I’m a Vancouver Southsider but I enjoy the taste of prawn sandwiches too much to give them up. So it was that on Sunday, when the Whitecaps started life in BC Place against the Portland Timbers, I was sitting up in the press box, stuffing popcorn into my face like it was oxygen and watching the game from above.It was a beautiful place to watch the game. BC Place looks like a real soccer venue, with the retractable seats extended near the touch lines and the elegant new plastic pitch showing hardly a trace of the throwball game two days earlier. The only thing missing was one of the soccer teams: the Portland Timbers showed up but, sadly, the Vancouver Whitecaps seemed to have sent eleven statues instead.More important, it sounded like a real soccer venue.I was standing amongst the Southsiders for the last stand at Empire Field two weeks ago and, though I and many of you chanted ourselves hoarse, our noise vanished into the night air with our team’s defense while, to the northwest of us, Seattle’s Emerald City Supporters boomed and echoed. They had a lot more to cheer about, of course, but it was still disheartening. All of the talk was “it’ll be a lot better at BC Place”, but I was not optimistic.

Well, it was better. A lot better. The Timbers Army was assembled through open doors to the left of me, close enough that I could have thrown a beer at them. They’re justly recognized as the best supporters in Major League Soccer and their “our house in the middle of BC” was a big, if geographically inaccurate, hit. But it seemed like they’d just be getting into their groove then, in a dense little wedge in one corner of the vast concrete stadium, there’d be the boom of “WE’RE BLUE! WE’RE WHITE!”

There was no question whose house it really was.

Visually, audibly, the support was a treat to watch from afar. Was it the way the Southsiders were concentrated into a smaller area? Was it the carefully-designed and labouriously-crafted tifo which got the game started off right? Was it the building itself? The megaphones? A sense of occasion, of purpose? Whatever it was, it was hard not to leap to my feet and join in “Boundary Road” as it rang, clear and true, across the stadium. I knew exactly when it was the eighty-sixth minute.

The Southsiders still have room to grow and improve. But too many people to name in both the Southsiders and the Whitecaps have done yeoman’s work getting us this far. There’s been so much growth, so much hope, so much promise over the last year that it was remarkable to see it coming together, to see the tifo and the flags and hear the chants and songs of fans ten times more exuberant than the team they were supporting.

It was much more meaningful than a mere stadium; we’ve seen three of those in twelve months. Stadiums come and go, but Southsiders are forever.

Ben Massey, aka Lord Bob
http://www.eightysixforever.com
Follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/Lord_Bob

Let me start by giving you all a big round of applause!

I didn’t know what kind of feed back would be posted on the forum but I am more than pleased by the comments I have read.

As head capo, I take my duties very seriously and am always woried about peforming them to the best of my abilities. After the match I really didn’t know what to expect to read here (forum) but am more than happy with the response. I honestly didn’t know what to expect since it is our first go at it with our new system but am pretty pleased with what we brought so far. This is our first go at it and will only get better and better.

My goal as head capo, along with my assistants (Kris and Dan), is to get things going and as often as we can and also try to pick eveybody up when the team goes down. I also try to keep the chants going longer and it really seems to be working and on a whole, I BELIEVE that we are on the right track (pun intended ).

You guys/gals don’t know how much it means to me to here all the great comments of how people on the far end of the stadium can hear us loud and clear and can even here us over the TA even when their seats are right there. That’s frickin awesome and is what I am trying to accomplish while performing my dutties as head capo. Even when we are able to get most of the east side standing and clapping while they have smiles on their face was great. We are truly having a positive impact on the rest of the crowd and the media has also stated this fact.

Another note is that the march was epic. It was so loud and I recieved emails from people that were blocks and blocks away when we were marching telling me that they heard this loud singing and ran over to where it was coming from to see an army of Southsiders marching. You were all treated like movie stars with cameras and video cameras all over the place. Great advertisement for our group, well done . Another thing is thank you all for being safe and respectfull of everyone around us and our surroundings. It’s important that we keep that up. I even had a VPD officer come up to me when we were aproaching BC Place and thank us for being so respectful and problem free.

