As much as the national media loves to stereotype Philadelphia as the place where all bad fan behavior happens and widely publicize any incident that takes place here... In reality, the epicenter of fan violence and bad behavior has become the Bay Area. Over the past year, nearly every notable act of fan violence has involved fans from that area, both as the aggressors and the victims.
In a story that was largely ignored by the national media, a Saints fan shot two 49er fans outside of a Georgia Applebees after last weekend's playoff game. When the 49ers played the Raiders this season, there were two separate shootings and a man who was beaten so badly in a restroom that he was hospitalized. Then of course, the one real widely publicized incident of the San Francisco Giants fan beaten nearly to death after a game against the Dodgers.
And now, a Saints fan who attended the San Fran v NO playoff game last weekend with his wife and two daughters wrote an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing his treatment at the hands of 49er fans.
We had vulgarities screamed at us repeatedly in the parking lots and literally nonstop by the hooligans around us in the stands. While walking through the lots we had footballs thrown at us, guys screaming curses in our faces — my daughters asked if I had heard the guy who yelled "your mother’s a whore," which I had, but couldn’t show a reaction for fear for my daughters’ and my own safety. We finally took to shadowing two cops that were strolling through the lots until we dashed for what we thought would be the relative sanity of the stadium.
The stadium was no better. Every other word from dozens of fans around us was an f-bomb shouted at the top of their lungs. There were seven or eight large 30- to 35-year-old guys directly behind us who cursed and threatened us the entire game. After one string of profanities I turned around to look at them and the most obnoxious and combative of the bunch yelled, "Do not turn around again! Do not ever turn around again" and punctuated it with a profanity. They used gay slurs repeatedly at the husband of a middle-aged couple in front of us, the only other Saints fan in our area, and called his wife a bitch.
So, just a warning to any Giants fans heading out there this weekend. You could very well be taking your life into your hands heading into that stadium.
And just to be clear, this doesn't excuse anything that may have happened here. Certainly that goon who beat up the Rangers fan after the Winter Classic deserves every punishment he gets and people like him deserve to be exposed.