Follow Football Paradise as it tags along with an Indian Gooner debunking the myth of the life as a “soccer” fan in the United States of America.
America, The United States of. Land of the free, home of the brave, and all that jazz. I moved here when I was 21, and as with any 21-year-old moving to the U.S. from a Third World country, I was looking forward to the quintessential pleasures of First World life: a great education, promising career prospects, trying to impress women at bars with my “exotic” accent (only to find out that an Indian accent is NOT at the top of most women’s “Sexy Accents” list) and having my milk measured in gallons, and my weight in pounds.
However, there was one thing I was extremely apprehensive about, something that has consistently stirred emotions in me that nothing else (or no one else) has ever come close to stirring – my passion for playing and watching The Beautiful Game. Why the apprehension, you ask? Well, as any proper sports fanatic will tell you, “soccer” hasn’t historically been a popular sport in the U.S.; pre-1994, many Americans thought of football in the same way someone from Southeast Asia thinks about reindeer – we have never seen one, and aren’t quite sure whether they actually exist. When the 1994 World Cup was hosted in the U.S., there was naturally a spike in interest levels around the country. However, this interest was largely limited to international competitions; for the most part, the average sports-loving American remained as indifferent to club football as the Southeast Asians are to reindeer.
When I first moved to the U.S., I went to grad school in Bloomington, a quintessential college town, for two years. Fortunately, as can be expected from a college town, I quickly came across lots of people from countries all over the world who passionately followed and played football. Pickup games and intramurals (indoors and outdoors), and the streaming of important games at the local bars ensured that for those two years, my apprehension was at bay. This period included the 2014 World Cup, an experience I’ve documented here.
Once I graduated, I moved to Boston for my job. Before the move, my apprehension found voice once more, owing to the limited knowledge I had about Boston. I knew it was a big city, one of the oldest in the U.S., and very “American” when it came to their sports fan-base; it boasted of historically popular teams in each of the “Big 4” American sports: baseball, American football, basketball, and hockey. Hence, I assumed that most Bostonians would have no space left on their sports calendars for passionate “soccer” (goodness, how I hate that word) fanaticism, and I had made my peace with the fact that I might have to watch EPL and Champions League games alone in near-empty bars, after pleading and begging with the bartender to put the game on at the expense of the fifth rerun of the College Basketball game from a month ago.
A Bostonian acquaintance told me, to my surprise, about a bar named “Lir” that screens Arsenal games. Being out of town due to work during the first couple games of the season, I finally made my way over on a lazy Saturday morning in September, expecting a handful of people sitting in a sparsely-populated bar and watching the game distractedly while focusing on their phones/beer/brunch. On reaching the aforementioned bar, I was greeted by an unassuming façade, typical for Irish bars in the area. Consequently, no one could have prepared me for the beautiful sight that lay within.
A sea of red and white jerseys greeted my eyes, while the melodious sounds signifying pre-game excitement soothed my ears. In a daze, I was swept into the midst of this sea of people; people that were strangers to me individually, and yet, people that seemed like long lost family by virtue of the shirts we all wore so proudly. As I looked around the bar, I saw the hallmarks of deep-rooted fandom: Arsenal banners, memorabilia (including signed jerseys from ex-Gunners that had visited Boston) and customized “Boston Gooners” merchandise. Still dazed, I made my way to the back, to stand among the crowd in front of the largest screen in the bar as we approached kick-off.
If my description of my pre-game experience has left my skeptical readers in any doubt as to the dedication of this group of fans, my in-game experience should serve to alleviate that: club chants, player chants, anti-Tottenham chants, old chants, new chants, references to obscure pieces of the club’s history, allusions to erstwhile players, jokes about outlandish transfer rumors…they had it all! In that moment, I had a strong premonition – it wasn’t going to be difficult to feel at home in Boston!
For the rest of the season, I made it a point to attend every single weekend game I was in town for (and even some weekday games when work wasn’t too busy) and started becoming friends with the Boston Gooners’ board members and Lir regulars. Bars in Boston don’t usually open before 10:30 or 11 AM, but for early kick-off games in the winter and spring, Lir opens as early as needed, 7 AM ET in some cases. Once of these games was the 2-1 home win against Leicester City on Valentine’s Day, 2016; the temperature was -9°F (-23°C), and yet around 40-50 Gooners stood there, shivering and clutching their scarves and hats, their passion for The Arsenal keeping them warm. Such instances further convinced me that I was in the midst of the most passionate fan group I had ever met.
And this is not just a phenomenon limited to Boston; Boston Gooners is affiliated with Arsenal America that has a very active Facebook group filled with supporters from all over the country. I happened to be in Atlanta one weekend late last year, and realized that the Manchester United vs Arsenal game was the same weekend. A couple days before the game, I posted a question on Arsenal America’s Facebook group, asking which bar the local Gooners usually went to. Within 30 minutes, more than 15 people had replied, naming a bar in the city. I showed up at 7:30 AM, and as expected, it was packed with Gooners!
