Boffins at The University of Didcot have undertaken a bold experiment to establish the effects that different football teams have on spectator behaviour. Clinical Sociologists at the university played footage of football matches to spiders and recorded the effects that these matches had on their patterns of web construction. Dr Kold Porij from the University explains all:

Fig 1 demonstrates a standard, perfectly constructed spider’s web. This design remains unaffected when we show the spiders footage of organised, tactically astute football sides. At this World Cup, for example, the spiders actually seem to take encouragement from watching a side such as Argentina, and continue to spin their regular intricate webs.

However, the results change quite drastically when other teams are shown. Fig 2 shows what happens to a spider’s web when it is confronted with a tedious bore draw such as that served up by Switzerland and Ukraine in the second round. The spider started off spinning a typical web and seemed oblivious to the dour, cagey affair happening on-screen. However, as the game progressed, the unimaginative defensive orientation of both teams seemed to sap the spiders’ energy and their web-spinning accordingly became lethargic. By extra time they were completely drained of vitality – and they fell asleep before the penalty shoot-out.

The findings derived from the showing of Brazil games are also very interesting. When we show a Brazil match with the sound muted the pattern remains very similar to that displayed in Fig 1. There are a few deviations when Brazil score as the spiders seem to get irritated with the players’ pointing at the sky celebration. But these are negligible compared to the radical changes that are displayed [Fig 3] when the sound is turned up and the spiders can hear the commentary. The simpering and hyperbole spouted by the commentators about the ‘magic quartet’ really angered the spiders. The hard angles of the web and rhombic patterns demonstrate that the spiders were actually trying to escape from their own aurally tormented minds. They didn’t know which way to turn and became increasingly anguished.

It is perhaps England matches, however, that have yielded the most fascinating results: even if these findings are contestable. We showed the spiders all of the games that have featured England thus far in Germany, but unfortunately the laboratory technician we left in charge of observation wasn’t of the sturdiest mental constitution. During the screening of the England v Ecuador game he had a breakdown and trashed the laboratory killing all of the spiders. Fig 4 shows the picture that this lab technician repeatedly drew in hospital and we assume it is the same as the patterns the spiders were weaving before their untimely end. The long unbroken linear strands demonstrate a creature crushed by tedium and utterly bereft of hope. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 12:01 am and is filed under Sociology Soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Return to home page.