Thanks PTFC for a great time in your city. You guys are pure class. Great stadium. Great city. Wonderful people. And your supporters group is out of this world. Very Very impressive. Hats off.
Portland Timbers clinch a place in the MLS Cup Playoffs IF: they defeat both D.C. United and Real Salt Lake AND New York Red Bulls tie or lose to Philadelphia Union OR they defeat D.C. United AND Chicago Fire defeat Columbus Crew AND New York Red Bulls lose to Philadelphia Union OR they defeat Real Salt Lake AND Chicago Fire defeat Columbus Crew AND D.C. United tie or lose to Sporting Kansas City New York Red Bulls lose to Philadelphia Union
I wanted to chime in too. You guys are pure class. Even in section 223 I got goosebumps watching TA. WOW!!! Aside from a few fans that were upset with the result everyone was freakin great! Handshakes and pleasantries were abundant. Kudos to you all. You have a beautiful city and one hell of a soccer atmosphere! I had to pinch myself to make sure I was still in the USA.
I've had the good fortune to be able to attend Dynamo away games at every stadium in the US and Canada with the exception of San Jose, Columbus, and Salt Lake. I was impressed with Seattle, but Portland by far has the best atmosphere and the supporters are welcoming of visiting fans and fine representatives for their team and City. The North end reminded me of games of yesteryear in the EPL - you folks have set the bar so high, that I think it will be a long time before other MLS team SG's can achieve that kind of atmosphere. I look forward to the time when every MLS team will have that kind of support. Here are some photos from the game HERE (Apologies in advance for the last photo in the series
To those of you (timbers army) that made the trip out to Salt Lake: BRAVO! You completely out-showed the other 20K in attendance (announced, at least) and were easily the best visiting support I've ever seen. The flares? Simply awesome. Not sure how you snuck them in, and got away with them for so long, but again BRAVO! Hope to see you again next year with the same, if not more, passion.
The flares were a pain in the butt. I had to breathe that stuff. I heard some Timbers fans got arrested. Maybe it was the flare guys. Didn't even know that was allowed.
Agree with the above. Here are the pics I promised some of you. Click on them to go to imageshack and download the full res shots. Don't know how long the bandwidth will last, so share them amongst each other if they get pulled.
just wanted to say that i had a great time in PDX last time i was down there. great beer, (duh, there's no excuse to drink piss beer in the NW) loved ground kontrol, and even got to introduce a local friend to it, that had never been there. even the pre game taunts & sh!t-talking were generally fun & good natured. and lastly, i'd like to thank you for the cascadia cup
Both teams were kind enough to concede goals through defensive lapses/deflections. The Timbers were more generous.
There are several KC fans coming to the April 21st game and I will be traveling in a group of three. Is tailgating allowed and if so, what time do gates open for games? I have read lots of the recommendations on here which I appreciate but what I want to know is if you had never been to Portland before and could only do one thing, what would it be? I want to know the thing that is a must see. Anyone done the Widmer Brothers brew tour? I am a fan of their beer and noticed that the do tours on Saturday and I am thinking of booking one. We are staying about a 1/2 mile from the stadium but we will have a rental car. We are going to the game in Vancouver on Wednesday, headed to Bellingham on Thursday night, getting a car and going through Seattle on down. We will probably arrive in Portland around 6PM on Friday and then have that night plus Saturday until tailgating begins. So, we need to find somethings to fill out Friday night and Saturday morning/afternoon. Any info you can provide would be appreciated.
With no parking structure or really significant parking lots within the vicinity of Jeld-Wen tailgaiting will depend on the lot you choose (and there is a great lack of them). I don't know who to contact but reach out to someone in the 107ist and ask how they've done tailgaiting in the past. It's been done but must be planned well in advance. The stadium is incredibly urban and all non-street parking is private (neighborhood street parking in a lot of areas is deemed 90 minute parking only during game hours without a permit!). People who come early go to the bars. Parking in the downtown parking garages or taking public transportation is preferred. Heck, walking 1/2 mile is possible. If your must see thing is bakery foods, Voodoo Donuts. If your must see thing gardens, the Chinese Garden. Food, food carts galore. If you're into handcrafted items, Saturday's Market. Books, Powell's Books. Art, walk around Pearl District. Restaurants at night and willing to spend, tough decision, but walk NW 23rd and take a pick. Brewery tour, I'll defer to more knowledgeable gentlemen. EDIT: If the weather is great, Rose Garden is a good for a quick visit.
If you've done brewery tours elsewhere, then Widmer's won't really be much of anything new to you. They don't really do anything very much different than other commercial breweries (except their recipes), so there's nothing special about doing their brewery tour. When I went about 1.5 years ago, we got samples of 4 beers (Hefeweisen, Drifter Pale Ale, an IPA (can't remember which), and their Citra Blond Summer Ale (seasonal)), a pint glass, and a bottle opener. It's still a nice tour, and might be worth your time, especially if you haven't been to a brewery before. If it were me, having done other brewery tours, I'd stop by there (or one of the MANY other brewpubs) for dinner when I arrived Friday, and do something else in Portland (any of the things mentioned above) on Saturday.
