Davis Cup: Hooters Destroy The Experience

         Despite being the birthplace of one of the most horrific tyrants in human history, Austria, from what I have seen and heard is a wondrous place. If you ever want to go skiing you know exactly where to go, the landscape is inspirational.

However today I have to say I became just a little bit aggravated by country famed for its solace, and aggravated for something so trivial as well!

Stereotypes can be a demeaning feature, or they can be a defining feature; maybe sometimes they can be both. If you were to generalise the behaviour of sports fanatics you’d probably say that F1 fans come with a pack mentality and on any day can spectacularly overshadow the noise from within the engines of the competing cars. Football fans are generally boisterous, loud and sadly sometimes exaggerated to the point of violence. A beer in one hand, a hotdog in the other the image that comes to mind.

        Tennis supporters on the other hand seem fairly controlled; as if a worldwide agreement had been made so that at any match in any country the fans awarded consistent whilst also respectful praise to the player’s achievements. As tennis supporters we follow every single point with such intensity and curiosity that we don’t get overcome with testosterone; we don’t shout profanities or hurl abuse at minor mistakes. We are more interested in the complex nature and construction of the points than deciding on minute errors.

         And tennis fans, being those of a controlled stature allow their voices ,and voices alone to create a sound wave penetrating the player’s ears with encouragement.

         The Austrians, disappointingly, seemed to go against such a stereotype during the final deciding match of the Davis Cup encounter with Great Britain.  They ushered in the demonic and irritating sound of hooters into the stands. Every point won by an Austrial was followed by the bellowing cat strangling sound from these contraptions, destroyed the usual calm and collected support from the stands.

What usually is an intimate spectacle of precision and competition becomes tainted. The hooters take the supportive innocence out of the stands and somewhat made it resemble a disjointed football stand.

         Hooters have in my mind their rightful place on an F1 track; the deafening sound at the end of the race giving a constant praise to the winning driver. On the courts of SW19, to put it bluntly they have no place but in the backsides of the people that play them, and hopefully a noise that won’t become a regular in the stands around the courts.