Count me in for the game. I need to get some of my friends involved as well. Otherwise we might be outnumbered worse than if the game was in LA.
Congratulations!!!!!! Houston was just named as the fattest city in the fattest country in the world!!!!!! Enjoy your tailgate fatties!!!!! Iam sure you will!!!!
Fat and happy. Well, you gotta understand - Houston is a really great place to eat - huge variety of cuisines, great quality, very cheap prices. A couple years ago, Esquire named Houston as one of the best food cities in America. Zagat's reader surveys also find that Houstonians, on average, eat dinner out more often that residents in any of their markets.
Anyone from Houston willing to help us organize on a local level? Basically this involves: 1. Acting a go-between for the USA group and local ticket office. 2. Finding out how best to bring in flares, smoke bombs, confetti, steamers, etc. 3. Lining up a place for everyone to meet before the game 4. Acting as a contact for hotels and bars and the like. It's seriously not a lot of work, especially if I handle group ticket sales, which I probably will. All of you should sign up for the USA Supporters List, a link to which is in my signature. Thanks, Sachin
I'm willing to help. I work with the president of our state soccer association (Texas-South), and have already discussed with him on a summary level the need to smooth the way for as many US supporters as possible to come to Reliant and have a good time. He's completely on our side on this, and is willing to call out the troops. He's met with Reliant officials regarding another possible friendly, so hopefully he'll get some early word when this USA-Mexico game gets finalized. So for my part, I'll do what I can. As I discussed with Ed Bazan over on the Burn list, having a USA game here is a rarity, so we'll probably need some outside guidance on occasion, and the points Sachin makes are good ones. Maybe the best thing for us locals is maybe to form a committee to divvy up these responsibilities. (?) Is that what's done elsewhere where they always get USA matches (DC, Boston, etc.)? That's all for now. Hopefully we'll hear something soon. My enchiladas are getting cold.
I'm willing to help, even though I'm up in Dallas. I firmly believe that if we can spread the word enough, that there'd be a decent showing of US support.
What Sam's Army has done in the past (and may still do now), and what the USA Supporter Group does now is work through existing supporter clubs such as La Norte and Screaming Eagles (DC), Empire Supporters Club (NJ), etc. to handle most of these details. In a case like Houston, where there isn't an established group, it's a bit more fluid. We'll work together to sell and distribute tickets and you guys take care of the details I outlined above. If you want my suggestions, don't work too hard. Don't try to organize a large-scale tailgate party with food. It's expensive, frustrating and leads to pointless arguements. If you want to get a keg and a few sodas for the kids, we can ask for people to stump up a few $$ on site or I can add $2 to the ticket charge. I usually do the latter in DC, and no one has complained. Basically, what I outlined is what's really needed. We'll start a thread in the Fan's & Travel forum for people to post ideas and the like and then we just have to sell tickets. Sachin
I should add one more thing.. if anyone has a large bass drum and can play it, please bring it to the game. It helps keep everyone on song and in line Sachin
Sachin, I will help. I don't have a whole lot of contacts, connections, experience etc. Just let me know if you need anything. I will have to check to see if any of my friends have a large bass drum.
Could any potential expansion team play at the Rice Bowl temporarily until a new stadium was built? I know the stadium is huge, but I can always wish since I will be at Rice next year.
If it happened, I'd say it would proabably be at Reliant Stadium. McNair seems like the only real interested I/O right now. Besides, Rice Stadium is turf. Other than that, Robertson is an idea, but I don't know who would invest.
How far are Robertson and Reliant from Rice's campus? I didn't know that the Rice Bowl has turf. Does Rice have a soccer stadium?
They've got a soccer stadium, but it has an extremelly small capacity. It's only used for Rice's womens team (Rice doesn't have a men's side.) Reliant is really close to Rice. Probably less than 5 miles or so, but because of traffic the commute would take a little bit. Robertson would be some distance, I'd say 30 min...allowing for traffic and all.
Rice Stadium would be awful. Not only is it artificial turf, but it's AstroTurf - that flat, hard type. It's not even FieldTurf or one of those other new generation artificial surfaces that they have at Dragon, Naperville, and Giants Stadium. Also, the field level is very narrow, even for a football-only stadium. A soccer field there would, at best, probably have Spartan Stadium type dimensions. The Rice Track & Soccer Stadium has a very nice grass field and a new scoreboard, but seats only around 5,000. It only has one stand and it's ancient. UH also has a 5,000 seat track and soccer stadium - I think they call it Carl Lewis stadium or field or something like that. It also has only one stand, but at least it's fairly new. The US Soccer Festival was mostly played there (along with Robertson) last summer. Rice and Reliant are very close. When the light rail line is finished, it'll run (and presumably have stops) very convenient to Rice and next to Reliant.
Reliant's pitch What's up with the playing surface at Reliant? This article (which talks about preparations for the US-Mexico match): http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/1897367 Talks about it in these terms: "...workers continued Monday preparing yet another new field design for the stadium -- real grass on top of real dirt. Unlike Reliant's football configuration, which used grass planted in portable aluminum trays to form the field, the temporary 110-by-70-yard pitch for Thursday's game will consist of eight to 10 inches of clay and soil atop the stadium's concrete floor topped by two inches of thick-cut Tifway 419 Bermuda sod." and "A U.S. Soccer spokesman said the field might be slightly smaller than both teams would prefer, but it is large enough not to be of major concern." and "Stadium workers removed four rows of seats in the corner of each football end zone to allow the larger grass surface required for a soccer pitch. With the portable seats removed and extra chairs added in other portions of the stadium, capacity for Thursday's game should be about 68,000. Although the soccer configuration is a relatively snug fit for the stadium, the 110-by-70-yard size is well within guidelines for the sport, which require the field to be from 100 to 120 yards long and from 60 to 80 yards wide. The corner sections were designed to be removed for soccer matches." So??? You ask. Well, I know the tray system didn't work all that well at Giants Stadium. Then again, there were TWO NFL teams playing there. I wonder how well a tray system would hold up if an MLS team played in Reliant. And I wonder, too, if the tray system allows for the expanded pitch size, or if it's limited to just the NFL-sized playing surface. Second, the pitch size isn't very impressive. Granted, it's the size using this temporary grass surface. But the article makes it sound as though 70 yards wide is as good at it gets in Reliant, WITH those seats removed. Makes me wonder how small the pitch would become once the NFL season started. Would an MLS team have to make do with a really downsized pitch (i.e., would the option of removing seats for soccer games be lost) once the NFL pre-season started? I know that Fire fans might face a similar problem in the new Soldier Field.
Soccer on the radio in Houston Looks like Glenn Davis will have a weekly soccer show on Houston radio: Houston Chronicle, June 1 KPFT streams online at www.kpft.org and apparently has a call-in number. The blurb about the station's history states that they were bombed twice in 1970 (it's a Pacifica station), but hopefully soccer bashers don't get so extreme.
Get a load of some of the shows they now air on KPFT: "Ejacula"; "Messerschmitt World Domination Happy Hour"; "The Prison Show". The "Soccer Hour with Glenn Davis" should fit in nicely with that bunch.
There's now a "Soccer Voices" listed for Sundays from 5:00-6:00 pm. Sadly, it's scheduled between the seemingly innocuous "Bluegrass Zone" and "KPFT Weekend News" shows. Would've been far more interesting to see what sorts of calls Glenn would get if some regular listeners of "Whole Mother/Go Vegan Texas", "Drug War News", or "Democracy Now!" happened across his show.