Is Football the New Hockey?

I decided I needed to have a "sport" here in England; since they don't really get into the NHL here, I thought I would try football (or what we Canadians refer to as soccer) on for size. 

A fellow teacher at our school, Bayo, is literally obsessed with football, and he kindly offered to take Sabrina and I to see a game up-close-and-personal.  We went to see Gillingham, which is a team in the 1st Division. Basically it works like this: Manchester United is in the Premiere League, then there's the Championship League, and then Gillingham comes, in the 1st Division.  There are two more Divisions after that...and the Maidstone team (the town where I live) falls after that -- apparently they kinda suck.

The game was really fun, other than the horrible weather.  It was cold and windy and rainy, and Sabrina and I immediately wished we had brought a blanket.  But whatever; we had our hot chocolate to keep us semi-warm -- and we can say that we experienced a TRUE England football game, weather and all. 

The crowd at this game was actually hilarious -- they get sooooo into it.  They sing bits and pieces of songs I have never heard (clearly "football" songs) randomly throughout the game.  I honestly don't know how they get it going; it's literally everyone in the stands, as though they got a memo upon entrance that states when and what they will be singing so everyone knows.  It was pretty cool.  They also yell profanities I am not used to hearing, which is kind of funny.  Things like, "You F***ing WANKER" really made me laugh.  My favorite, though, was when a fan was caught doing something inappropriate (although I didn't catch what) and was subsequently ushered out of the stands by huge security guards, and while this was happening, literally everyone on our side of the stadium stopped watching the game and stood up and waved at the guy.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Just picture hundreds of fans waving simultaneously at some stupid dude leaving the stands.  That has never happened at any sporting event I have ever been to before.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it!

Speaking of pictures!  So before the game had officially started, during the warm up, I, of course, got my camera out and started to document my football experience.  Well!  This horrible security bloke yelled at me from the bottom of the stairs, "You're not allowed to take pictures!!!"  I was like, "WHAT?!"  I mean, it's not like these are professionals and I'm the freaking paparazzi stalking them during their personal time.  I am a fan at a sporting even for frig sakes.  Even Bayo was surprised, since you're allowed to take pictures at the Premier League games.  Obviously though, as you can see, I took pictures anyways.  I had to be really sneaky and hold the camera low and close to my body and make sure the flash was off so that I didn't call attention to myself, but there was NO WAY I was sitting through that whole game and have no proof that I was there.  And what sucked even more about it was that pretty much all the football players are super smokin' hot, and I really wanted to take up-close pictures of their sexiness, but I couldn't, because of the stupid security dude.  Seriously unfortunate.

Anyways, the Gills won 1-0 which was pretty sweet, although it would have been nice if there had been more goals.  All this game really did for me though was make me want to go see a Premiere League game, so hopefully when my parents come down in April we can do just that.  And I'm going to take LOTS of pictures!