What your motivation to be a Revs fan? Has it changed over time?

I wonder how many people will re-think their prior devotion to sports and decide there are more important things in life. Not me, but rational people.

After going a few months without any sports and finding other ways to occupy their time (re-discovering family, less expensive or time-consuming diversions, etc.) how many of them will not return to their sports-obsessed past?

 

I have certainly found other (not necessarily better) ways to occupy my time, but I will welcome MLS back with open arms when the time comes. Other sports (baseball, basketball, hockey) I have not missed at all.

 

My motivation for being a Revs fan started when I was a kid and wondered why there was no local soccer team to support. I was too young to know the Tea Men and learned about them long after they were gone, and it made no sense to me why soccer didn't have a real pro league here, like the other sports did.

I jumped in with my family at the beginning and surrendered myself to becoming passionate about the Revs. The 1990s was a different animal - the men's national team came here regularly and never lost. The Revs sucked, but the games had a lively atmosphere often for the first few years. We had great seats, and they were cheap.

We moved into the new building and the atmosphere crumbled, but the team got good. We came so close. We had some small victories, and some agonizing defeats. The Revs treated the fans like shit for many years, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of MLS 1.0. So many times, I wanted to give up. But I couldn't - for so many reasons, they had become part of my life.

Soccer has been such a huge part of my four-plus decades of life, as a player, as a coach, as a spectator, and in my professional career. Sometimes I forget that at this point, the Revs have been around for more than half my life.

The motivation has certainly changed. When it started, I wanted a local team to support, the sport to grow, and the league to survive. Sure, I wanted the team to be "good" but that meant something a lot different 25 years ago.

Now, I want the Revs to be one of the organizations that strives to set the bar for excellence in the league and works hard to compete for championships and develop talent. It is not there yet, but I felt more confidence in the organization to do the right things coming into this season than I had in a long time. I want them back as soon as safe and possible.

 

The appeal of soccer/football for me, aside from the game itself, has always been the universality and the multi-tiered nature of it all. Most US team sporting leagues are idiosyncratic and insular - the best players of said sport may play in them, but the teams are locked into their league structure. The Celtics will never play a European basketball club; the Bruins a Russian hockey club. There's no larger universe for them. (And the NFL is simply a tiny pond that no one else plays in, even if the US teams in it are all financial leviathans.)

So what appeals to me about the Revs is that they're our local club but are part of a much larger "biosphere" in which they do get involved. They can play in larger regional tournaments or the World Club Cup or against teams from abroad. They don't face a threat of relegation - I think that lessens their vibrancy, in a way - but otherwise they have access a fairly full engagement in the greater soccer world. That potential keeps me coming back. (And with Arena, we might actually be able to tap into it....)

 

I can't wait for sports to return. I'm a sports-watching junkie. I'm not a fanatic, as in I completely worship my teams. I root for my teams and holler at the TV when Teals blows one high and wide. But once the game is over it's either great game or that sucks and I move on. I do reserve the right to comment on these forums, but that is the extent of my fandom.
I enjoy competition. I'm highly competitive and I think that's what endears me to sports. I will watch most sports, with soccer and hockey being two of my favorite.

As for the Revs. I have also gone thru stages similar to Revs in 2010. When MLS started I was very excited to finally see real football in the US. In 2000 we moved to Raleigh where I coached my son and helped support the start-up of the current NCFC team. As a side note, in 2002 Bruce Arena used Cary as the training ground for the national team. I watched their final tune-up game against the Richmond Kickers, who beat the national team 2 to 1!! I guess that result was irrelevant.
While living in NC I followed the Revs from afar, catching a game or two, mostly in the playoffs.

In 2011 we moved back to NE and I took up full-time Revs watching.
I didn't have a big problem with Jay Heaps as a coach. I laid the blame for the team's poor performance at the feet of Burns and Bilello for giving him nothing to work with, and with Kraft for being OK with the results. But when they fired Jay and hired Friedel that was the end of rooting for the Revs. I didn't stop rooting for the Revs the day Brad was hired, but I didn't give him a very long leash. Something about him made him unlikable to me, so I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then that glorious day in May almost exactly a year ago when Arena was hired. I thought the most important part was the firing of Burns. I was hoping Bilello would also be shown the door, as he was Mike's partner in crime. I don't have great faith that things have changed forever and will always be positive in the future, but I will happily enjoy the current ride.

 

Like Tom H., I grew up watching Soccer Made in Germany on PBS (I was, and still am fascinated that there is a team called Muenchengladbach) and the occasional cup match on Wide World of Sports (Leeds v. Arsenal?). While still in school, several of my college teammates joined the Minutemen, but by the time I moved to Boston a couple of years later, the team had folded. I followed the Teamen for their short life, but then there was the great void until WC94 and MLS came along.

