Right, I have to be out and about for the rest of the day & I do not want to appear rude. So I'll try & cover the points: 1. It was me who approached PA Dave after a meeting with the Rapids about a discussion between the 3 groups. I also said the BSG would be happy that Mark from CVI was included. You guys then contacted Jon & the meeting was set. This is the truth - anything else really is a fabrication & doesn't help to build trust. 2. This thread is full of offers from me to discuss stuff & to talk between the groups (also see point 1). I am as open & co-operative as the other group leaders. It is not fair to suggest otherwise so please don't. 3. Yes the BSG leadership did leave you with the impression that there would be a combined viewing party at the Celtic from the meeting. I can sit around all day blaming Jon / other factors or I can just get on & apologize on behalf of the BSG for it. I hope you accept it. Jon does not post on here so I am always going to take the wrap for stuff happening in the group as the BSG's most senior representative. 4. Please treat the cross promotion idea as either a good one or a bad one. It really does not matter who suggested it. I personally believe it is a good step & would help promote unity that's all my agenda is. I said before that I am aware that it is not unversally accepted. This time last year no one was even talking about any of this stuff so don't worry, it's just an idea. 5. To those that express opinions on the BSG & the Bulldog. Jon has always stressed that we believe in (sensible) choice. We've got to be doing something right as the buses are transporting more people every game, more people are attending the viewing parties & roadtrips plus the membership is growing all the time. I always remember these things whenever I get a 'difficult' post that requires a careful repsonse. 6. I share the overall supporters culture vision too! That's why, like lots of other people on here, I put in the hours to try & make it a reality.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AUF5WSwwv0&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]YouTube - Neophyte & Tha Playah feat. Mc Alee - The Ultimate Project‏[/ame] Everyone better learn to get along or be prepared to receive a ban. This includes Jon, Dave, Mark and Rich.
I really really really really really hate to bump this thread, but something on Sunday really didn't sit well with me. First, let me say that I'm BSG for a simple reason. I've lived in the Denver area for 4 years now. For the first 3 years, I was so unimpressed with the depressing atmosphere at the Dick that I simply refused to support the Rapids or turn up for games. I had no idea where people watched games or what bars were related to who or what or why, and I didn't care. I knew a few faux Irish cookie cutter places opened early for some Euro matches, and I'd also heard that they charged admission to the same so I never bothered to follow up on it. I literally watched the Confederations Cup final in a f-cking Applebees (and got half the bar into the game and the other half pissed off at me for being obnoxious). The World Cup rolled around, and I desperately searched for a place to watch the pre-WC friendlies as I was counting down the days until my flight to Johannesburg and was in an absolute frenzy so I needed someplace to go and shout my lungs out. Somewhere, I think here, someone made an offhand remark to me about "the bulldog" showing the matches, so I decided to check it out (funny story btw, "Bulldog" used to be a bar somewhere else downtown that had since closed and changed to "the fireplace" or something and I wound up there an hour before the first match as confused as the very smartly dressed bartender was when I asked him where the TVs were for the game). I had a blast, and met a bunch of people. I went to another one that wound up being a few hours before a Rapids match, and decided to tag along with the guys for the Rapids game. I actually enjoyed myself, found a section that actually seemed interested in the sport, and kept coming back. I've been a season ticket holder since. In any case, at the last game on more than one occasion, as I was near the "Great Divide" between the groups, I could hear PA singing songs like "can you hear the bobbies sing". It really just kinda soured me on PA in general. While the BSG was singing that same song at the Houston fans on the other side of us, the PA folks were taking shots at us as though we were the ones wearing the creamcicle jerseys. Maybe I'm taking it the wrong way, but it really just seemed classless and a perfect example of this utterly ridiculous and stupid war between the groups. I've met countless PA folks either through twitter (sup teddy--I'm @rickspies btw) or because when I drink I tend to like to wander and meet new people, and I've not met an individual member of PA that I don't like (and as far as I can tell no one from PA has decided I'm a eurosnob-of-the-MLS nasty-look-giver or otherwise terrible person). But in general, there is a clear air of hostility between the groups, and things like those songs simply contribute to widen the gap more and more. Really until Sunday I thought it was just a bit of a catfight between the various egos at the top of the various groups (and no, I'm not saying anyone has an inflated ego, I'm using that word in the "conceptual identity" sense) for a variety of silly reasons that would eventually just fade with time. Yes, people have some legit complaints on both sides, but ultimately that's the sort of thing that should be water under the bridge as the groups continue to grow and the terraces continue to be a success. I thought for a while that maybe the solution to the split chants and songs was simply to get some walkie talkies for the capos on both sides and contemplated ponying up the cash myself for those because I'm tired of both groups simply washing each others' songs out and the result on TV/across the pitch simply sounding like louder than normal crowd noise with some drums mixed in. But (and please correct me if I'm wrong) it seems to me more and more like at least one side (and I say at least because I'm friends with the capos on the BSG side and don't think they fit this comment, but am also trying to be impartial with my statements to avoid WWIII breaking out) simply don't want to play ball. I don't really know. As far as I was concerned, the leadership of the groups could fight it out until they were blue in the face, we could have segregated tailgates and secret handshakes and code words for keg beer, but when it came down to kickoff we would all be chanting together. I'm worried that what I heard Sunday was the start of a deliberate (rather than a "because we're too far apart to communicate") break in even that aspect of the support. To temper that statement, we still had the Colorado-Rapids call and answer, so it's not like the entire game was hostile or anything. I guess I'm just worried that hearing what I did a couple of times was a symptom of the problem getting worse fast. Also, and sorry for the wall of text, I mistakenly attributed the "can you hear the bobbies sing" during the game to Class VI and PA on twitter when clearly CVI had nothing to do with it (or at least if they did, there's no way on earth I heard it). So yeah, sorry CVI, I corrected myself in a follow up post on twitter, but still feel bad for the mix-up.