Over time I realized that most of my Boston Gooners friends did not have any ties, family or otherwise, to North London. The wannabe journalist in me was piqued; how and why did this passionate group of fans exist, almost like an oasis, in America, a land I had presumed to be – quite incorrectly – not too fond of “soccer”? Armed with my curiosity (and my charming smile), I started asking questions.
Some of my Bostonian friends, like Matt Trachy, a Financial Services analyst, echoed what my friends from Bloomington had told me – that they started playing soccer (and FIFA) in high school, and watching it on TV was a natural extension of their interest in the sport. “Around the time I started playing soccer, a buddy of mine introduced me to FIFA – and as a Chelsea fan he thoroughly enjoyed beating up on Arsenal with me at the helm,” says Matt. “So I fell into following the club. And as I really learned the game, I grew to love the style of that Arsenal team with Henry, Bergkamp, Pires spearheading truly exhilarating soccer, the likes of which I had never before experienced. Experiencing that level of play in tandem with learning the game – that really resonated with me at the start.”
While Matt’s story – falling in love with the game on TV after playing it yourself – is not too uncommon, not every die-hard football fan is born that way. For instance, Brian Ristau, a teacher at an alternative high school, says he never played the game growing up. “My town didn’t have a youth league, and my high school did not have a team until I was a senior. It wasn’t until I was a little older in the mid to late ’90s that I was becoming interested in the sport,” he says. “It just so happened that while I was discovering the sport I was reading John Lydon’s autobiography, in which he wrote about going to Highbury and being an Arsenal supporter. So I got into the club through my love for punk rock. This was also around the time that Wenger, Bergkamp, and Henry came to the club. So it was a great time to connect with the club.”
For some others, falling in love with football was a natural consequence of patriotic pride. “My love of soccer was cemented watching John Brooks score a 86′ cracker in the middle of Grant Park with thousands of screaming fans during the 2014 World Cup!” says Lauren Fiori, a nurse, who, like many other Americans that contracted football fever during the World Cup, did not want to wait another four years to watch The Beautiful Game again. “I started watching the Premier League with my brother that summer, and watching with a Manchester United supporter validated the fact that I could never support their club. The first game I watched on my own was Arsenal vs Galatasaray in the Champions League – and the rest is history!”
While reading about the fandom stories of passionate football fans, one could be forgiven for not immediately thinking of boring logistical issues like TV rights. However, the influence these issues have on the average fan certainly can’t be ignored. Yes, die-hard fans will find a way to watch the game online if it isn’t broadcast on the telly, but one can’t always say the same about someone at the very beginning of their career as a football fan. At such a stage, easy accessibility to the game is of paramount importance to stoke the fire of passion.
Brian remembers the trials and tribulations of his early life as a Gooner quite vividly. “When I was first getting into soccer, you had maybe one match to watch each week on tape delay, and they had the highlights show where they showed the goals from all of the matches, but it aired at odd hours. When I lived in Cleveland, one of my best friends, a Liverpool supporter, would have me over for matches because he had a dish and got matches I couldn’t get. I spent more time reading about the matches than watching them. This was before everyone had high speed internet and good video platforms; once the web caught up things changed. I think we all have spent a decent amount of time watching dodgy feeds to see matches week in and week out. The biggest change has been NBC getting the Premier League contract – it is so easy to watch matches now, the sport is so much more accessible compared to when I started trying to watch the matches.”
Brian also agrees that the role of bars like Lir (and the Blackthorn, where the Boston Gooners watched games before they shifted base) is pivotal to the cause of cementing football fandom in America. “When Arsenal were in the League Cup final vs Birmingham I wanted to be able to watch and not worry about the feed dropping, so I looked into it, found the Boston Gooners, and went to the Blackthorn to watch that match. While we won’t talk about the result, I loved being around other people who were also into it. I didn’t really know the songs and didn’t talk to anyone, which probably sounds weird if you know me now – at Lir I try to talk to new people every week – but I kept going back and met the people running the club. After the move to Lir, we really saw the numbers increase. And while it is easy to watch matches at home, once you come to the pub and feel the atmosphere, we hope you want to come back. “
In conclusion, many factors have contributed to the rise of football fandom in the U.S. – the surprisingly good showing of the USMNT at World Cup 2014, the continued successes of the USWNT (which is the most successful women’s national team in history: 3 World Cups, 4 Olympic Golds, 7 CONCACAF Gold Cups), the extremely well-organized high school soccer infrastructure in most states for both genders, the coverage of the Premier League on NBC and the Champions League on Fox Sports, and the support of fantastic bars like Lir. However, none of these factors would’ve mattered if it weren’t for the fact that The Beautiful Game resonates with the same vibrancy with sports fans from different parts of the globe. Personally, I will forever be indebted to this wonderful group of people for welcoming Gooners from across the world with open arms; the Boston Gooners feel just like family and Boston feels just like home.
