Philadelphia is notorious for having a rooting ethos which champions the sanctity of drunken, simian antagonism. It’s well known around the country and the world that Philadelphia sports fans are unrepentant pieces of shit who confront their own misery through alcoholism and Schadenfreude. So why on earth don’t we have a footba-erm, soccer team?

After the jump, Michael Fichman says, “Seriously? Why the hell not?”

If it’s not a black eye on our city in the national media, IT’S CRAP!

Philadelphia is notorious for having a rooting ethos which champions the sanctity of drunken, simian antagonism. It’s well known around the country and the world that Philadelphia sports fans are unrepentant pieces of shit who confront their own misery through alcoholism and Schadenfreude. So why on earth don’t we have a footba-erm, soccer team? Now that Becks is living in my basement, soccer is enjoying its one to two weeks of mild noteriety in this World Cup off-year. I suppose we should explore this topic while people still care.

Now, I will wholeheartedly debate Steven Wells‘ take as to the relative shittiness of Philly fans versus English hooligans. I do this not because it’s the company line (which, frankly I don’t care about) but because dude is just wrong on this one. Philly can’t hold a candle to European riots where rabid mobs of Nazis provoke police gunfire in the stadium or goalkeepers get hit with lit flares and 85 police get injured in clashes. That’s just next level. Philadelphians have a tendancy to be hooligans, but they manage to keep the fatalities unrelated to sporting events and generally keep the racism indoors. Besides, homophobia and a whiny hatred of New York are much more our style. But what Wells and I probably could agree on is that Philadelphians are really nasty pieces of shit when it comes to sports fandom. Maybe they aren’t on par with European curb-stomper fans, but hey, we can have aspirations, can’t we?

“You know, Mike, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing if you and I wound up the best of friends one day.”

Right now, there is a pretty serious movement afoot to bring professional soccer to Philly. In fact, there is a pre-team fan club called Sons of Ben which has apparently organized itself so well that they were able to write their own Wikipedia page and not have anybody erase it. Their sole aim is to bring a Major League Soccer club to Philly, and they are so determined that they have designed some sort of evil undead Ben Franklin logo so that a real Philadelphia MLS team won’t have to go through the trouble of coming up with their own overwrought historical insignia.

Philly never ended up with an original MLS franchise because back then there was no decent grass stadium in the area. Even with the Linc, it’s not certain that’s the ticket either. Now the MLS will probably want to get a soccer-only stadium built (by taxpayers, duh) so the team can bank off the concessions and naming rights. It’s looking possible that the stadium itself may end up in Chester, where there are apparently a number of public officials interested in being fleeced in exchange for something to brighten up their civic image. Furthermore, there are other cities vying for a franchise, so Philly isn’t a sure thing. But these are only minor roadbumps when their scope is held in contrast with the many things Philly does have to offer.

“So-ah, deez-a soccer-a players? Dey speaka de English, no?”

Philadelphia has the resources to be a soccer city the likes of which Europe can only dream of- not only does Philadelphia have the anger and irrational tendencies befitting of the proper hooligan fanbase, it has a long and celebrated history of police-civilian clashes. Philly fans of all stripes are enthusiastic about travelling to support their team, and getting kicked out of opposing stadiums for unruly behavior. Philly has over 25,000 abandoned structures, many of them brick. Assuming that 20,000 of these structures are brick, and each structure contains approximately 1,000 bricks, this is enough to smash in the faces of most of the New York metropolitain area during a large scale soccer riot. If only Yards can brew enough beer to make this happen. Oh yeah, and this soccer team, they ain’t never gonna win jackshit.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 12:55 pm.