I haven't entirely wasted your time with that first paragraph as I will be talking about the stadium somewhat but I will focus on what I think might ruin it's legacy. Korean sports hooligans.
Back home a hooligan is likely to be a middle aged man with a shaved head, plenty of tattoos and a beer gut. They tend to do it because they are stupid and often drunk. Many of them are just primates that just enjoy fighting. They don't actually have anything personal against anyone. They just get off on smashing up places and smashing in faces.
So, what does a Korean hooligan look like or act like. Well... not like that. You would now expect me to talk about Ajussis or older Korean men tanked up on soju but I am actually going to talk about their polar opposites. I am going to talk about creatures that look nothing like those skin-headed apses pictured above. I am going to talk about young, self-entitled, fashionable Korean females. Usually between the ages of 20 and 32. Usually caked in make up and manicured to perfection. So, what has led to me branding some of these people as hooligans. Well lets start where you would expect... Jokbal! Yess... back to pig feet!!!
Those of you that have followed my various social media streams and especially those of you who have read this blog before, will know that we have our jersey for jokbal campaign on the go. We are offering players delicious pig meet in exchange for a game worn sweaty jersey. So we took our campaign to the next level. We decided to camp outside of the stadium entrance from 8am with our banners and we would do a trade with any players that fancied a bit of pork. Sadly, riddled with cold, I arrived too late to catch any meaningful players and George had lost his sign in his hotel parking lot. So we failed on that front but that is where the hooliganism began to be apparent.
Let's make it clear, our campaign is good hearted. We will not specifically harass any players. We will not get into anybodies personal space and we will respect everybody. We will not push hard. We will just show our signs and sing our songs about jokbal. However, these Korean female hooligans are different. They terrorize the players. They go beyond what is reasonable or decent. They bother the players when they are with their families. They block the entrances to their homes. They stop them getting in and out of their cars. They block doors. They push and they shove! Last year, Oh Jae Won of Doosan Bears crashed his car because of these hooligans. Apparently, this stuff happens every day of the year. These people are unreasonable. They don't get basic rules of decency. Their behavior gets worse once inside the stadium.
So come 11am. We headed into the stadium. To our joy, there was a jokbal provider. A good one. Our new official provider should a player take us up on our offer.
We posed for our picture with their stand and then headed to our seats. Our view wasn't great but with freedom to move and the always friendly staff employed by Doosan coupled with cheap beer and good company would ensure a good time. Until more Korean hooligans arrived!
These hooligans usually have all of the team clothes. In fact they spend hundreds of dollars on every last item that is available. However, they don't really cheer. They just sit and complain. They judge those that cheer. They make very racist comments in Korean. They sit and take selfies. They do their make up. They try to stop anybody standing up cheering. They think that all foreigners are dumb, fat and dirty. They will take your seats and refuse to move. One such hooligan refused to leave because her seat was next to a child. Another wanted a seat for her handbag. As I said, their behavior is unreasonable. They will also push their own grandmother down the stairs to get a home run or foul ball.
Whenever I hear them moaning and spouting their racist bullshit, I tend to become a loud and obnoxious Trump fan. I tend to find that they become uncomfortable with that. I usually cheer louder and stand my ground. So do my friends. Oh... and we eat our jokbal.
I am not joking when I tell you how much support we get from the other Korean fans. I have been overwhelmed with photo requests. Most people see our campaign for what it is; fun! We have already met so many great people after just 2 weeks of the campaign. But with ticket price increases, the LG stunt and the huge amount of Doosan memberships, I feel that a lot of these good people will be forced out of going to games. I feel that guys who have supported teams for 20 years will be gone. You know that they aren't factored into the business plans of the respective new stadiums for either Doosan or LG. We know that those teams will keep increasing prices to ensure that only these young female hooligans who are willing to spend their parents' hard earned money on the team crap such as plastic jackets will be the ones remaining. By the time the teams have put off all of the regular, loyal punters, these hooligans will have moved onto something else trendy and the stadiums will be empty.
So I love Jamsil stadium, but I am really worried that its' last years could be spend dealing with these hooligans and maybe without the people that helped make it a real hallowed ground of world sport.
We didn't get a jersey again. But a couple of players seemed to be really interested. Judging by the media attention and fan reaction, the campaign is going well. It is achieving its' real aim: Make Baseball Fun Again!!! Let's hope that we don't get shutdown by these attention grabbing hooligans!
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