It sounds like we started off with a bang and it will only get better from here. Minor adjustments will be made on my part to better my performance and all you have to do is be loud and proud and bring it match in and match out. All I ask is that everyone looks to myself and Kriss for direction in regards to vocals and for the physical aspect (clapping, bouncing ect…) as well, we can inprove on the later a bit. Next match it will be easier for all of you to see us since we should be able to be more mobile.

I am very proud of our first kick at the can and considering that we were basically doing this blindly (since we had no other practice in our new home) you all did great!

Lets keep it up and become even better to close out the season and next year we will be an even bigger force to be reckoned with!

Again, thank you everybody for coming together and with alll the possitive feedback from people all over the stadium, this can turn into something even bigger!

Cheers!!

Pat
AJAX79

First of all, thank you all for enduring what has been in many ways the worst season I’ve experienced in decades of supporting this club.

The play has been entertaining at times, but the results have been simply awful.

We’ve been annihilated on the field. We’ve been stomped out of playoff contention. We’ve completely flamed out of our regional and national derbies.

We’ve seen good friends and excellent people within the Whitecaps organization run out of town or relegated to obscurity.

This is just about the WORST season I have ever experienced in 25 years as a Whitecaps supporter.

However…

This is also the BEST season I have ever experienced, and I’ll tell you why.

Time and time again, the Southsiders have found themselves staring down the barrel of some extremely difficult obstacles which other MLS supporters groups simply have not had to overcome…. and you know what? We’ve come out on top EVERY TIME.

We fought and won our right to exist.

We fought and won our right to stand and sing in a designated section.

We fought and won the release of more seats at a lower pricing tier.

We fought and won the right to bring flags, banners and tifo into Empire in spite of a prohibition by the PNE.

We fought and won the increase to the league’s cap on away travel from 150 to 500 seats.

We fought and won access to away tickets at a fair price when a club-sanctioned travel agency was gouging us.

We fought and won the battle with said travel agency by sending buses down the I-5 at half the price.

We fought and won our right to be heard with respect to discourteous and unlawful conduct by PNE security.

We fought and won the opportunity to relocate our seats en masse at BC Place.

And in the days ahead, I’m quite optimistic that we can get approval for capos with megaphones with BC Place. You have a very capable representative in VP Brett Graham (Piltdownman) working with the Whitecaps on that issue right now.

When you take all of this into consideration, that’s a track record that every single Southsider can stand up and be proud of. You won’t find a SINGLE supporters group in MLS that has scrapped its way through as much BS as we have and come out on top as often as we did.

Once upon a time, long before these battles I’ve mentioned above, we squared off against many well-heeled and influential detractors.

Wealthy developers tried to kill our dreams of a waterfront stadium. They hired a renowned PR firm which created bogus community activist groups to turn the media against us. Whitecaps supporters were demonized as hooligans hell-bent on destroying the Downtown Eastside and harming the vulnerable people within it. We were branded as menaces to public safety and social order, and many clueless reporters regurgitated that nonsense on the front pages of their respective publications.

To put it simply, we got the shit kicked out of us…. and that’s when we did what the Southsiders have always done best:

We fought back.

We exposed those developers and the smear campaign they were trying to perpetrate. We exposed their lies, and we ran those jerks straight out of the media spotlight.

Where’s Reliance Holdings and the Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition now? The Gastown Residents Association? Central Waterfront Coalition? Long gone, with their tails between their legs.

Where are the Southsiders? We’re Canada’s largest supporters group, and we’re about to set up shop in the Whitecaps new $600 million palace downtown, that’s where!

My point here isn’t to relive old glories. It’s to share a lesson that those of us who have supported this club for many, many years learned the hard way through immense struggles and personal investment of time and energy.

There are going to be times when supporting your club feels like a very difficult thing to do. Your credibility will be questioned. Your very existence will come under scrutiny. There will be devastating losses, humiliation, criticism, finger-pointing and embarrassment. Maybe some of you are disappointed with how we sounded in comparison to the ECS. Consider it a life lesson.