I was soccer-starved when the team started and loved the big crowds in the beginning, but still had to tolerate the Euro-snobs and Latin-snobs who seemed to think it was worth buying tickets so they could verify (and announce) what they already knew - that MLS wasn't as good. At least when the crowds died down, the folks who remained were the ones who seemed to really want to be there.

 

Post of the day. Thanks for contributing a nice bit of writing.

 

Who are the Revs? Oh yeah I forgot

I've followed this team from the very beginning. Mostly its been frustrating but there were some good times too. The problems with the team are just what others have said. Krafts dont want to spend money on the Revs, Burns didnt want to pay the players and made it impossible to get anybody good in here... and if we did, they left if they could and didnt want to come back (Dempsey, Parkhurst, Lee). Hopefully those days are over.

I have great hopes since Arena took over. The most hope I have had in years. He has a history of being able to turn a franchise around and build a contender. I want to see NE with fan attendance like Seattle. They average over 40K in 2018, 2019. We can do it here too if we have a team worth watching. I think Arena can build that team.

I am still bitter about losing Lee (good one Burns)He alone was worth the cost of a ticket. I cant say his career has exactly blossomed since he left either. Ended up as a sub at LA and now is in Miami.... who knows? All I ever read about is Miami trying to sign midfielders. A lot of players for few positions... it doesnt look to me like hes going to be a starter there either. Why do I mention this? Just a wild dream that maybe, just maybe.... with Burns gone... maybe we could get him back if he falls off Miami's radar screen? (IK it wont happen)

 

My love of the Revs is based in the love of my family, love of the sport, love of my friends, and love of my hometown.

My father and his family moved here from Portugal when he was a teenager, and they always loved the game. Dad went to a number of Tea Men and RI Oceaneers games, watched that PBS Bundesliga show, and listened to games on radio. He played keeper for his company team and mom made him drag me to some of his practices. I remember watching some of the WC86 matches with him. As a youngster I rarely paid attention because my friends liked 'American' sports, but around the time I began high school I started to appreciate my family's heritage and saw that the game brought the family together, that every Portuguese national team match was a source of pride (followed by finding excuses for the team's inevitably poor performance.)

I was 19 years old during World Cup USA94; the timing was perfect. My friend and I attended 5 games at Foxborough and I'd never seen anything like it. The tailgates, the festive atmosphere in the stands, and multiple cultures passionately celebrating together regardless of the outcome.

Went to a handful of Revs games in 1996 and 1997 with minimal knowledge of the league or the team. I was fresh out of college and unsure of what the future would hold, so embracing the sport was something I could cling to, something global yet underground within this country, something I could weave into my unique identity. Soccer matches were starting to appear semi-regularly on TV and I was educating myself on the leagues and the rules and researching that whole WC qualifying thing as I had no idea how the teams in WC94 were chosen to participate.

The more I learned, the more I watched, the more I liked, and I felt privileged to have a local club to support. In 1998 & 99 I watched every Revs game on TV and attended a few. Bought my first season tickets in 2000. Moved to the Fort in 2004-ish. Went on a couple of NJ road trips. Found a fun group of people, tailgaiting and celebrating, accepting me and my social awkwardness. Made some great friends that I miss very much. Watched many bad games. Watched the team come so close so often. Always frustrated with the club's complacency, their lack of desire to even appear to try. But the people always made it great. And the players have always been approachable, relateable, nice guys, barely earning more than I did.

Moved to Atlanta a month before they were awarded an MLS franchise. Immediately bought season tickets to support the league and because I thought they'd be lucky to get 15,000 fans per game after 3 or 4 years. Then watched them become a model franchise, push the boundaries of MLS success, and excess, from day one. Constantly growing more and more jealous, and more and more resentful of them. They magnified my love/hate relationship with the Revs even more.

But the Revs are my family and my home, and always will be.

 

Once this team made its first cup finals I wanted more out of them. They were either never willing or never able to make that next step after falling short so many times. I just read this on MLSsoccer:
MLSsoccer.com: It sounds like you didn't get the same warmth of reception from the previous Revs leadership?
Shalrie Joseph: We just never got along. [Burns] never had my side when I needed him to be there, he was just never that person, he never had my back.
This is how I felt for years! Burns never had my back as a supporter. His yearly " we tried our best but we could not make the deal." was almost expected. The yearly bargain basement player signing for the sake of signing a player The late 2000's, the Heap Era and the Brad debacle left me wanting. Never before had i turned off games at half time or tuned into other games until those years. The firing of Brad, then Burns renewed my faith in the club. There is an new excitement for me with this team with Gil, Buksa, Bou and company. i know this team probably does not have the defense to lift an MLS cup but right now I am okay with the fact that they are going to be in every game and not mail it in like they seemed to do under Heaps last year and the entire brad regime. I now feel if Arena feels he is missing a piece to the puzzle is going to go get it. That is something I have never felt with any Revs team even under Nicol

 

Great topic… where do I even begin. Props to rkupp for the ‘Gladbach mention. I have a German colleague who is a Bayern fan and I always try to trash talk him about “die folen.”

