Is it just me and BBC co-commentator Mick McCarthy. “Why on earth would they ban them?” asked McCarthy, suggesting they added to the atmosphere at this year’s World Cup games.

And heaven knows something has had to get the atmosphere going, because up to and including even Brazil, the football has rarely been up to it.

 

From thousands of miles away, admittedly, the hum/drone/buzz of the Vuvuzela has merely reminded me of European club games of my youth.

Horns provided the backdrop for “European nights” in the early 1970s; days of distorted sound quality, which told you the games were in faraway lands.”

In the 1987 Celtic history, The Glory and the Dream, a Celtic fan at the 1970 European Cup final against Dutch side Feyenoord is quoted saying: “It’s no’ fair, those bloody horns have got us beat.” This is not a new phenomenon.

Despite the Vuvuzela evoking these fond memories, the “natural” match atmosphere, i.e. the singing, is being lost. And whilst drunken renditions of dirges such as “No Surrender” can gladly be lost, other songs and noises are less dispensable.

Natural crowd noise is a gauge of the flow of games – especially handy given the frequent temptation to grab forty winks this week.

And when New Zealand equalised very late indeed to grab their historic first World Cup point, there was something disconcerting about the lack of a “crowd going wild” as a background.

But this is how football in South Africa is watched. And it isn’t our business to dictate to them that they should watch their tournament the way we want them to.