Seriously though, glad to have you on the boards. Don't ever take anything anyone writes on here personally, is really the best advice I could give. I swear we're not really a bunch of dicks. Well, most of us anyway.
Or always and forever, like in the song... you remember those granite balls they used to kick around back in the paleo ?
Oh man, now you're taking me back. The Paleo! I loved that stadium. It didn't have the amenities RFK does, of course; but it more than made up for it by the atmosphere.
They played with proper leather balls back in those days, remember ? A drop of rain would turn them into what felt like 30 lbs of lead. Wasn't the Hurricane Andrew match the game where the Fusion keeper had his neck broken in the first half but carried on regardless ? And that policeman on his white horse trying to control the fans ... We'll never see the likes of those days again, ladies and gentlemen .... What was the name of that striker back then that used to score goals from outside the penalty box off the back of his head ? Meredith ? Adam Meredith ? Now that was a DCU player ... they don't make them like that anymore.
Okay, let's be fair. He is probably the only one who can answer "forever" and get away with it. Most of us have no clear memories before the age of three, hence, he can claim in all honesty to have loved DCU since his earliest memories. Those of us who can remember when soccer was played by two opposing medieval towns by the entire males populations cannot make that claim. PS Ruiz was diving back then, too.
10 years +. One drawback of living in the DC area and then moving is after you've been a United fan nothing else is equal. I'm in San Diego now. Who am I going to root for instead.....? The Galaxatives?
Twenty plus years? 2000-2004 each year must have counted as three years. Sure as hell felt like it. Seriously, ten years. I watched the first few games on TV and went to my first DCU game on Mother's Day 1996 vs the MetroSkunks when Tab got a red card and DC lost in a shootout. I remember it well because a fan screamed at his buddy in the parking lot "F***ing losers!" and smashed a beer bottle.
Slacker. Washington Whips; I've still got a pennant around somewheres. AND Team USA--the tee shirt from 1980 finally gave out eight years ago. Still, I love the memories you old-timers have been sharing. Maybe time to cut back on the medications? Or increase them?
Mostly methane in those days, right? Until the right little ameobas started converting all that carbon dioxide into oxygen... Played the devil with the beer. The Foggy Bottom keg kept exploding. 'Course Foggy Bottom was still brewed on the banks of the Potomac then. (It was a tributary to the Great Inland Sea, before there was hair. Personally, my head's going back to those days... )
I voted 10-15 years and was going to write something witty, but I'm learning to play golf and can't stop thinking about my swing. I'm obsessed.
I can remember way back when Richie Williams was just a little bitty guy. In those days the players and the league were all in it for the good of the game, no one questioned anyone's integrity and there were no suspicions about player's "real ages". I never once remember anyone calling for Richie to have a bone scan - maybe the technology didn't even exist yet.
Long before the United, I was a Baltimore Bays supporter. Washington never has an original idea, does it?
I've supported them since the mid-1980's when they were called the Washington Redskins, so that's like 25 years. I like them better now that they don't stop playing every 20 seconds. The stadium is the same, though.
Back in the day we used to throw severed Metrotard heads onto pitch, now people bitch about a flyin beer?
I remember when DC was NY United..... then they moved the team to DC after 1 day and wondered.... "WHAT THE ******** WERE WE THINKIN'?!"
I was one of the kids they trotted out at the press conference announcing that DC would have a team in the inaugural season of MLS. So I guess I can say from day 1.