England Fans Engage in 'Skirmishes' With the Fake Crowd Noises

For over a year, football, this most raucous of sports, has fell silent. Not completely silent, the thwack and smash of the ball has become a soothing and almost therapeutic sound for fans watching at home, as has the impassioned bellowing of the manager on the touchline and the players barking orders to each other. Fans watching on the TV have witnessed football laid bare, skeletal and stripped down, with none of the pageantry and noise, none of the ebbing and flowing of emotions, the exhilarating highs followed by the slow petering out of the drama. 

But a lot of viewers at home couldn't handle the silence, the eerie, mundane, almost cold representation of the mechanical nature of the sport. The players walked onto the pitch, played 90 minutes of football, then were heard no more. For fans who just couldn't bear the lack of commotion, producers inserted crowd noises into the television broadcast to much avail. It had it's critics, some who decried it's superficiality and it's poorly-modulated and monotonous effect, but largely, the fake crowd noises did football fans a service by making the beautiful game feel just that little bit more normal. 

The noises had become a permanent fixture for fans tuning in to watch their team play in front of empty stadiums, so the news that a limited number of fans would be allowed to attend Wembley Stadium to watch England play at the delayed Euro 2020, was met with jubilation. For the first time in over a year, fans would be able to cheer on the England team, and the team would actually hear it. For the semi-final against Denmark on Wednesday night, 60,000 fans were packed into Wembley to watch history happen before their eyes as England advanced to the final of a major tournament for the first time since 1966. The atmosphere was electric, just as it had been against Ukraine in the quarter-finals and, of course, Germany in the last-16. 

BUT. 

Having English fans back in the stadium, drunk on pride, passion and merriment, dripping with sweat, red and white paint plastered over their mad faces, moobs, boobs and backsides bouncing, beer being bunged into the sweet midsummer barmy British air presents a few problems. After all this time caged like wild animals, fans needed to let off some steam, and let off some steam they did, good golly did they let off some steam.

Alan Barnes of Burnham-On-Crouch told NNNN that he realised something was wrong as the game reached the 89th minute. Some fans situated in the stand near him were become increasingly rowdy, but Barnes thought it was just the usual wrong uns', getting up to no good, "I saw them fighting, but they weren't fighting each other, they were almost possessed, It was quite disturbing." 

Barnes later found out that the 230 or so fans had been spooked by the fake crowd noises, "I found it incredibly odd, I mean, even when there were crowd noises, only people watching the telly could hear them, so, how on God's green Earth did these knuckleheads get spooked by it? If you ask me, it's these vaccines, I follow Matt Le Tissier on the ol' Twitter, and he's a prominent anti-vaxxer, the lad's a respected voice in the media, so he must be talking some sense, I mean, come on, the guy's a multi-millionaire, what does he have to lose from pushing these views? Money talks, remember that, he he! Money talks, bitches, money talks".

Psychologists are baffled at how the fans could have not only heard, but have been triggered by these imaginary noises. Prof. Yan Dexter of the University of Cockfosters, Berkeley opined that the noises might've become so ingrained in many football fans over the last year, that they might have unconsciously hypnotised a large portion of them, causing them to react with distress when a real crowd reaches a certain decibel level.

"I'm certainly leaning towards this theory at the moment", Weary told us, "I don't know how those fake crowd noises were recorded, but perhaps certain rhythms were specially calibrated and repeated to create a hypnotic effect. Maybe it wouldn't of worked on 99.9% of the population, but it just so happened that some of the other 0.1% somehow were in Wembley stadium. I'm not here to provide an explanation or propagate conspiracy theories, but perhaps this was all some sort of sick experiment by the government, like the Russian sleep experiment, or herd immunity, but what would I know? I teach Latin, for God's sake. Why am I even here? Discede et numquam redito!"

All of the 230 fans have since been taken in for questioning, which has raised concerns over their safety. Barbara Partland, whose husband Geoff is in custody, is concerned about the incident and what it might mean for the group of fans. "My poor Geoff, he was so confused, and so angry. One moment he was silent and just being a normal fan, then the next minute he's throwing punches at the air like someone's attacking him. I don't know what happened, it was like a switch had suddenly been flicked. Boris was in the stadium, laughing his head off at what was happening to us. I wouldn't be surprised if he was in on this. This is what Etonians get off on, booking a huge recording studio to record 50,000 fans individually making noise, then deliberately distorting the sounds so as to induce hypnosis and violent mania with the help of leading experts in psychological warfare, then using this sound in every football broadcast for 10 months, then seeing fans inside a stadium fall prey to the hypnosis, then imprison those fans and experiment on their brains, fucking Etonian scumbags."

One of these men is destined to become a future prime minister, or a crook, or both

Other scientists think the fans may have just been letting off some steam, and that the crowd noises were somehow buried deep within their subconscious, provoking them to lash out. "I watched a lot of football matches with those crowd noises inserted in" Prof. Marilyn De Arrivederci of Swansea University told us, "and, even I have to admit, some of the voices I heard were awful, I mean, they were utter jerks, I ended up muting the telly because I kept hearing this one guy singing out of tune, that's enough to provoke violence, in my opinion. But what do I know? I teach Arabic, for God's sake. اتركوا مكتبي ، أيها الأوغاد!"

One theory has come forward that England fans in general are prone to violence, and the non-existence of any recognisable foe isn't going to stop that. "We love a good skirmish" thinks Partland, "Geoff often comes home from a match bloody and wounded, high on adrenaline, and that's just after watching a school game. He's a very passionate and involved parent, you've got to understand. Or, at least he would be, if we had a child."

England fans have a long and illustrious history of violence, at home and abroad. Fans were involved in street violence back at the last Euros in 2016 in France, and back in the 1980s and 90s, towns on the continent feared the arrival of the English like one might fear Piers Morgan entering a swimming pool full of Tom Daleys. 

"I don't really care what the press think, those fake crowd noises had it coming, you may not see why it upsets us so much, but it does, we have to let this energy out, Geoff works his fingers to the bone week in, week out, and is paid a pittance for it, his boss is an arsehole and his wife is a massive nag! ha, ha! He needs the release, no matter how primal and chaotic it must look to the more refined viewers, who'd want to be refined anyway? If it means being unable to experience the rich and glorious pallet of emotions one is infinitely blessed with, why should one try to hide it? England are back, and we're gonna win this damn tournament". *

Researchers have warned against broadcasters, including BBC and ITV, using fake crowd noises again in the event of another national lockdown. "The number of fans who engage in violence with these imaginary noises could rise threefold, we strongly advise broadcasters to cover the matches in silence, as the inclusion of fake crowd noises could lead to social unrest and ultimately anarchy". 

Several anarchist figures have claimed the noises could come in useful though, in overthrowing the capitalist status quo, abolishing the monarchy and mounting Jacob Rees-Mogg's body, top hat and all, on a makeshift gallows on Parliament Square. "If they want to provoke unrest, we will show them unrest, we're not comfortable with the system, and we, the people, have the power to resist it. Rees-Mogg, we're coming for you!"

* England went on to lose the final to Italy, no incidences of England fan/fake crowd noise violence have been reported, though Sir Keir Starmer was present in the crowd, and could be seen wearing an earpiece and fingering a mysterious device in his pocket. 

Sir Keir Starmer is a supporter of Arsenal Football Club, and will reportedly swap jobs with manager Mikel Arteta if neither's job goes to plan.