Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! Look at history. With no direction last year, we all saw how that ended up. Saying a bunch of cuss words, ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE'S ONLY 4-5 PEOPLE DOING IT, ISN'T VERY EFFECTIVE!!!!!!!!! You want to listen to sound clips from games from last season and this season. There's a big difference there chief! A couple people yelling curse words won't trump 150 people chanting in unison. Want another example, look at the student sections for Duke, Maryland, and others in college basketball. They're on top of you! Literally, they just don't stop. Loud, obnoxious, getting others involved, that works. Carlos Ruiz isn't going to hear you halfway across the field, if it's just you. You get again, 150 people chanting something, well, he probably will. If you say, "Hey Carlos, you're ********in a%%wipe!!!!! You honestly think he's even going to care if he hears you? I wouldn't. You have to understand something, we've tried your way. Good God! It may work overseas, but IT DOESN'T WORK HERE! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND START THINKING. How do you get people interested? You do something they can relate to. Something that intrigues them. Hence, jersey flag, streamers, flags waving, fog machine, roaring chants that engulf the stadium, bouncing, and new innovative ideas. I'm not saying that you have to totally eliminate cussing. I've never said that. I'm saying that we needed to tone it down. The "foreskin" chant has absolutely nothing to do with soccer, it's repulsive to some, and it takes away from the atmosphere. Think about it....
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! Have you ever heard or seen anything Duke or Maryland(Go Terps) does? Maryland's is much worse than anything else I've seen. Throwing bottles at players' mothers, screaming lovely little things at JJ Reddick, and various other things. I also thought we had gone through before on here and shown that there are differences between soccer and college basketball. Where are sounds clips from this year? I'd love to hear them.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! Before I really get into this, let me just say that I give you kids credit for what you've done. You guys do have alot of heart. That said: OGHT hits a major point in regards to this. Moral last year was fairly low. Between our wonderful 2003 season, the rehiring of America's favorite coach, and the start of the season, moral was rock bottom. Not helping the situation was the major division between the supporters and the club. I think the best illustration of this was during the season closer in 2003 with the Sack Andrulis banner. Anyway, I think all this combined had more to do with the "lack of direction" last year than because of swearing and the such. I too would be interested in hearing these. I don't really think there'd be too much difference between them. What makes this any different than chanting Vindaloo? It's not going to throw off anybody either. Wasn't it just last year that there were complaints about the jersey flag? Point here being, outsiders have to be willing to join in. Just because you do these things doesn't mean people are going to flock to join in. Especially since the things being done are different than what most American sports fans are used to. At the last game, between instances of me questioning why the hell I paid the money to see the game, I came across some interesting views on the whole supporters thing. These were thanks in part to the two guys standing behind me who had been around since before V-Army (I'm sorry if you two are around here...I'll introduce myself next game). Anyway, they pretty much obliterated the new-found censorship in the Northend. But while doing so, they brought up the point that we just kept doing the same chant over and over and over, they might as well make some noise, as it was better than the nothing that was going on. This led to bringing in some of the older chants, some of which I'm sure Legion is against. So while these chants are some of the ones that were "turning massive amounts of others away", they at least did add some atmosphere. Now, some other things that I need to get off my chest. One of the things that is really bothering me about this whole thing is how you are coming in here with the attitude that you know exactly what is best for everybody. You get into arguments with people like Eggy and OGHT about what's best, and you do so with the attitude that YOU know what is best. You forget that some of these guys have been around for years. You guys are really the Northend newcomers. It's great that you guys want to see this take off, but by making comments such as: or taking credit for the Northend's recent "success" on the merits of the newfound cleanliness, you're not helping the situation. Also, I really haven't seen any evidence that you guys have really added that much to the atmosphere. You guys do have the banners, and add numbers to the Northend, but it's not really any louder than last year or more atmospheric. The chants you were starting were getting incredibly stale as mentioned before. And if the stuff Chelsey mentioned is true (noogies et al) how can we take you guys seriously? Alright...That's enough for now.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! Drinking and cursing doesnt work for supporters groups in America? Guess we never got that memo...
