Flash Mob

Off-topic Sunday on a Sunday.

Sideblog nerds will know my fondness for overtly masculine shows of peacockery that crossover into closeted flamboyance. The drum majors, the Indian border guards... This is next level, though.

FC Luzern are a Swiss football team with, like many European, and even US, teams, a group of fanatical 'ultras'. Ultras used to be short hand for politicised Italian hooligans, often right-wing, but sometimes not (depending on the team). They gained notoriety for massive displays of support, or derision, in the shape of huge flags and 100-metre square banners, faces covered by team scarves, coordinated singing, a fondness for maritime distress flares and the odd bit of regular hooliganism.

Teams around the world were inspired by the Italian Ultras, and that leads us to FC Luzern of Switzerland and this orchestrated display of pantomime menace for an away match at FC Basel, also in the Swiss league.

This kind of uniformity would never catch on in the UK. It's too self-conscious. Yes, the UK hardcore fans might wear similar clothing (the hoolies and 'lads' in their Stone Island, the regular fans in club shirts), but nothing to this frankly bizarre degree. It's like a sociology dissertation begging to be written. Or a Turner Prize-winning art 'piece'.

#offtopicSunday #Switzerland