This letter to the editor really puts down MLS but using Cardinal Stadium is hardly representative. ************************************* London Daily Telegraph Opinion Monday, June 16, 2003 From America By Irvine Welsh (Filed: 16/06/2003) The Americans have got soccer all wrong http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...1603.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/06/16/ixop.html Mod's note: Please don't cut and paste copyrighted text.
What a hoot! Grins and chuckles about this one. I guess I could have gotten my back up, but I read it imagining the writer's tongue in cheek... Of course there were a couple of parts when I wished he'd bite down hard on said tongue, particularly when he was putting down Chicago's Ultras. One of my favorite soccer pictures is the one of them at Soldier field, with flags waving and smoke bombs churning away. By the way, mods, there's already a much longer thread on this on MLS News and Analysis. It's at https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=55128 Merger time?
The writer should have been in LA Saturday night. Oh wait, maybe not. Then the letter would have been about the sorry state of the officials in MLS.
I thought it was pretty funny. In fact, I suspect a lot of BS posters feel more or less the same way - especially regarding the soccer moms - they just don't express it in the same way. Glad to hear his girlfriend had a good time.
The Scot is right. We have an association football league where you can actually feel SAFE at the stadiums! Man, are we backward.
I partly agree with him. I do want more hardcore fans. Hey, if you are sitting in the home section you should be fine. If you choose to support the away team, well you better be tough. I think more aggressive fandom is necessary. But I also think that it cant be forced and will come as winning in MLS starts to mean more than it does now. Can't wait until the day the Metros' SSS makes the away team feel like getting out alive is more important than 3 points. MWAHAHAAH!
But then I would think most would agree that the temp home of Chicago is not the place to make a judgement on the state of viewing soccer in the USA. The letter had it's valid points but then it is just not painting an accurate picture of where things are going and what's been done already.
Although the letter may have been written a little tongue in cheek I have to agree with a lot of what he said. Even though you all might think that the SPL is a crap league there is still more passion in the fans and players than there is in MLS. That's not a knock on MLS. We're 100 years behind the rest of the world. His points about the blue collar/working class males not being in attendance is also spot on. Who do you think the NFL built there league upon? Now, I know that the NFL has long past the working class when it comes to tickets but the NFL is still the working man's game. MLS needs to strive to get some of that action. The whole soccer mom phenomenon is true and more than a little sad. I take my kids (ages 9 & 6) to sporting events and I tell them that they might hear words that they shouldn't but that's part of the experience. Soccer moms don't have this view. Overall it was an enjoyable read and one that we all should keep in the back of our minds when we attend a game, etc.
so you think you feel unsafe at a Hibernian match? I don't understand why people have this view that atmosphere & violence are joined at the hip, as if somehow "european" atmosphere is down to the threat of violence, and vice-versa. The two are completely unrelated. I'd bet also any American used to NFL or college football who went to see a WLAF game (is that still going, I neither know, nor care being honest) would make exactly the same comments.
I don't think it's a letter to the editor - I think it's more likely to be an article by Irvine Welsh, the novelist.