I was there from the start, and in the mid-90s probably every other newspaper article pointed out that previous leagues failed and that who knew if this one would last. Believe it or not, we used to automatically root for the home teams in neutral games because someone was attending their first game and if they had a good time, they’d be more likely to come back. It was that tenuous.

Eric, Guy, “Red” Foley and I started the Pictures of Chairman Mao fanzine, and that was an amazing ride. Someone once said that I wanted it to be the Boston Globe Spotlight team (investigative reporting to try and figure out what was really going on in MLS); Guy wanted it to be a Brit-style fanzine where the main thrust was to slag off management, no matter what; Eric wanted it to be National Lampoon, getting a good laff out of it, and “Red” didn’t care as long as he got to slag off someone! It was all of those things and more!

Miraculously they gave us press credentials and we got to talk to the players. Some were very gregarious and enjoyed talking to us. Others, like a certain future GM, were, um, less so. Even after scoring a spectacular equalizing goal against the then-unbeaten Galaxy, you still gotta act like a dick?

So it went for me from just hoping the league and team would survive and be a permanent force on the local sporting scene to getting frustrated that, by 1999, it seems like we would always suck. Playoffs the next year under Fernando, but that was a temporary lull. Then the contraction re-stocking, where I realized we should be a really good team, while holding my breath about the long-term future of the team and league.

Even though the teams at the old stadium were terrible, the atmosphere was lively and fun. At Gillette it was the opposite. The mid-decade cup runs were fun, but always ended up badly. I can’t help but think how things would have been so different if only one of them turned out right for us. We would have been the only city to win titles in 5 different sports within a few years.

I gradually stopped caring too much during the Heaps years, although the Jermaine Jones era was like Lucy holding the football and beckoning me to give it a kick. This time for real, I promise!

Finally with the hiring of Arena, I regained some hope. Any kind of permanent change has to come from a guy like Arena demanding that things be done differently. A good player like Jones can only carry a team so far, and then he goes. A good coach like Nicol can only do so much if the infrastructure and commitment aren’t there. I am hoping that things will be different this time. C’mon Lucy, please don’t pull the ball back again like you always do!

 

I started taking some slight interest in Soccer during the 94 World cup just before I started high school. I was in Washington DC for my brother's college orientation and it just seemed new and exotic . While I didn't make it to a match the Saudi National team I believe was actually staying in the same hotel as us which is crazy considering it was a nice place but not Saudi Money nice place.

I really got into football in earnest during Euro 96. Football's coming home, cool Britannia and all that shit. Football was part of an overall package with Anglophilia in those days (I'll still take Blur over Oasis)

I was excited to have soccer I could actually see in person though I'll confess it took awhile for me to fully embrace MLS as aspects of it's Americanness didn't seem quite as hip as following the game from overseas. I also come from the part of Connecticut seen as disputed territory. Where some poor misguided souls betray their New England roots and feel we're physically closer to New York. Sadly my best friend who largely got me into soccer /football int he first place is one of those and is a lifelong Metrostars/Pink Cows fan. I got dragged along to many a Metro game down in New Jersey in those days.

I think my first inkling of affinity toward the Revs came the first time I saw them on TV and my first Revolution hero Joe Max Moore scored. I did manage to get my parents to take me to a Revs-Tampa Bay Mutiny game at the old Foxboro . I was still dragged along for awhile to more games at the Swamp in Jersey but I think the final straw for me was being at a game there (them VS US) sitting with their fans singing "New England's a Suburban club" having lived my entire life in Suburban New England (whatever some people in Connecticut think it's factually New England and where we lived was definitely the suburbs) It really solidified my allegiance to the home region team and I started to take MLS more seriously. The nearly Championship years reinforcing it.

 

Wow, those Jersey Boys really know how to throw around insults! A "Suburban Club!" The Horrors! I think one of them also made some crack about going online and checking the status of a 401k account (which I am not going to do any time soon), and someone photoshopped a Midnight Riders logo with a Mini-van! Those guys are almost as badass as the tough-guy insurance actuaries in Cow-lumbus who like to trash-talk the Amish on the internet 'cause they know they won't reply... "Yea verily, thee and which army?"

That's all pretty rich from guys who, well, the New Jersey jokes write themselves, so no need to even comment on that. Even the toothless inbreds living in a broken-down trailer in Alabama are glad they don't live in New Jersey!