Agree with many of the prior posts: - Don't bother driving to the stadium and trying to park/tailgate. It will create huge hassle and waste your time. Walk, bike (and use the bike valet), or take transit. - Seriously consider taking the train from Shittle and ditching the car entirely. You won't need it, and it may be more trouble than it's worth. Excellent transportation options from the PDX train station, and staying out of the car will let you experience the city. MAX can also take you quickly from city center to airport for your trip home. - Widmer brewery tour is A'ight, but you might consider either seeing some of the smaller breweries or even consider touring one of the several craft micro-distilleries on the near East side. Otherwise, take your pick of the Deschutes / Bridgeport / Rogue / Lucky Lab / Hopworks / Laurelwood brewpubs. I guarantee you will not be able to sample even 1/4 of this city's beer in 48 hours. - Tailgating is fine in most places, but not worth your time to set up. Spend your time enjoying the city, and eat food from one of the many carts or small restaurants in the area. Quicker, better variety. - Consider the pubs near the stadium (Bitter End, esp) for pre-match atmosphere. Fans are passionate but not intimidating or violent. Overall, if you are friendly and cool, you will be treated as such.
I agree for the most part with USNats fan, though I might drive from SEA-Portland, return the car, then head downtown (Amtrak can run late from time to time, and it's probably cheaper to drive from SEA-PDX instead of buying 4 Amtrak tickets). There's a bunch to do downtown, and getting from downtown to Jeld-Wen is super easy. The car will be more of a pain than it's worth once you're here. I also agree about the Widmer brewery tour, I'd rather grab a beer at the Rogue, Deschutes, or Bridgeport... all close to downtown. I don't think there's much tailgating, there are a ton of people who gather at the Bitter End and then head into the stadium, so long as you're not the aggro type (and you don't root for the Sounders) you'll be welcome with open arms. Hope you enjoy your stay in Portland!
In the USL days, the 107ist would set up a good-sized tailgate in one of the nearby parking lots. That's just not possible anymore, or if someone's doing it, I haven't seen it. Might be some bike brigaders have something set up in a different part of the city.
I just want to extend a friendly welcome to any TA members who may bother coming to our cavernous hellhole in Foxboro to beat up on our nonleague caliber Revolution schoolboys on March 24th. Your passion is what inspires me to stick with my Revs. One day we will be banging out stadiums like like y'all, and we can say we were out there when no one else was. My dad used to take me to the 1-15 2-14 Pats, I know what its all about a little losing every now in then is good for us in Boston, keeps us regular. In the meantime having weak support allows us to build our culture from the ground up, so any members of the Timbers Army who want to come shotgun a case of PBR's to Boosie & Webbie with me for 4 hours are more than welcome!
I am going to be in Portland during the Seattle game. I have tried to get tickets already, but singles aren't on sale yet. I see that there is a presale starting tomorrow, is that just for season ticket holders to buy single tickets? Just want to see what my odds are if I have to wait until the 28th.
Luckily there are two home games against Shittle this year, so the demand will be somewhat spread out. On the other hand, after last year's match these may be the hottest tickets in this town in many years. My advice: if you know a season ticket holder, ask them to buy you a ticket. Otherwise, get in line early (if you're even here), or play the secondary market. There were tickets on StubHub and Craigslist last year, but they were spendy.
The presale is for season ticket holders. If you are in Portland on the 28th, you can purchase tickets by standing in line outside the stadium. Otherwise, godspeed to both your luck and wallet.
So, tailgating really isnt a feasible option? Do you guys really not tailgate before games? Tailgating isnt possible in Vancouver so we were hoping to get at least one tailgate in on our trip. In KC, we tailgate. That is our culture. I cannot even imagine not being able to tailgate before games. That is just blasphemous to me. Is going to a bar really the better option? I dont like the idea of not having my own mode of transportation. Plus, a person in our group has a couple of things he wants us to see on the trip down from Seattle and this way, we will be able to keep our own schedule. It's only $160 for the car from Friday morning to Sunday so it is worth $50 a piece to have it available if needed. I only picked Widmer because they were the only one I could find that did tours on Saturday mornings. We might just skip the tour and stop by as many breweries as we can. I might try to find some that we cannot get in KC. We can purchase Widmer, Deschutes, Bridgeport, Rogue, and Hop works all at the grocery story so maybe instead of a tour, we should just visit some brew pubs and try some new beers. Any others to recommend? I actually want to come back to Portland and simply do a beer based trip sometime. There is just too much to choose from. So, we can tailgate? If we can tailgate at all, even if it is a hassle, that is what we will do. As I said before, that is just what we do before games. At home, we go out the minute we can get inside the parking lot and will tailgate as many as 6 hours before a game if we can. Do a lot of supporters hang out there? If we find tailgating to be not feasible or the weather is poor, I will write that place down so we can drop in.
Our hotel is only 3 blocks from the stadium so I guess we can walk to the area and go to bars if tailgating isnt going to happen. Anywhere to stop by other than The Bitter End?