Vu-vu voom: vuvuzelas are beautiful instruments if you know how to play them

Coming to a football ground near you

HAVE you had enough of that relentless, monotonous noise ruining your enjoyment of a wonderful tournament? Me too. So could the spoilsports complaining about the fabulous vuvuzela horns please pipe down and get back to obsessing about the jabulani ball?

Having the task of covering the World Cup all day every day, it is clear viewers and listeners all over the world are less than besotted with the beehive hum pulsating through every game that has become the unofficial soundtrack to South Africa 2010.

The broadcasters are inundated with complaints, and people fear the possibility of 25,000 England fans bringing horns back home and introducing the sound of summer into English league grounds.

England defender Jamie Carragher will bring two back for his children at least, but Liverpool shouldn’t be too worried as Carragher has professed that he is louder than any vuvuzela so they are already used to it.

The World Cup’s local organising committee spokesman Rich Mkhonda has said vuvuzelas will only be banned if they are used as weapons and has asked the world to embrace Africa’s distinctive sound.

“They have always been a cultural phenomenon of football in Africa, this is a world event hosted by South Africa so as our guests please embrace our culture and the way we celebrate,” he said.

I could not agree more. If England wins the right to host the 2018 World Cup I trust people will not be surprised when the rest of the world complains about the senseless chanting and the unfailingly tiresome supporters’ band. There is nothing worse than hypocrisy.

Why should we expect South Africans to silence their horns? The problem is not with the vuvu itself, but the way they are played. Listening to England fans trying to use them like traditional trumpets is painful. Mind you watching fans use them to drink a yard of ale or as light sabres is quite amusing.

By contrast, when Ghanaians and South Africans honk in ululating, rhythmic merriment it is a joy to behold. They truly are a phenomenon. You’ll be either pleased or distraught to hear two German entrepreneurs Frank Urbas and Gerd Kehrberg, acquired the resale rights for the European Union from the vuvuzela’s South African maker Masincedane Sport in March last year.

With the World Cup giving them centre stage the horns will now be everywhere; in petrol stations, supermarkets, newsagents, sport shops. Everywhere. Sainsbury’s has already sold more than 15,000 of the £2 horns, and expects to sell at least 60,000 more as it becomes the “must have” accessory of the 2010 World Cup. The online retailer Amazon has also reported a huge surge in demand.

So I look forward to a deluge of vuvuzelas in British grounds next season. And why stop with football? Okay, so Wimbledon have already banned them, which is a shame but unsurprising. I imagine the Celtic Manor will soon follow suit for when they host the Ryder Cup in October.

Hopefully, though, the organisers will see sense and Europe will be able to get revenge against the United States for the 1999 controversy. Justin Leonard made an unbelievable putt, which saw many members of the United States team run out on the green to celebrate before José Maria Olazabal could attempt to tie. The premature celebrations have been highly criticised and I get a warm feeling inside every time I imagine Phil Mickelson losing his temper when a vuvuzela is blown in his ear on every shot. “Hoooooonnnk.”