Crew14, you bring up good points. I don't agree with all that you say, but it is well presented. I don't care cussing, as long is not's used in excess and it's not used in ways that are TOO repulsive to drive away people who have interest in potentially joining. Like I said, chants like the foreskin one, are not needed. The pedofile chant is fine, I don't mind it all. The "Wings of an angel and ass of a crow" chant is ok as well, so long as it isn't used in excess. So long as they are used in moderation, I don't care, just keep it Crew related. You talk about driving people away with some of the older chants. Yeah, we probably shouldn't use those, or if we do, tone them down to an extent. We are working closely with the front office. If we give them the numbers and the atmosphere, they'll help us back. We just need to tread carefully. We've got a great start (supporters wise) this season. Consistantly 50 people in the north end chanting, sometimes more. Others are migrating to 137 and people around us are standing. It's a good start. We just can't ruin it.....
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! yeah, it wont trump a hundred fifty people in unison, but, as people have pointed out, youre goals are very naive. the best moments i had from v-army are when timmy howard was playing in goal. how else can you make fun of his terrets (or does THAT offend you, too?) without chanting random cuss words in between the letters G-E-D. that was some great stuff. and it was effective, too. lemme know when youre rendition of 'oh when the crew' gets the goalie to flick you guys off or a defender shows his ass to you. uh huh. i hear they have an agreement with the school president to not say any swear words, too. afterall, mommy and daddy wouldnt like that if they heard it on tv. youre not very creative, are you. actually, it does. look at the DC fans. they float kegs before matches. the whole lot of barra brava and screaming eagles, theyre drunk as skunks. they dont exactly keep it clean, either. and guess what, theyre also organised, and they are effective. and you know what more? you know how they get new people, they show them a damn good time. new people LIKE having kegs at tailgates and getting drunk and going to soccer games. the type of people that you WANT in a supporters group LIKE doing those types of things. afterall, its a supporters group; you know, the 'hardcore' group of fans. its not some church group or young republicans meeting. ohio state students who frequent the basketball and football games would be an AWESOME demographic to recruit. and if you want stuff they can relate to, "keeping it clean" just isnt going to do it. youve just come damn close and are pretty much against it. please... wings of an angel ass of a crow is just OK in moderation? this isnt a freaking kindergarden, man... and the ONLY people who are driven away by vulgarity in chants are the families who the crew FO brilliantly puts in 136 every single game. hell, drinking and vulgarity hasnt even pushed kryptonite away, so, again, id love to see all these people who were just repulsed by the northend. and id even go so far as to say that if people would be repulsed by that, then i wouldnt want them to be in the - what is supposed to be - rowdier sections of the stadium. and as for the foreskin chant, its a great way to keep people involved. when youre limited to doing nothing but "oh when the crew" and other basic chants like that, for the WHOLE GAME, people get bored. you need to have FUN things to do. unless youre trying to recruit the jehovas witness club of ohio state to join in (which it appears as though you are). like i was saying, though. the whole point to chants like the foreskin chant is that it is a fun break from the repetative and boring chants. as ive said before, the game i was at (LA) you all were VERY boring. VERY. no fun, no imagination. you guys seriously made the revs supporters look good. they do, yes. but you can still have a lot of heart and be realistic... yep. exactly. swearing and drinking didnt drive people away, people left cause they had to. its why im no longer at every single match. theres not exactly an air force base in columbus, and wright pat doesnt base my airframe. and the point to all of that is that a lot of the key players in the supporters section were at pretty unstable points in thier lives. they went away to college or got jobs that moved them elsewhere. and when you lose the key players, youre going to start losing the ones that arent so serious about it, as well. and needless to say, the crappy, boring ass performances on the field didnt help matters, either. over the past two seasons the team has been pretty bad to watch. that is NEVER going to help things. legion04, you, of course, wernt even around for 01 or 02. the northend was a blast, then. back when zak, hobbs, hang, deriks (sp?), the group of brits, evan, et all were around. it was a lot of fun. cleaner and more boring. Wasn't it just last year that there were complaints about the jersey flag? Point here being, outsiders have to be willing to join in. Just because you do these things doesn't mean people are going to flock to join in. Especially since the things being done are different than what most American sports fans are used to. that reminds me of the LA game. judd (zaks brother) and i were fed up with how boring the northend was, so we were starting our own chants. it was the only time in the game i saw people in the north end actually LAUGHING at the chants they were singing. it was great. of course, for half the chants, the legion would scramble to start up a NEW chant to cover up the swearing and obscenities... they are newcomers. and its pretty incredible that they take the attitude that they do. id really love to know where they came up with thier ideals, and why they think theyre best.... bingo... legion - i really wish you guys couldve known guys like sean the bastard. or evan. or the brits. they would laugh you right out of the stadium (well, stb would probably kick your ass out of the stadium, but thats another story)...