There will always be groups larger than ours. There will always be groups more cohesive than ours.

So? Who gives a toss?

We’re not the first supporters club to have a nightmare of a season. We’re not the first supporters club to be out-sung by visitors at home. It happens. That’s football…. and it’s part of what makes the supporters culture so interesting.

Did we have an off night against Seattle? Perhaps…. But that’s only one bad night in 12 years of coming through like champions in every other respect as a supporters club.

A lot of people have posted messages here on this board, and also on Twitter, about their disappointment with us. Don’t waste any time or energy on this. We don’t need to defend ourselves. The only thing that matters is YOUR belief in the Southsiders, not somebody else’s. Get louder. Get more cohesive. Do it OUR way, on OUR timetable.

As Southsiders president, I have always been open to suggestions from members who want to discuss how we can do things better and more efficiently.

That said, I have absolutely NO interest at all in any criticisms or attacks coming from non-members and other self-entitled “slack-tivists” who sit in the stands, twiddling on their smartphones, demanding we do a better job entertaining them.

There are two types of Whitecaps supporters in Vancouver:

Those who roll up their sleeves, make flags, make banners, print flyers, sing their guts out, attend supporter functions and volunteer their time…

…and those who haven’t earned the right to tell me or my fellow Southsiders how this group should or should not go about our business. These jokers say they’re embarrassed by our performance? I’m ASHAMED by their reluctance and apathy.

Ask yourself: What kind of supporter are you?

I know which category I’m in… and those who are in my category shouldn’t waste a second of their time worrying what the smartphone slack-tivists think. We’re a part of a special movement which has traditions and culture that bring far more to the match day experience than any armchair analyst ever will.

True supporters will find pride in the darkest circumstances, and they will always rise above adversity. That’s what the Southsiders do best.

We don’t do what we do to entertain the crowd. We don’t do what we do to compete with other groups.

Find your pride and keep fighting. It’s not a talent show. It’s not American Idol. It’s not the Ice Capades. It’s football.

If you HONESTLY do your part and contribute, there’s not a single person who can take that away from you.

I’ll close here by thanking all of our volunteers who have been working so extremely hard to produce tifo, lead chants and spread the words to our songs with newcomers. You people are the gasoline that keeps the Southsiders engine running, and your contributions to the movement are ALWAYS appreciated. If there is anyone who has a right to feeling disappointed with Saturday’s show of support, it’s you… and in NO WAY should Saturday be construed by anyone as a reflection of your efforts and dedication to the cause.

It’s time to dig deep, Southsiders. Don’t give up. Find your pride and the noise will follow – that’s how it works, and it always does. Be prepared to sing your balls off, because the Timbers Army is going to bring it twice as hard as the ECS did. The ECS has numbers, but the TA has a much bigger heart.

Get ready for the loudest match of your lives.

Johnnie Monster
President – Vancouver Southsiders

Normally when one thinks of “traveling supporters” in football, they imagine a group of die hard European fans, who wake up in the wee hours of the morning to embark on a six hour journey to cheer their club in the opposing team’s city. Not very often does this occur in North America due mostly to the long distances between team locations. However, I think that trend is changing dramatically.

In the MLS, we have seen numerous new teams enter the league over the past few years. Cities such as Kansas City, Chicago, Salt Lake, Houston, and Toronto all have teams in the continent’s biggest professional football league. Three teams in particular who have done so much for the league in its short stints are the Northwestern teams: Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps. These teams have formed possibly the most watched, and most intense derby in North America: The Cascadia Cup. The name derives from the area of which all teams are in called “The Cascades”, and in the few games that have been played this year in Major League Soccer, it has already earned a massive reputation. Seattle and Portland’s thrilling 1-1 draw, Vancouver’s Eric Hassli making a name for himself across the globe after a superior goal to tie Seattle 2-2 at Century Link Field and the immense support that these matches drew are just a few of the highlights of the already huge Cascadia Cup rivalry.

