IF THERE'S one thing I've never understood, it's the rules that govern what is or isn't allowed into sporting stadiums.
We must subject our bags to some fairly overzealous security searches but more serious and sometimes seriously random items make it in. The question is, do the guys who write the rules actually stop to consider what they mean? Sometimes the messages are a little confusing...
A beach ball is a projectile but an esky isn't.
The Gabba allows soft eskies but disallows taking in your own alcohol. Or musical instruments. Or watermelon helmets. Or anything that could be used as a projectile (as if an esky couldn't).
Inflatable beach balls, which provide hours of entertainment until a less-than-deft touch carries them over the fence where they're popped by party-pooping security are seemingly more threatening than an esky. When was the last time a person was seriously injured by someone throwing a beach ball at them, I wonder?
Also worth noting is the impressive, two-man dingy that was somehow smuggled into Suncorp and inflated last year. To my knowledge it wasn't confiscated-proof that you can have a giant dingy but not a beach ball.
Two cartons are still too much.
Legend has it that you used to be able to take your own alcohol into the Gabba in the ‘80s and a near mutiny erupted when they capped it at a maximum of two cartons per person. True or not, these days all alcohol must be bought on the premises. The hill just isn't the same.
You can't have an umbrella but you can have a flag on a pole.
Some stadiums allow umbrellas inside the gates, but won't allow them to be opened. Others ban them altogether. I have no quibbles with the umbrella rule-it's actually amazing that there aren't more eye-poking injuries courtesy of them-but tell me again how flags on poles are any less dangerous? Particularly in the hands of excited kids.
Home-made good, competitor-made bad.
I'd like to think that they allow home-made snacks in because they're healthier than processed foods such as chips and chocolate, but in truth their focus is only to keep the commercially competitive items out. But that doesn't really explain why some venues tip out water...
You can't bring it in, but if you find it inside...
Something tells me that some people went without tomato sauce for their chips and pies after seeing some Sydney FC fans spraying Urawa Red Diamond players with the contents of an industrial-sized ketchup bottle-a hint that they were unhappy about the players' time-wasting and a sign of their ingenuity.
Offensive is in the eye of the beholder.
Despite Suncorp prohibiting "offensive attire, items that may cause a hazard or compromise safety, or that have the potential to cause injury, nuisance, or inconvenience to any other person" a couple of Roar games have played host to the arguably offensive guy clad in nothing but an all orange, skin-tight lycra outfit.
In the words of the friend who pointed him out to me, "That shit is more dangerous than an umbrella."