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! funny, but this was an issue that v-army tackled about 3 years ago and decided that flag waiving was ok, just not during the course of play...
Quote: How do you get people interested? You do something they can relate to. Something that intrigues them. Hence, jersey flag, streamers, flags waving, fog machine HMMMMM, where the hell are my 4-5 banners that I SINGLE HANDEDLY made?? Okay so they are discarded. But my point being, I spent countless hours in the summer heat painting, designing, painting, buying, painting, dragging along, and painting HUGE banners for the North End. It got to the point where there were so many banners, Matt (Bernhardt) decided to put one along the midfield wall so that the cameras would pan on it. So you ask how do you get people interested, but so far how many banners are up at home matches?? Despite my military commitments, I'm still dedicated to making banners, and once I start advancing, I do plan on donating professionally made banners to any supporter groups or the team.
First, we're going to position the flags in the back. Second, we're not waving the flags too much during the course of play. Only in the final few 2-3 minutes if we're winning or after a goal, or when Nowak got ejected. I've cut back dramatically on it.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! Which is exactly right, however the flags will help them grow. High Schooler 1 - " Are you going to the Crew game this weekend" High Schooler 2 - "Only if they have the flags waving and the fog machine working so i cant see the game, I would rather watch anything than football but those 2 things convinced me." Edited because i cannot spell.
Does anyone know of good banner materials? Right now, shower liners are what we're using. It has a good look, but if we want to do something bigger, can you recommend any specific materials? Thanks...
Yeah, I just wish that someone or a CERTAIN group of people would have stepped up or continued the trend. It's cool though.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! My 2 cents on the swearing, etc. We basically know each other's opinions, etc. During the winter, we were told by the Crew FO to tone it down, because they were getting nasty phone calls about the "group of drunks cussing at the top of their lungs." I had a brief job in the Crew FO, as did a few other BS posters. While I can't speak for them, someone I spoke to about tickets mentioned the swearing as a reason for not coming back. I've seen fans come up from the bottom of 136 and ask us to stop the swearing. Fans have left at halftime (or at other times), and sat elsewhere. Some of those fans haven't been back to a Crew game. Now what the hell the Crew FO is doing placing kids in 136 is beyond me. If it was up to me to sell a generic "north end" tickets to fans, then i'd start near the corners, and work my way in towards 137. And i've heard that's what they're doing. When fans are leaving nearby sections, and some of them not even coming back and blaming it on us, I think it's obvious that some things need to change. If it was up to me, I wouldn't have the swearing stop entirely, but the "let's see how many times we can swear in 5 minutes and try and break that record in the second half" should stop. Unfortunately, it's not up to me, and if the Crew FO says "stop the swearing", is there really all that much we can do? I forget what game it was, but near the end of one of the games this year, we had fans in 136 and 138 standing up and clapping with us. With the exception of the stadium wide "let's go crew" chant, and the chant we used to do "if you all hate whoever clap your hands", that's the most i've seen out of them in a long time. Last year, I'd wear my v-army shirt around the stadium (and plan to do so this summer) and i'd get dirty looks from people. I'd love to sit them down and ask them what their problems with the group are, and to see how we all could go about fixing them. Hell, a couple months ago, I read a "vichy army" comment on BigSoccer, written by a Crew fan. With all that stuff said, I still think the best way to "protest" a chant is to not take part in it. If you don't agree with something, then don't shout it. Over time as the membership in 137 changes, the songs will change. If there's 100 people in the group, and only 5 of them are singing a song, then maybe they'll get the message that the song they're singing isn't favorable. As for the tailgates, like i've always said, do whatever the hell you want to do out there. On the banners, yes we do need more. The weather got the best of the ones we had (or they were retired due to players leaving, etc.), and the wall is bare. I'd like another section 137 banner for the front wall, and this is something that i'd like to see soon. And now a quick question. In all honesty, what's the deal with the jersey flag, other than it's size? My only beef