This past Saturday, August 20th at 7pm Pacific Standard Time, was the first meeting between The Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps at Portland’s newly renovated JELD-WEN Field. I had the pleasure of being one of the travelling Vancouver supporters who made the five hour trip to Oregon which entailed waking up at 5:00am. In the days leading up to the trip, I couldn’t have been more excited. I got up at the appointed time, showered, brushed my teeth, dressed, picked up my suitcase for the overnight stay at Portland’s “Heathman Hotel” and got into the car with my father eagerly awaiting the normally grueling drive. In this case, it wasn’t a grueling drive at all.

Upon arriving in Portland, immediately I felt goosebumps. The similarities to Vancouver were extraordinary, and the people were very friendly. I checked into the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours and read a book to kill time, and at 4:00 pm, put on my Whitecaps shirt and scarf, and headed outside for the ten minute walk to the stadium. Even at 5:30pm, ninety minutes before kick-off, Portland’s Timbers Army (Ultra group), and Vancouver Southsiders (Whitecaps ultra group), were already filling the stands at a brisk pace. The atmosphere was electrifying and a European football kind of feeling was in the air, and I cheered and sang with the 500 Southsiders that were in the stands.

Although the match didn’t turn out the way I had hoped with a 2-1 Portland win, I was extremely grateful to my father for making the trip possible so that I could see my home team play an away game. It gave me a sense of pride, like I was helping out my club who I love dearly. The next two Cascadia Cup matches will be played in Vancouver, then after that we’ll have to wait for the 2012 MLS season before the next set of fixtures start, but one thing is for sure: I will be in Seattle and Portland cheering, singing, and standing strong for my team, The Vancouver Whitecaps.

Now, what does this mean for football in North America? Firstly, it shows the amount of support that the teams get. Portland Timbers draw an average of 18,000+ fans and are out of the playoffs in their inaugural season, and have already sold 2,000 season tickets for 2012. Vancouver, despite being last in the league, drew the third highest average attendance in its’ inaugural year, gathering 20,600 fans to Empire Field. Seattle draw just over 38,000 on average to their games, and have the largest ultra group in North America. That leads me to my next point: Ultras. There are many die hards in the Northwest, and all over the MLS in general, but the ones that everyone pays attention to are the Emerald City Supporters (Seattle), and the previously mentioned Timbers Army and Vancouver Southsiders. In just a few months, Vancouver’s paid membership went from 100 to 700, and is still growing. Portland has over 1000, and is also still growing rapidly, Seattle has over 2200 and also continues to grow increasingly faster every day. All in all, games like these can draw new ultras to their respective groups. I for one, joined just two days ago upon returning to Vancouver after my Portland trip. The thought of being an ultra and being a part of a group who supports my team the same way I do is an experience that I want to continue.

Another point worth noting is the atmosphere at the games. The Northwestern clubs, particularly those south of the border, create a European type feel to the games, and that should trigger a gradual upswing in fan support for these teams. In addition, it will influence other clubs and should make their ultras increase in number similar to the Cascadian clubs.

However, along with the positive aspects, there are the negatives. One of these is the potential for “hooliganism” and officials have to take security measures to ensure the safety of all fans. There are ultras attending games who support violence, racism, and other politically incorrect and controversial views and are only too happy to make them known to their fellow spectators. Italian ultras regularly who don’t get their way have been known to become violent, and Turkish ultras literally kill each other for supporting the rival team. MLS ultras certainly aren’t like this, in fact, they’re against hooliganism and what it stands for. This is something Cascadia Cup officials need to realize, as it’s preventing the away allocation for games to be shortened to just 500 per match. Maybe with a little bit of cooperation (which is what supporter groups of all three Cascadian teams do), the officials will realize that there is no danger of violence and will raise the allocation in the near future. Right now, all the ultras can do is attend away games in support of their teams and respect the rival teams supporters and their right to cheer for their team without fear of reprisal.

Overall, it was a great experience travelling to Portland, and I hope to do it again next year in both Oregon and Seattle as the remaining two fixtures will be played in Vancouver. For now, I am happy to report that MLS is on the rise, and so too are the fans and the atmosphere that they create. Look out for us, because we’ll be taking the footballing world by storm one step at a time.

BianconeroSouthsider