I’ll take a few minutes from constantly hitting refresh on my email to file a post action debriefing on the preliminary Operation:Deflower. As mentioned in a previous post, 25 tickets were handed out, 20 of which went to people who had never been to a game before. When it came to game time, 2 people did not show (one of the dangers of only charging $5 per ticket), so that left 18 out of 23 (78%) people who were MLS virgins. The seating situation was a little odd in that we had parts of three rows, with 10 seats in the first and 10 in the second, which was directly behind the first, but then the third row of 5 seats was shifted over to the side. This had the effect of limiting my direct interaction with the attendees but I was still able make some observations. I could tell who had been to a game before just by their reactions to certain events, e.g. cursing out the ref, applauding for a well delivered through ball, etc. While not as vehement as us veterans, I was surprised by the level of interest shown by the newbies. They too seemed to appreciate a nice tackle and groaned at an errant Freddy Adu pass.
The first half was a bit of a disappointment, off the field as well as on. We happened to be situated about 3 sections over from the traveling MetroScum Red Bull fans and the La Norte which really added to the atmosphere, but the DC crowd seemed really deflated after the two RBNY goals. One member of our group thought that seemingly tireless energy of the RBNY fans was probably due to them hopped up on free Red Bull. The second half was much better, and pretty much everyone in our group was jumping out of their seats for every DC United scoring chance. One of the guys asked me if DC has any chants, to which I answered I was not aware of any. I’m sure Barra, La Norte, Screaming Eagles, etc have some songs and chants they do, but why can’t we do something to get the entire stadium to do something in unison? You can sit down and sing, right? Print songs in the little FreeKick magazine or on back of the score card, or would that be frowned upon by the diehards? Anyway.
Disciples of the Free Beer Movement will be glad to know that as highly intelligent graduate students, many members of our group were able to locate, purchase and enjoy adult beverages (As a side note, a friend and I were wondering if you were the winner of the “Designated Driver of the Game” contest and were intoxicated when you showed up to collect your winnings, would they revoke your prize?).
Also, all four goals happened right in front which was a plus. I was a little concerned about our seats being too far in the corner, such that you tend to lose depth perception when the play is in the opposite corner, but no one seemed to mind. I would say it was a successful outing. Hopefully a few from this group will buy tickets on their own. As mentioned in a previous post, judging by the demand and the small amount of advertising I did, it should not be too much of a stretch to get 50 people to go next time. I’ll have to propose that for the next academic year. I was hoping to get another group together just from my physics department to go this summer, but I think I may put that idea on the back burner for awhile if I am going to be going to Germany (still no official word yet!)