players

agents

front office

bloggers

writers

officials

the supporters

the leagues

the Federation

We’re all fans.

last seen

TM

fan talk

Louligans’ General Liz at Glavin Sports Complex. July 2011

tweet this

upcoming visits

wear this

I guess that’s why all us here appreciate it and we’re all out here. This PDL team - they play in the middle of nowhere and they’re not selling out the stadium, they don’t have huge concession stands - I mean, I use a Porto-Pottie. But this team backs us as much as we back them. And we know that, come next season, they’re gonna be here.

**I don’t receive any advertising dollars from these guys. I just love their stuff!

coaches

historians

the pub

retailers

charities

non-profits

Top down: Rapids pre-game in Liberty Village, with Quakes great Troy Dayak inbound from San Francisco all decked out in San Jose colors and supporter scarf; Galaxy supporters celebrate their 2010 Supporters Shield; Rapids and TFC supporters at their pre-match party at Maro; Canadian US soccer historian Colin Jose shows off his collection of museum-worthy memorabilia, a Bill Graham Guide from 1948; the Cascadia Rivalry goes primetime with Timbers and Whitecaps fans joining the league in 2011; Paul Tamberino ‘swears in’ MLS fans at the Supporters Summit.

Alida Bray, President & CEO of History San Jose museum stands side by side with Soccer Silicon Valley’s Don Gagliardi, with an ever-growing collection of Earthquakes and Bay Area soccer, and the very first ball kicked in MLS from Spartan Stadium and the Quakes’ first win in the modern era.

January 2011

San Jose

fully removable section in the south end that artfully conceals a fully loaded stage space, turning this soccer triumph into a major concert venue without sacrificing a fourth of the stadium’s seats on game days. Lance Armstrong’s global charity and ubiquitous yellow banner frames the structure, adding a touch of elegance and credibility to an already magnificent design. This may not be Rogers and Hammerstein’s Kansas City but everything is more than up to date. LIVESTRONG Sporting Park is the Buzz Lightyear on a shelf of marionettes.

in U.S. Soccer!

by Sean Reid

January 7, 2012

LIVESTRONG Sporting Park

Kansas City

From the top, down: Fans watch from the causeway of Silverbacks Park in Atlanta.; Andy Zorovich stands in front of Rocket City’s home field in Huntsville and the site of back-to-back NPSL Final Four tourneys in 2010 and 2011. A Metros keeper mans the goals at a pre-season scrimmage. Soccer in the Streets programmer and Silverbacks Reserves owner Jason Longshore. Damon “El Conductor” Crumley autographed limited edition team card. 3 of Chattanooga FC’s co-founders: Krue Brock, Daryl Heald, and Sheldon Grizzle. Atlanta Beat lines up at home next to Western NY Flash on the grounds of KSU Soccer Stadium in Kennesaw, GA. The grass is grown by the prestigious Augusta National Golf Club, home of the famed Masters Tournament.

April 2011

Atlanta, Huntsville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Kennesaw

The Cauldron supporters section, named in the days when the club was Kansas City WIzards, is a vital component to the new atmosphere magnified by Livestrong. The stadium roof traps the sound and amplifies the supporters north end section, ecstatic from another offensive display as Sporting dismantles Toronto 4-2.

“This is amazing!”

Soccer Park, St. Louis Bread Factory 

St. Louis

Writer and historian David Lange (top) and ex-NASL and indoor pro Pat McBride (below) are vanguards of St. Louis soccer tradition.

The stadium is an extension of the imaginative and technological acumen on regular display by the club’s new owners, before whom, the club was shrouded in the relative dark ages of early MLS and its dubious mid-90s rainbow uniforms. The Lamar Hunt ownership group was running both Columbus and Dallas at the time (and still is), and Hunt, who also owned the NFL Kansas City Chiefs, had run out of miracles. The Wizards, as the club was known back then – allegedly named after Dorothy’s magical benefactor from Oz (hence the rainbow) – were one of the league’s least exciting clubs, had scant following within the community, and were playing at the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, the anathema for American soccer teams where the fan experience is swallowed in the cavernous emptiness of an arena whose vacant seats usually outnumbered the fans 7-1.

Hunt however, believed in keeping the club in Kansas City and in 2006 found a group of local investors to buy the club, including two of the three founders of multinational healthcare technology giant, Cerna, and entrepreneur Robb Heineman. Heineman is a sports fan; his father owned the early, minor league Sioux Falls Skyforce basketball team, still around after 24 years and now with the NBA’s development league. You couldn't say Heineman was a huge soccer fan before the purchase, but that all changed on September 1, 2006, the day his name went on the dotted line.