is that I wish we'd have a wider group willing to help with it. This way, we'd have different people every afternoon at 2 PM and could set up a system where each person only has to unpack it 2 times instead of all 5. My final thought on the flag is that the design hasn't been worn since the beginning of the 2002 season, and it is quite excessively large. While I do enjoy staking claim to the largest flag in MLS (which it very well may be), perhaps we could ask for a more modern design, and something a little more manageable? I mean, it takes more than 7 people to run it comfortably. With the legion's flags, those need to be in the top row, and should (notice "should") only be waved pre-game, post-game, and after goals in order to minimize blocked views. You're working on this, and that's good. The fog machine is cool, but they really gotta work on timing. Maybe around kickoff, then right after goals, and perhaps after the final whistle when we win. Too many times it's looked goofy and i'm wondering who's in charge, when it goes off in the 61st minute when nothing's going on. It's like a FSC broadcast that uses a soundtrack of Section 8 during a Rapids - Crew game. Who's in charge and what's going on?
I really like your banners, where are they? Do we still have them in storage or something? WORK IN PROGRESS sounds about perfect right now.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! ****************. its not our problem if they put fans who are upset at what we say next to that section. fans like that shouldnt be there in the first place. and im willing to bet that they are families, or a parent with thier kid. again, no buisness being in that part of the stadium. its the FOs problem, not ours. i really wish i couldve been to one of those supporters group/FO meetings... i remember a few years back when the FO agreed to put up disclaimers and whatnot for those wanting to buy tickets in the north end. they never seemed to come through on that...
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! I'm sure that the student section at Ohio State football games is filled with well mannered students who never swear and are out to make it an enjoyable experience for all.
Well, the banners were made mainly of a Poly/Cotton cloth, which naturally, with climate got torn and worn. Professional banners are the way to go as far as longevity and I have a few web sites bookmarked for future designs. To my shock, they really aren't too expensive as one may think. For example a banner (from BANNERGALAXY.com) that is 4ft high, 15ft long, made of super heavy duty vinyl w/ hems and metal eyelets is around $211. I guess the Crew still has them in storage, but then again they were a bit torn that they may have ditched them. But I do remember the ones that were torn being shown on TV years ago, and they were still "camera friendly".
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! I've been in that section several times. I've never heard any swearing in unison, the vast majority (if not all) of the chants are game-related, but i'm sure you do get the occasional swear, like you do in every section of every stadium across the country.
Re: Make soccer games more like high school football!!! We finally got the warning signs put up late last year. Yeah, those ones we've asked for since 2000. There's one at each entrance into 137, etc. As far as I know, the only way to buy tickets in section 137 is through the Crew office, where you have to hear a message about the unique environment. http://www.v-armyonline.com/history.html That's pretty much what we've had since day one. Yes, the swearing will happen, we can't totally squash it, so keep the Gahanna U-6 team out of 137. I'm half tempted to email the FO and ask them if the south end can be made into a family section, or if some of the groups that frequent the north end could move south, just to get the kids away, but i'm sure that wouldn't accomplish much. And maybe the next meeting we have, we should look into a conference call. If you can't be there in person, call up and join us on the phone.
FWIW, the most creative chants and enjoyable were the ones that contained little swearing, but were directed at opposing players faults. My personal favorite was the "Salt & Pepper" chant at Scott Garlick's hair a few years back...everything else was getting a "ho-hum" reaction...until that one where he clearly had no clue it was coming and started to laugh. Took him right out of his game. Then again, my 2nd favorite, "Lothar, Lothar, du bist scheiss" is just using German swear words. as OGHT mentioned, the Tim-may Howard GED chant was a quality chant as well.
This is my philosophy on the whole swearing-FO fiasco: I owe no allegiance to any group in 137. Yet that is where I stand and chant. If V-Army folks tell the FO that they are not going to swear. Then they can not swear all they want. I have no respect of the Crew front office. Period.
