Söccer Röcker

            Taylor Twellman, Kenny Mansally, and a bunch of guys you’ve never heard of but play for our team managed to brave the monsoon conditions down in New Britain last week, handing the Richmond Kickers a 3-0 caning in front just under 4,000 folks. The offense was provided by reserve team young’uns like Joe Germanese (24) and Sam Brill (22) with one for good luck knocked in by Twellman, while Chris Tierney (22) notched two assists on the night.

The rain was apparently a serious mess according to the, oh, 10 or 15 text messages about it your faithful scribe received. Hopefully the sun will be kinder this coming Tuesday when the Revs’ return to the southernmost part of their kingdom this time to face the tournament’s Cinderella side, Crystal Palace Baltimore. Oh you read that right. The team is also known as Crystal Palace F.C. USA. They’re the American affiliate of 103 year old (and 1991 Full Members Cup champion) English team Crystal Palace. The American team was formed in 2006 by Crystal Palace and a local consortium headed by horse trainer Randall Medd.

Palace booked their first-ever trip into the Open Cup quarterfinals with an absolutely stunning 2-0 victory over the New York Red Bulls last week at Broadneck High School in Annapolis, MD. New York’s team featured regulars like Mike Magee, Sinisa Ubiparipovic, Carlos Mendes, and Jeff Parke. Although starting Zach Thornton in net might have been a mistake. Palace started the scoring in the 17^th minute with an Andrew Marshall header and Gary Brooks finished it off in the 75^th. Amazingly Palace played the last 56 minutes of the game down to ten men after Ibrahim Kante was shown the door for a two-footed tackle on New York’s Puerto Rican starlet Chris Megaloudis.

Prior to beating New York Palace had defeated L.A. Legends F.C. (Premier Deveolpment League) and the Harrisburg City Islanders (Division 2), respectively, in the previous rounds. They’re the lowest ranked team still in the tournament, although they’re not the only USL team left. Charleston Battery (Division 1) again knocked out the Houston Dynamo in penalty kicks after the match ended 1-all in extra frames, despite the Battery being down to just 9 men towards the end. They’ll next face FC Dallas in Dallas. In the other deja-vu result, the Seattle Sounders (also Division 1) bounced Chivas USA out of things after a 2-0 win. The first player signed to Seattle’s 2009 MLS roster, Sebastien Le Toux, and Puerto Rican international Taylor Graham provided the goals as the Goats were sent packing for the second year running by Seattle.

Palace are currently in 3^rd place in Division 2 and are coming off a 2-1 victory over in-state rivals Real Maryland F.C. Their leading scorer is the aforementioned Gary Brooks (6 goals) a lower league veteran who has also turned out for the Virginia Beach Mariners, Atlanta Silverbacks, and Vancouver Whitecaps in his 6 years in the USL. Palace’s makeup is an interesting mix of older players like Brooks, former Yokohama F. Marinos midfielder Shintaro Harada, and player/co-manager Jim Cherneski alongside younger prospects. They play their home games at UMBC Stadium on the campus of the University Of Maryland, Baltimore County. Despite never having faced each other there are two New England connections between the clubs. Older (uhm, I mean, fans with more experience) might remember Ibrahim Kante from his time with the Revs in 2003. Palace midfielder Bryan Harkin played his college soccer at Fairfield University in Connecticut and was part of the Cape Cod Crusaders’ 2002 run to the PDL  title.

END HITS: Sebastien Le Toux, despite being born in France, told the Prost Amerika website (www.prostamerika.com) on July 2^nd that he would be “honored” to represent the United States on the international level and it is his “only international ambition”…the winner of the regular season series between Crystal Palace Baltimore and Real Maryland takes home the DeOrsey Maryland Cup (named after Medd family friend and Maryland soccer stalwart Matt DeOrsey who passed away this year at age 31)…despite a comment to the contrary last time the Revs logo is STILL above the mayor of New Britain’s picture on the city’s website (www.new-britain.net) …nothing’s been announced yet so I’m not sure if the Revs website will again be doing an internet radio broadcast of the match…

author’s note: This piece originally appeared as part of Mr. Fran Harrington’s final for his art school degree and is reprinted here with his kind permission. Also because I wanted more people than just his professors to read it.