“I actually really started enjoying the game after I got to meet Lamar and over the course of acquiring the team, I had the opportunity to go to the 2004 US Open Cup final with Lamar, which the Wizards successfully won, and I started to appreciate the game a lot more and saw a lot of opportunities, specifically around all the emerging demographics in the game, so I was a fan of that. I was a big fan of the opportunity, I guess. So fast-forward to today, all five [owners] are involved with the team – and I should really say five groups because it’s our entire family. It’s wives and all the kids. We’re very much into it. We go to pretty much all the road games and we go to absolutely all the home games. We’re following Major League Soccer all the time. We’re watching games all over the world in case we see a player that catches our eye. So all of us are pretty much into it. It’s not just a passive investment. It’s a very active interest as well.”

But before Hunt found Heinemann, another lasting relationship had been forged – specifically with the supporters group called the Cauldron, the name appropriately formed from the Wizards’ diverse fan melting pot. When news of Hunt’s pending sale broke, supporters didn’t know at the time what would happen to the club. So, some core Cauldron members got together and created the Heart of America Soccer Foundation to sell the city on Hunt’s vision for their Wizards: local ownership and a more sensible stadium. The group wasn’t lacking for leaders and included Cauldron founder, Sam Pierron, Dane, now president of the group, and two notable contributors, both with Sporting today: attorney and future COO Greg Cotton and architect David Ficklin, who would become VP of Development and help design their future home at LIVESTRONG. Dane and Pierron take turns with the retelling.

More to follow in the book. For the whole essay, click here.

by Sean Reid

July 28, 2011

First of all - Happy New Year! Great seasons at all levels - thank you MLS, WPS, NASL, USL/PDL and the NPSL and the men’s and women’s national team. 2011 was a hard year for many, but another terrific one for the American soccer fan. Congrats also to Galaxy, Sounders, WNY Flash, NSC Minnesota, Orlando City, Kitsap Pumas and Jacksonville United, our 2011 league and USOC winners. Can’t wait for spring.

In the meantime, for the first time after these last 2 years of steady writing and travel, I’m finally posting my first tangible update on the book’s progress. Chattanooga graphic design house Widgets & Stone has assembled these initial pages below, to offer a sneak preview of the look and design of the work as I’m envisioning it. Below is a map page of each regional breakdown by chapter highlighting the various clubs in the area.

More to follow... stay tuned!

The draft spreads below are straight out of my Florida chapter and were completed the day before Rowdies got their name back! Congrats, Tampa Bay! Yea, rewrites!

OK, you may notice that I have a bit of a thing for scarves - and they will be a predominant feature in the book. If you are a fan or supporter and would like to have your scarf in my book, simply lay the scarf out straight on a light background, take a high quality snapshot, and send it to me sean@believeinussoccer.com  with the following info: Your name (First and last initial), where you live, club you support, and how long you’ve been a fan of the game.

I want that awesome scarf!

Night and day: at Livestrong’s Members Club, the supporters pack the dance floor and celebrate the Wizards’ commanding victory. On the Missouri side of the river, gameday morning, downtown KC is as tranquil as the stadium is rowdy.

LIVESTRONG/the Plaza

Kansas City (Kansas)/Kansas City (Missouri)

In September 2010 I met Robert Jonas in Santa Clara during an Earthquakes training session. Jonas, who had been covering the Quakes for the Bay Area’s Center Line Soccer since 2008 was good natured and welcoming, and he instantly proved to be a helpful measuring stick for my work. For starters, at 6’ 4”, he dwarfed Chris Wondolowski who, contrary to the club’s media guide, is listed at six feet. Thanks to Robert Jonas, I can say unequivocally that Chris Wondolowski is not six feet tall. Then again, next to Jonas, whom I’m learning is 90% brain stem, few can actually measure up.

Jonas is a former chemist and spent his formative years working in nanotechnology back before sci-fi had its own channel. Engineering small molecules to solve big problems and explaining how they work gave him a natural gift for the technical side of both soccer and soccer writing. And like most benevolent geniuses, Jonas put it out there for free. Now through any number of Jonas hashtags, you can find him as the Managing Editor of Center Line and Quake, Rattle & Roll, winning on CSRN’s Winning Ugly and a frequent guest for Around the League and Feuerstein’s Fire on Blogspot Radio, or convalescing in the SJEarthquakes.com or MatchFitUSA archives. He’s had cameos talking Bay Area soccer on a variety of national radio shows and podcasts and co-hosts one of his own, The Quakes Cast with former MLS defender Kelly Gray. It’s the club’s official podcast, which now that I’m a Bay Area resident, I totally need to subscribe to.

