• Comment
• Print
• E-mail

Vuvuzela virtuosa leaves cricket crowd stumped... but smiling

Jennifer Bray

Song in B/flat: Sunday Tribune journalist Jennifer Bray serenades the cricket crowd with a one-note melody, before a ground official arrives... and tells her she's free to continue playing

Blowin' in the veldt: the South African vuvuzela craze is sweeping the world

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

The GAA has banned them and soccer fans hate them, but one sport is prepared to embrace the drone of the vuvuzela – cricket.

The vuvuzela has overtaken the actual matches to become the most talked-about aspect of the 2010 World Cup and now looks set to become a permanent fixture at sporting events here.

The controversial horn has already started selling out of the few shops that stock them.

A manager in the African gift store, Jabula, on Strand Street in central Dublin said: "I've been doing back-to-back interviews about the instruments, and we are completely sold out. We have a huge amount of people looking to buy one."

With not a vuvuzela in sight, the Sunday Tribune managed to prise one away from an enthusiastic South African fan in the Woolshed pub on Parnell Street in Dublin and bring it to the international Ireland versus Australia cricket game last Thursday. This was not before the woman in question exclaimed, "My vuvu. I can't believe I'm giving my vuvu away," such was the level of attachment.

After managing to conceal the vuvuzela from officials checking bags at the entrance to the cricket match in Clontarf, Dublin the instrument of all the intrigue was produced in the midst of a curious stand of Irish cricket fans.

"Get out of here," muttered one teenage supporter under his breath as soon as the horn sounded, while a nearby father and his kids could only stare in apparent shock.

The Sunday Tribune continued regardless, though the vuvuzela can be difficult enough to operate, and within 30 seconds a Cricket Ireland official made a beeline.

Baffled, he asked, "What are you doing?" obviously not having heard of the controversial instrument which has dominated the World Cup headlines over the last two weeks.

He asked to see the vuvuzela, while another group of teenage cricket fans sitting nearby made up their own minds on it, "Give it back to her, it's cool." After a moment's indecision, he said there would be no problem with playing the vuvuzela, even for the whole duration of the game.

"No. Enjoy yourself," he concluded.

A woman sat alone in the next stand looked slightly disapproving at first, but quickly changed her mind and said not only would it be somewhat encouraging to continue but that she didn't think the noise was even off-putting for the World Cup itself.

As we prepared to leave, the cricket official said: "No, there's no reason to leave, stay if you want, enjoy the game, play that thing all you want," at which point a cheer erupted from the teenage fans and the father and his family burst into laughter, nodding in agreement.

A far cry from the GAA officials who last week announced, "They [vuvuzelas] will be taken from people if seen on the way in. It will be hard to ensure none get into the stadium, but if somebody alerts stewards in the stadium, we will go and take them away."

Soccer fans have been having the same reaction; in fact, they have been complaining in their droves.

RTE has to date received over 100 complaints from the public about the noise of the horns, and says it is working on erasing the sound from their coverage but with little or no luck.

"We've been working with our sound department to reduce the incoming sound levels of the vuvuzela in favour of our commentary teams. This has yielded a small difference," said a spokeswoman.