The NFL...Just A Beer Delivery Vehicle?

[GusFrerotte]

Well to be honest, I have never attended a Lions game where I was sitted near anybody remotely sober other than myself or my buds. We never drank before or during a game, but plenty of drunken slobs starting fights, using foul language, to provide entertainment if the game itself sucked. A professional sports venue is no place for kids anymore, which is a sad indictment of how things have gone down hill. Going to Lions games as a kid you never had that problem( I am 37). That being said though, the state of affairs is a lot better than with the soccer crazies in Europe as you guys have said. God damn, they treat a game like it is war!!! I hope it never gets that bad over here.

[70Chip]

I'm taking 70Chip III to the Dallas game next Sunday. He's 11 years old and frankly I'm more concerned about him starting trouble with Cowboys fans than I am about anything else.

What's interesting to me is that when I went to RFK as a kid, the adults would get really, really smashed, but for the most part this did not result in mayhem or violations of the rights of others. It seemed to merely make them more jovial in a drunken, homeless Santa sort of way. Sort of like Otis from the old Andy Griffith show. When people my age or younger go a bender they seem to become confrontational much more often. It's like the difference between Woodstock (peace, love, dope) and Woodstock 2 (beer, fire, sexual assault).

Also, I would never take my kid to a game in Philadelphia or New York wearing Redskins gear. It simply wouldn't be safe. Dallas wouldn't worry me as much.

[TheGuyFromOverThere]

Hmkay... I´m 29 years old now and I´m going to soccer games in Germany since I was about 11 or 12.

As we in Germany ain´t got that big conncers with drinking in public like hear / read it from U.S. (never been over there), there always were drunk people. There always was lots of aggression, even pure hate in the stands. Noone would ever think about going into another teams crowd during the game. After the game, that was and mainly is a completely different story. In game, there are insults, yellings, whatsoever, and after the game... I never had any problems with opponent fans before or after a game, except maybe some friendly word duels. In that nearly 20 years of soccer games in different leagues I never had a fight or even saw one. Okay, I got luck that most of the games I saw weren´t with problem Teams with a great amount of violent fans.

Which became a problem mainly in the last years. The overall violence went down, but brutality for the most people went up. In former times, Hooligans went to a game, then met outside in a wood or something where noone else would get hurt. They had a (weird, but nonetheless) code of honor. Today, their heirs watch out for victims, not opponents.

As for the mentioned game in Italy, yeah, they have a much more violent scene than we have, because there is more corruption, more politics and less discipline involved in soccer.

So, basically... the usual soccer game here is not the least bit dangerous for a child. They may learn "bad" words, but that´s all. And actually, that doesn´t kill childs.

And, if that writer is such a "sweetheart" he maybe shouldn´t watch sports in stadium anyway...