In the middle of the seventh decade of the 20th century, those vaunted Seventies, young people in the Western World rose up against the established cocaine-and-caviar cruise control rock and roll was set on and began a movement later known worldwide as punk rock. In it’s heyday “punks” were scoffed at, attacked in the street, their records banned, their singles and albums not played on commercial radio. They were basically rejected by the mainstream media as a fad. Who could possibly ever think bands like the Sex Pistols and Ramones could ever replace things like the Bee Gees and The Eagles?

Nearly 30 years later punk rock is one the basic DNA strands of contemporary rock and roll and I highly doubt anyone under the age of 40 or so could name you a Bee Gees song beyond “Stayin’ Alive.” It took a while, but eventually the outcasts and rejects took over, or at leastgot some respect. Also in the Seventies, the sport of association football (known more popularly on these shores as soccer) began to elbow its way into the American sports mainstream. The North American Soccer League, with its leading light the New York Cosmos and their superstar Pele, began to make inroads into the notoriously anti-soccer American sports landscape before it burnt out under the weight of its own excess. Despite that failure, some 30 years later that struggle is ongoing.

I’ve been saying for a long time now that American soccer fans are the punk rockers of world sports. Nobody likes us and there are powerful forces aligned against our eventual move into respectability. First I must clarify some terms. When I say “American soccer fan” I am talking about Americans who follow a Major League Soccer team, for the most part. “Soccer fan” does not yet equate in this nation to “MLS team fan.” There are millions of Americans (or at least those who live in the United States) who follow the sport and are not fans of an MLS team. They concentrate on teams in Europe or in Central and/or South America. A good portion of them also actively dislike and insult MLS.

This is one force aligned against us, the American-based non-MLS fans. The catch-all term is “Eurosnob” but like I said, some are fans of teams from Latin American nations. To them MLS isn’t “real” soccer. Our teams have names they don’t like. Our teams (New England Revolution, Chicago Fire, San Jose Earthquakes, et al) have nicknames as part of the official name unlike “real” soccer teams where the nickname is unofficial. Manchester United Football Club is the official name of the team, and their unofficial (but widely used) nickname is the Red Devils.

Eurosnobs also feel indignant that the sport is not an American sport. We don’t understand it, not really. We don’t “live the game.” We don’t live and die by it. We are passionless, obese, short-attention-spanned Cro-Magnons who’d rather be watching giant men in pads slam each other to pulps in a sport we dare call football. We are interlopers and fakers.

On the other side you have the home-grown haters, the American sports media and its functionaries. To them we American soccer fans are almost akin to traitors. Soccer is for foreigners, immigrants, and girls. It’s not a “man’s sport.” There’s no contact. It’s boring. Nobody ever scores. The game is too long. The field is too big. The teams have stupid names. This attitude filters down to your average “Joe Sixpack” American fan. They can’t see our counter-arguments like, “Hey, a NASCAR race is three hours long and nobody scores.” They reject our claims that no sport that lacks time-outs (especially NFL-style TV time-outs)and where the ball as well the clock is constantly moving can possibly be boring.

Like the punks of the Seventies and Eighties we American soccer fans have set up our own counterculture outside the main-stream. We read our own magazines, we read our own websites, subscribe to Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV, and congregate in our own bars. I watched the opening match of the 2007 MLS season between Colorado and DC at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park at a party I managed to finagle control of the remote and flipped to ESPN’s coverage. During the pre-game show a partygoer remarked (as the camera panned the stadium, which has “COLORADO RAPIDS” spelled out in its seats), “What in the hell did they do to Mile High Field?”

When I told this person that this game was not in the home of the Denver Broncos it was in fact the Rapids’ very own stadium, his surprise was written all over his face. “Wait, you mean soccer teams have their own stadiums now? Whoah.”

I don’t expect MLS to reach the heights of baseball or the NFL, at least not in my lifetime. However I have the faith of those original music fans standing around watching oddly-dressed people bash away at their guitars in bars in London and New York in 1976 that I (and we) will eventually be proven correct.

Recommended Listening:

01.) Real McKenzies- “Raise The Banner”

02.) Beerzone- “Alcoholic Heroes”

03.) The Fall- “Kicker Conspiracy”

04.) The Bouncing Souls- “Ole!”

05.) Vif Klanen- “Fotballsangen”