Sunday, June 19, 2011

Boston Sports, June 18th, 2011

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair"

-A Tale of Two Cities

I have been a huge Bruins fan my entire life. I have been watching them since I was a little kid, over on UPN 38, yes, there was a time when UPN 38 was awesome. To watch them win the Cup this year was unbelievable. Really, it was. When I saw Chara lift the cup I was still having a hard time believing that we had just won the Cup. I really can't describe the joy that came over me when we won the cup. The rest of the week in this city has been amazing. The vibe that's been going around is awesome. Everywhere you look people are celebrating and talking about winning the Cup. As a Bruins fan, this has just been an amazing week here in the city of Boston.

On Saturday morning I went with my cousin and his young son to the parade. We made sure we got there early so we could get a good place. We waited for hours and when the parade finally got to where we were, it did not disappoint. The crowd went crazy and the players were great! They were so into it. Andrew Ference looked right at me, put his thumb up and goes "Yeah!!! We won the Cup!!!" I pretty much did the same thing back simultaneously. This team is a great group of guys, they really connect with the fans. It's their style of play and the way they conduct themselves both on and off the ice. After the parade the city was packed with people. I've never seen so many people in a city. It seemed like the entire city was packed with people having a good time. It was the best of times.

I made my way over to Gillete Stadium to watch the game last night. I entered the stadium and someone from the team saw I was going to the Fort and said "going to the Fort, you better behave" I didn't think anything of it and was kind of like "haha" and continued on my way. I then approached the Fort and someone once again told me I should behave and I thought to myself "uhh yeah, sure" I really had no idea why this was being said to me. I then entered the Fort and had the same thing said to me once again and this time I was like "whoa, what's going on here?? this place seems pretty uptight today". I looked around and noticed a much heavier presence of security than usual and I also noticed that Fort was pretty empty. The supporters groups appeared to be missing quite a few people. So me and John watched the first half, an entertaining game of soccer. We saw someone get kicked out, who appeared to be sitting near the front. Nothing too out of the ordinary. We don't see people get kicked out at every game, but we see someone get kicked out every now and then, usually because they're pretty intoxicated. The second half started, the usual going on in the Fort. Then all of a sudden I see the majority of one of the supporters group along with members of the other two being kicked out of the Fort. We were both quite confused as we hadn't seen anything happen. We were wondering why they were being kicked out. All of a sudden the Fort got really quiet. Nobody was chanting or singing. It was pretty dull. We met a couple of guys who were sitting by us and we tried figuring out why the supporters had been kicked out. One of them said it was probably because of swearing, which we found odd since we hadn't seen anything happen that doesn't usually happen. With about two minutes left in the game we witnessed another fan being thrown out of the game. We left the stadium extremely confused about what had just happened. We had witnessed the most loyal Revs fans being kicked out of the stadium and we had no idea why. It just didn't make any sense.

Flash forward to today and we check the Revs Facebook page. What you will find is a war of words between the supporters groups of the New England Revolution and the team itself. The supporters being kicked out were indeed thrown out for swearing. I'm not even going to go into that right now. I will save that for another day. Relations between these groups and the Revs has never been great as far as I know, it was so bad at one point that the largest of the groups almost broke up. The fact that the team and the supporters groups are on such bad terms with one another is embarrassing. It's irrelevant, who's right or wrong in this argument. The fact alone that this happened is disgraceful. Just take a look at the Facebook page and read the comments for yourself. Has this ever happened between the supporters and the front office of any other MLS team? I'll give my opinion on the swearing and chanting later, but I just can't get over the fact that the relationship between the team's front office and the supporters group has reached this point. It's a new all time low. The fact that happened last night is an embarrassment not only for us, not only for MLS and American soccer, it's embarrassing for soccer worldwide. I didn't think the Revs could reach a lower point, but they have. It is indeed the worst of times to be a Revolution supporter.

-Andrew

2 comments:

  1. Great job Andrew.
    The heavy handed tactics by Team Ops, lack of communication from the f/o and an absentee owner is the last straw(s) for this long time fan. NO MORE MONEY FROM ME KRAFT.

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