eat buffet of sport to watch. Now not having a Sports Cafe or a Walkabout with multiple televisions makes sport gluttony a little more tricky. So the horny Malawian and I head to Mitchells at the Waterfront coz rumour has it they can show not one not two but three channels simultaneously. Here’s what we had.
London 7′s, IPL final, and a couple of meaningless football games.

It turns out a bunch of ex pats or misguided South Africans have set up little mini football supporters clubs at Mitchells. Now you have 4 different sports events and only 3 channels, something has to give. This would have been my order of priority. Correct me if I’m wrong.
1) London Rugby 7′s – Bokke are playing. Nuff said.
2) IPL Final – most prestige, SA has honour of hosting it and an Indian couple has just sat down, bought drinks and are eagerly awaiting the match.
3) Newcastle vs West Brom – Newcastle could have and eventually were relegated (air punch)
4) Chelsea vs Sunderland – completely meaningless. Chelsea could not win the premiershop and hopefully never will again. Sunderland could not be relegated.

So what gets bumped. You will not belive me if I told you. The flippin IPL final. I kid you not. Poor Indian couple were incensed but when faced with mindless and suspiciously inbred Chelsea fans their despair fell on frighteningly uneven, deaf ears. I would have spoken up but I could see that the London 7′s was enjoying a very fragile place on the TV in front of me and would have been sacrificed instead.

This is where it gets interesting. I’m still seething at work the next day and submit a post to Hello Peter, calling the Mitchells management out on the issue. Challenging their ridiculous prioritistion of sports events. Knowing full well I will never here anything and that they clearly will do anything to keep their regulars happy. However, in my rant I may have called all football fans yobbos. Which is kinda stupid seeing that I consider myself a football fan.

Weeks go by and I had completely forgotten about the post. Today I get a facebook message from the official SA Reds supporters club asking me nicely not to refer to football fans as yobbos. Can I just say to the very polite gentleman, as a United fan myself, the yobbos comment was directed solely at the Chelsea fans. There was no request to watch the United game against Hull on that weekend as, unlike Chelsea, United had already won the premiership.

To conclude, am i completely off base here? We are in South Africa, regardless of who visits that pub, it is a South African pub and must surely align its priorities accordingly. I don’t care if they call themselves a Scottish Ale House, my opinion is they did themselves a complete disservice that day.

And while I am ranting (again), the V&A Waterfront have now removed the last 2 areas of free parking. Such greed.