Grizzly Posted October 1, 2010 Share Posted October 1, 2010 Seems to be a week of bad ideas in the MLS. It will be surprising if the league supports this because not only is it bad for attendance and building up rivalries, when UM attended the Montreal MLS announcement Garber told us personally he wanted away teams to bring a couple of thousand fans. http://www.prostamerika.com/2010/09/30/fans-must-be-allowed-to-attend-derbies-29504/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanadianSoccerFan Posted October 2, 2010 Share Posted October 2, 2010 That's a massive facepalm inducing decision if it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted October 2, 2010 Share Posted October 2, 2010 Totally absurd, especially when the entire upper deck of Qwest is empty for Sounder's games. Just open an upper section and let the Timbers and Whitecaps fan fill it up. And let it happen reciprocally too, some of my best memories from NASL days coming back to me. Meaning I have no problem if a few thousand come up to Van for their matches either, as they well might. Sure to be an amazing atmosphere in the Pac Northwest next season and beyond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmcmurph Posted October 2, 2010 Share Posted October 2, 2010 The Sounders are just scared that the Timbers and Caps fans will out chant them. That is where Seattle got their shade of green for their uniform from, chicken**** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vancouversoccerman Posted October 2, 2010 Share Posted October 2, 2010 I remember going to a NY Red Bull at Giants Stadium three years ago. They were playing New England, and they might have had about 8,000 out for the game. Of course, there were prairie fields of empty seats between the goals. But the Empire City Supporters packed their end zone to the point where burly security guards stopped anyone without an ECS card from joining them. It was the only lively spot in Sleeping Giants Stadium that day. Meanwhile, the 40 or so New England supporters who made the bus trip were given their own section in the opposite corner of the otherwise empty upper deck . They didn't even fill four rows up there. And yet, big burly security guards surrounded them and they weren't allowed to go down to the lower deck, even to buy a hot dog. It was dumb. The Seattle statement is just as dumb. Do they really think Vancouverities aren't just going to go on Ticketmaster and buy the tickets at the start of the season? This isn't Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StartingEleven Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Was at the Vancouver V portland match tonight... loved that the Portland crowd seems to be getting bigger and louder, of course the hometown fans were the loudest but not having the rival fans in the stadium (in decent numbers) would be bad for the rivalries in the long run. By the way, aside from the banter between both sets of fans I did not and never have seen any violent or unsafe fan interaction between the Timbers Army and the Southsiders. And I can't remember anything like that when Seattle was in the league either, what is the Seattle top brass going on about?!?!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted October 3, 2010 Author Share Posted October 3, 2010 What is really unbelievable is Seattle has a two tiered stadium in which the upper tier is usually closed. There can not be a much easier situation as far as controlling opposing fans than putting them in the upper tier. They are separate from the home fans for the whole game and can be easily escorted out of the stadium. I recently was at RFK for Philly at DCU and they had the Sons of Ben in the upper deck and there were absolutely no problems in controlling the fans. Why would Seattle turn down selling thousands of extra seats to games when the security expense would be relatively small? Especially when the alternative is Caps and Timbers fans buying tickets online and sitting among the Seattle fans which will cause a lot more problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmcmurph Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 Was at the Vancouver V portland match tonight... loved that the Portland crowd seems to be getting bigger and louder, of course the hometown fans were the loudest but not having the rival fans in the stadium (in decent numbers) would be bad for the rivalries in the long run. By the way, aside from the banter between both sets of fans I did not and never have seen any violent or unsafe fan interaction between the Timbers Army and the Southsiders. And I can't remember anything like that when Seattle was in the league either, what is the Seattle top brass going on about?!?!? Timbers Army and the Caps Southsiders invite and attend each other's tailgate parties. It is very civilized. You don't have to be a violent butthead to be passionate about your team. What is Seattle management thinking? Well Drew Carey was going on about "somebody will come up with a cup or something" when Portland and Vancouver got the expansion teams. Somebody tell Drew that the Cascadia Cup has been going on for a while before he came along. They are not always on the ball so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted October 3, 2010 Share Posted October 3, 2010 The silver lining in all this, is that we've come to a time in North American Football where this is a real issue. There's no way they can allow restrictions like this though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter S Posted October 6, 2010 Share Posted October 6, 2010 "It’s fantastic for Vancouver because we’re going to have four rivals, and derbies and rivalries are what make soccer special. I can’t wait to see all the traveling support, the passionate fans and sellout crowds" - Steve Nash, from an MLS.com interview (which is being discussed in a separate thread.) He understands - hopefully Seattle will wake up - isn't the whole point of having local rivals in the league so that you can have big matches with traveling support? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RS Posted October 6, 2010 Share Posted October 6, 2010 Seattle has zero reason to try to limit away fans, what with 35,000 seats sitting unused every match. In DC, New England, and NY (when they were in Giants Stadium), they accommodated TFC fans in the hundreds by completely sectioning us off either in the upper deck or (in the case of New England) and unused area of the lower bowl. The precedent is there, and teams in NFL stadiums have it easy where security is concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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