Yeah, that's lame. I'm not always fond of the choices BSG seems to make, but in the end we're all Rapids fans. I just wonder if they were really PA guys, or just people who wandered down into the Terraces.
How many random fans that wander into the terraces would know to refer to us as Bobbies? I don't know, like I said, I don't exactly know who it was and how widespread given the distance, but I could clearly hear it more than once from the PA side and it seemed like the entire section was singing it including the capos. That said, it's possible that most of the section was singing "can you hear Houston sing" and a large group near the divide were the ones replacing houston with bobbies. Can't say for sure. Either way, it left a bitter taste.
Let me suggest that, while probably not your intention, that is actually the problem and offer a slight change which I think could help. It seems to me more then a few think the game falls somewhere below the supporters experience and the "atmosphere" in terms of what's important on game days.
I seem to remember you a few years back on here saying you wanted no involvement in the supporters movement out here because of how it was basically too small. So do you actually play a real role in the BSG now? Or are you just complaining about something on a message board that will accomplish nothing accept rehash a bunch of garbage that has already been covered in this thread a million times already? Seriously. BigSoccer is the worst place in the fv<king world to discuss stuff like this. You'd accomplish a lot more by actually talking to those "egos" you mentioned.
Actually, my real problems with it were in the front office. I felt that the RapidsFO would never let the SGs grow because of their draconian stance on all things tifo and support the way the SGs like to do it, and I wanted nothing to do with SGs that had to live underneath that sort of rule. Keep in mind that I moved here from DC and was a member of the Barra Brava out there. You may or may not be aware of how the Barra Brava's one and only road trip out to the Dick went, but from the stories I was told, several of them were not just ejected from the stadium but were flat out arrested simply for using language that might offend a kindergarten classroom. Granted, stories told over booze at a tailgate tend to exaggerate, so most likely the BB folks were worse than I'd heard and the reactions to them weren't as terrible as I'd heard, but that was the mindset I brought out here with me. It wasn't anything personal with the SGs, it was very much to do with the Rapids organization. Add to that the fact that I came out for a few DC United games and could hear a mouse fart from the other side of the stadium and my perception of the entire Rapids scene was very very jaded. I never really knew that it had changed until I went with the BSG folks to a game and saw what had happened. Since then I've made most of the games, and signed up for a couple road trips (though life conspired last minute to prevent me from going both times, including the cup final in Toronto). I'm more involved on the national team side, where I run our (admittedly only moderately active) AO twitter account and do a lot of networking with AO folks around the country because I do travel to road games as much as I can (I'm a country over club guy). And honestly, the only reason I posted here was that I was on twitter earlier talking with a Houston Creamcicle supporter and he asked me what was up with all the supporters groups in Colorado and why did they never sing together etc. I started trying to explain it and found myself at a loss for why exactly it was going on and remembered this thread, so came through to find that it was 15 pages longer than the last time I read it. Which got me thinking back to the last game. So I made the decision that rather than simply sitting on the events of Sunday and being bitter about it, I might post about it and see if anyone could shed light on it and/or agree that sh*t like that is really stupid and we (we=all the SGs) should really go out of our way to prevent that sort of thing. But feel free to continue making judgments based on three year old posts and a stereotype that seems to hang over the BSG. I don't know who to talk to in PA. I don't know anything about their leadership, where to find them, how to find them, or how best to approach them about this. And since it wasn't the BSG guys directing said chants at PA, I don't really see a reason to drag the BSG leadership into this. They were as far as I know unaware that it was going on. In any case, I couldn't care less if the "egos" as I put it continue to wage war on one another, so long as from the first kick to the last three blasts of the whistle, the rank and file are working together to do what we're there to do--cheer on the team. Guilty as charged. In my case, I am originally a DC United fan as it was the first city I lived in with an MLS team active while I lived there. When I go to DC vs Rapids matches, I stand relatively silent the entire 90 and watch it as a neutral because frankly there are clashing emotions. I cheer for the Rapids and enjoy the Rapids in the same way I cheer for the Broncos and enjoy watching them despite being a Saints fan because I'm from Louisiana. I cheer for the Rockies and want them to win and go to their games because I enjoy it even though I'm an Astros fan because I lived in Houston when I was old enough to start playing and understanding baseball. It's the curse of having never lived in the same city for more than 6 years in one stretch--you wind up with your first team and a lot of bandwagon teams simply because you want to enjoy watching the sport and aren't fanatical