He’s a rec league defender, board member on the Palo Alto Adult Soccer League, and former youth coach. Although he says his knees aren’t what they once were, I have seen Jonas at his barhopping best and let me assure you he is still as agile as a gazelle.

And as if he didn’t have enough to juggle with the radio, the web, slide tackles, and an expanding non-soccer following – he writes teaching curriculum for needy Stanford chemistry students – Jonas now has one more feather to add to his collection of feathers; he’s agreed to be my editor.

by Sean Reid

illustration by Prairie Rose Clayton

Jonas is a colleague for all seasons, an analytical thinker, and all-around nice guy. He’s going to make sure my stuff follows the 3 Rs: readable, reliable, and really doesn’t suck too much. I’m very lucky he’s in my corner and the book will be better for it.

The Jonas name also lends a certain legitimacy and national attention to the project. Help me welcome Robert to the party by taking full advantage of this. Feel free to share the good news, Tweet, re-tweet, Like, chat and post! #JonasHeartsMyBook

Buck Shaw Stadium  Santa Clara

Robert Jonas interviewing Chris Wondolowski in 2010 for Center Line.

April 22, 2012

vs. LA Misioneros FC

Chukchansi Park

At their final match of a season without professional men’s or women’s soccer, the Louligans make the most of their support by commuting hours, for some, to cheer on the Lions and even organizing away caravans where at some clubs they have outnumbered the local supporters. Here, the last match of the season, a 0-1 loss to Des Moines Menace.

Glavin Soccer Complex

St. Charles

Sean Reid, 2011

is the line Sean Dane hears the most when visitors come to LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. Away fans say it. I said it. Back-up goalie Eric Kronberg said it when he first sat in his swiveling, $4,000 padded locker room armchair, just beyond the player smoothie bar and the training room that looks like it belongs on the deck of a Starfleet cruiser. The place is only the second on the planet completely wired for high-speed wireless internet (Wembley was the first) and the only one on the entire continent of its kind. The field is lit entirely for HD television and has one ingenious, key feature: a

Sporting KC is one of 2 MLS clubs that share fans from two neighboring states. The divide in the crest represents the Missouri River between Missouri and Kansas.

Open call for tifo artists!

I introduced myself to Prairie Rose Clayton at a nightclub in Toronto during the 2010 MLS Cup on the advice of TIAS blogger/photojournalist Adam Spangler. “There’s someone you should talk to,” he told me. And then he told me why. Outside of Foxboro and the confines of Gillette Stadium, her work is probably more visible than she is. Prairie’s responsible for the emblematic headshot tifo that has imortalized all the Revolution stalwarts from Twellman to Joseph, Alston, to their new coach and former fullback Jay Heaps. When a Revs player leaves the team, he gets to keep his personalized banner. Kristine Lilly got one from her time with Breakers. Twellman has four personalized Prairie originals. A nice sendoff and a great tradition.

Now over a year later, I finally have my own - and no, that’s not me in the illustration there to the left. But the fan in the piece and its title represent one of five sections that will comprise my book. The book will have a significant artistic component and feature not only scarves but everything related to fan culture. Tifo in the US is nearly exclusively the domain of soccer. The titles of these chapter sections represent not only all the traits of an American soccer fan, but will be framed in something uniquely special to the game we all love.

So I’m opening it up to all tifo artists out there. If you would like a big color spread in my book featuring your tifo art - your design, my section title - please contact me. Tell me about what you’ve done, send me a few photos of your work, and I’ll give you insight on one of my four remaining sections and a green light to go Van Gogh. You will get a signed copy of my book’s first print edition.

Paint a banner or a small composite, send the hi-res photo or scan and I will include it in the book. I’ve got four available slots. Which community’s supporters will step up? Who can make the most incredible page-turning tifo title page? Will it be a solo effort or group project. MLS or PDL club supporters?

Thanks, Prairie for the piece (you’ll actually be able to see it in the stands when she takes the banner with her back to BMO in June to catch the USMNT in their final WC qualifying tune-up!)

We’re 1/5 of the way to making this the most beautiful soccer book out there - and all-American.

sean@believeinussoccer.com

Interested?

Soccer Park (top) is the latest soccer specific home for the game in St. Louis, hosting previously AC St. Louis and Athletica. The field is now home to Scott Gallagher, one of the top youth clubs in the country.

February 18, 2012

April 5, 2012