KUALA LUMPUR: A recent school football match in Perlis descended into chaos when scattered brawls erupted on the pitch – not between the young players, but their apparently possessed parents.
The wholesome game between students of SK M Syed Alwi and SK M Kuala Perlis ground to a halt when parents of one of the teams – presumably butthurt over an unfavourable development in the match – stormed the field, prompting a similar retaliatory response by family members of students from the opposing team.
A viral video of the fiasco was captured by a man who was in the thick of it, and who incessantly pleaded with the overaged hooligans to “calm down,” and “recite a prayer.”
But he himself didn’t have a prayer – at one point he was assaulted by a shirtless (and possibly rabid) goon.
The two-minute-and 36-second footage seems rather dreamlike, as the camera winds its way through a tangle of people on the verge of fighting, in the throes of fighting, or breaking up a fight. Screams and shouted curses form the soundtrack of the video, and the viewer is disoriented by the commotion and lack of visual perspective.
Amidst the misbehaving adults, one catches glimpses of children – some looking embarrassed, some startled, some terrified and some simply fed-up. None partakes in the free-for-all lawlessness.
If this unsightly incident were a football match, the score would be: Kids 1, Adults 0.