Vuvuzelas banned for Saturday’s Harvard-Yale game

NEW YORK - Vuvuzelas, the slim obnoxious horns that were a constant fixture at soccer games during this year’s World Cup football tournament in South Africa, will not have a presence in the Ivy League’s biggest football game of the year between Harvard and Yale.

“In keeping with Department of Athletics’ commitment to conduct athletic contests in a manner that promotes good sportsmanship, artificial noisemakers will not be permitted inside the ticketed footprint of Harvard Stadium,” the New York Post quoted Associate Director of Athletics Timothy Wheaton, as saying in a statement that was issued earlier this week.

The stuffy ban came after students introduced the Silence Yale campaign two weeks ago, a noise-making effort by two undergrads who planned on distributing the noisemakers before the game.

“We all know what Yale sounds like: failure. During the upcoming Game, Cambridge cannot afford to endure the noise pollution produced by so many whining Harvard rejects,” the campaign said on its Facebook page.

The students told the Yale Daily News that they sold 2,000 of the special-edition noisemakers in anticipation of the game.

Not about to be outshined by their rivals, Yale students fired back with their own campaign, and sold more than 300 vuvuzelas with the words “Harvard Blows” printed on them.

But Crimson fans weren’t sold on the idea. Last week, students on the school’s Undergraduate Council passed legislation recommending the ban, Harvard’s student newspaper The Crimson, reported.

For the Harvard students who introduced the bill, the issue came down to making sure their team had every advantage to beat Yale.

The teams face off this Saturday for the 127th time in the storied rivalry. (ANI)