Sports After Dark

After two visits to AMI Stadium in a little over a week, I was absolutely staggered at the drunken, loutish behaviour on display. At exactly what point did sports and drinking to excess become linked in our “culture”?

The behaviour of the crowd on Saturday night at the cricket left a great deal to be desired, while most were sensible there was still a large number of people who drank too much and then seemed to make it their mission to disrupt the enjoyment for those around them. Obvious examples include the idiot who ran out onto the field with no pants, winning himself a free night in a police holding cell, an even bigger idiot who threw a water bottle at a player (fortunately it missed) and the kind gentleman next to me who kept deliberately bumping me as I attempted to make notes (Where is my press pass New Zealand Cricket?)

But the thing that worries me the most, is that this behaviour is really nothing remarkable. At the Super 14 opener there seemed to be some people who thought the point of going to the rugby is to consume as much alcohol as possible in 80 minutes. At the Wellington Sevens, which is a two day long costume party, many fans were interviewed on TV between games and most slurred their words and looked like they were having trouble standing.

Binge drinking has long been a problem in New Zealand, and some claim this is a youth problem, but when combined with a sporting event the problem transcends age groups, with a number of those overindulging being middle aged men. That is not to say that drinking at sporting events is a bad thing, quite the opposite in fact, but drinking to the point where your behaviour spoils the event for other is not on.

Of course it is not just the fans who are prone to booze fueled mischief, how many stories have we heard of athletes getting themselves into trouble while under the influence? After Saturday night’s game, Black Caps opener Jessie Ryder punched a toilet door at 5.30am, tearing a tendon in his hand which required surgery and will keep him out of the tour to England in May.

Many stadiums have various policies in place to try and mange the amount of alcohol available to fans, for instance AMI Stadium stops selling beer at rugby matches 20 minutes into the second half. But they also make a good profit on the sale of alcohol, so putting them in charge of limiting consumption is a little like having the wolf guarding the hen house.

In the end it comes down to individual responsibility, something that New Zealanders are not very good at handling. Sports is our national pastime, we enjoy having a drink with mates, but until we break the link between sporting events and binge drinking there will always be a minority who spoil it for the rest of us.

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The Sports and booze: One cocktail that doesn’t mix well by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.