enough to ignore the local team (in my case, I sorta was when it came to the Rapids, again, until I was dragged out to the Dick by the BSG folks, at which point I remembered how much fun it is to be at a soccer game and kept coming back). In any case, my real interest in the Rapids is the sport itself. I love soccer. I started playing soccer when I was 4 and despite being terrible at it continued playing competitively until high school. I moved to Argentina when I was 9, just before the 1990 World Cup and got absolutely sucked into all things soccer. In fact, two of my first memories of Buenos Aires are soccer-related; we were driving around BA when Argentina beat Brazil in '90, and the streets went from dead empty to instantly as riotous and noisy as Mardi Gras was when I lived in New Orleans as a kid. I was fascinated. The other was a girl in my apartment building, when I first met her, asking me immediately after asking my name "de que cuadro sos?" which translates to "which is your team?" I didn't know what she was talking about (and barely understood her at the time, but she spoke about as much English as I did Spanish so we managed), but she informed me that since I didn't have a team I was now a River fan. She then promptly dragged me off to watch River play on TV, and I've followed them ever since. Point is, my interest in the atmosphere goes hand in hand with my interest in the sport because I want to see it grow here. I want to see people care about the sport, and I want to see the league improve. So I'm very much interested in a positive atmosphere and impressive tifo, because it wows the people at home that might flip past the game on a slow TV night and decide to watch it and later decide that "hey, that looked like fun, I think I'll go next time". And frankly it's fun for us, and fun for the players. All else equal, when a player gets an offer for another club and can make the choice, I want them to look on their MLS experience and decide that they want to stay here rather than go off to the Mexican league or Turkish league or Greek league or a mid table team in Holland. And at the moment, we simply can't offer those players the sort of fan support that the other options can, but I think we can get there. Sorry, I'll step back and take a breath now.
Found one here. Since I saw your name (and had seen you on twitter) I believe I found you on Facebook and just sent you a message. I agree with what Quinn said and would prefer to not do this in the public forum as whenever such issues are addressed here things seem to get worse rather than better.
Yep, fair enough. Got your message (about to fire off the reply), and pretty much closes the book on the chant for me. All fun and games, no worries. I was reading too much into it. Sorry to stir up the thread, I should have resisted the temptation of the reply button. That said, if I thought it and wondered, maybe I wasn't alone. So I guess that's worth bearing in mind. End of the day I really just want to throw back some beers, sing myself hoarse, and watch the Rapids win. We need to have a big damned hug session or something. And nuke this thread from orbit too while we're at it.
I'll leave my prejudice against apathy for another time... However, I'm not going to list specifics on why there are issues between the groups, because they have already been discussed (very poorly) ad nauseam on here and all it has provided is a disservice to both sides. I will say however that the root of the problem between the two groups is that they do not hold the same core values. Also, people in the Pid Army are not nearly as unapproachable as you think. The difference is that we don't have a formal structure. There is no mandate to hate on BSG or to do "anti-Bobbies" chants. There are, however, a few circles of people that feel compelled to do it. I am not involved in that, and neither are any of those "egos" as you put it. If you really want to talk about it, just chat people up at the tailgate. Hell, just find me. I'll be there on Saturday and I will answer any questions you have. Talking to people in person is much better an more fair than sifting through a message board full of drama. Ask for Quinn. In spite of what you might hear I don't actually drink blood.
Key thing to remember... The supporters culture didn't change because the BSG was created! Supporters culture changed because CVI/C-Firm(now PA) pushed hard for the terraces for years (since '07 group wanted to be placed in North Stands)! You've got to give credit where it's deserved! And that's to those two groups for making it all happen!
Unfortunately we have asked for that to happen ever since the Terraces were formed and have been told it will not happen in the foreseeable future by the FO. It is what it is for now so we have to deal with it.
Not even moving them back the way they were before the playoffs last year? That's all I want. Remove that extra space they added in. I don't think that is preventing anyone from throwing anything. I think a more responsible group on either side is the reason. I thought social sites were for socializing?
We did make the request at the onset of this season and FO said they have made the decision to leave the gap larger this year sadly. We absolutely can try and address the situation with them again. They said early in year they just feel they cannot take the risk of allowing fans to be that close to players/referees any more. We certainly let them know how much more difficult it makes the coordination job (nearly impossible frankly). From what I know there have been no incidents regarding "the gap" or players this year but my expectations of them moving us closer together this year are low unfortunately.