Prawn Sandwich America
I spent most of Saturday in Stanford for the Chelsea-Club America friendly (click for highlights). I’d planned to write a story about how many Americans, with their disposable incomes and satellite connections to their clubs, have defied the “prawn sandwich brigade” label to become rabid and vocal supporters of teams abroad, even despite their upper-middle class origins. But the game turned out to be a confirmation of any English fan’s complaints about increasingly sterile experiences watching football.
When I first started as a soccer fan last year, the style of MLS fan groups was confusing to no end, assuming as I did that England was the gold standard for all things soccer in the US. Clearly MLS aspired to be the Premiership and MLS fans a New World version of the Kop. For a lesson on why this isn’t true, Saturday’s game was second to none.
Chelsea’s self-vaunted supporters, with the exception of a small drunk and shirtless group waving a Drogba sign, largely stood still and produced the best atmosphere void this side of single-A baseball. On the rare occasions they bothered to chant, the Chelsea end stuck to a single rudimentary number with all the wit of “USA! USA!” and none of even that standby’s excitement. Despite jamming their end and getting most of the casual and neutral support in a crowd 47,000 strong, the noise was coming from elsewhere.
At the opposite side of the stadium, America’s supporters crowded in early from their boisterous parking lot tune-ups to unleash pre-game sound and a Beckhamesque confetti shower as the teams took the field. If their bleachers weren’t packed with fans, they were overflowing with all of the Latin accoutrement that’s become standard for most MLS fan groups: drums, horns, flags, massive banners, chants, tifo, jumping, and even fireworks. The eyes of my friends, mostly all brand-new to the game, continually flicked up to the top deck where the biggest groups of America supporters stood.
Traditions obviously differ from team to team and between leagues, but Saturday was a clear instance of why the Latin style has captured American stadiums, even for English sympathizers like me.
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Max J. Rosenthal
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I take your point, but wonder how valid the comparison is.
My educated guess is that the vast majority of the “Chelsea supporters” you saw were neither long-term Chelsea fans nor English. Chelsea has never been among the English clubs with a significant US “fanbase”, and although they have attracted a fair number of bandwagon jumpers since the rise of the Roman empire, that is a new development. “Serious” English fans also don’t usually travel in numbers to pre-season friendlies, especially those more than 6,000 miles from home.
On the other hand, the America support was almost certainly primarily comprised of Mexicans and Americans of Mexican heritage who have supported America for the entire lives (or at least since Televisa’s constant cross-promotion of their premier team got them hooked).
Given that difference in demographics, a different degree of intensity in the support is not that striking.
All that said, it is of course true that a “Latin” crowd will knock a British one into a cocked hat when it comes to choreographed support, just as the British one will have a greater variety of more inventive songs.
I see the point, but don’t fully agree.
For one, this was the supporter’s end. Not a random collection of people in jerseys, but the specific supporters end where I know for a fact there were at least a few English fans of the hardcore variety who know the songs and chants, and the more serious American fans who bleated on their message boards for weeks about how they were going to bring the noise for 90 minutes. The group of people who were the most inclined to make vocal support a priority essentially took a pass.
I’m not saying the Chelsea fans could have out-tifoed the America supporters, or that there weren’t serious demographic differences, or that I don’t realize the bigger group will show up in LA. But they just stood there for two hours. I think it was kind of sad no matter how you slice it.
Helpful context, thanks.
“Bringing the noise for 90 minutes” would be something new at the post-Bates Stamford Bridge. The people who are paying Roman’s current prices are not exactly known for their passion and pagentry, and the club’s fitting them all out with plastic flags for last year’s Champions League matches was widely derided as the worst kind of prawn sandwichness.
I think your basic point is quite interesting. British supporters often demean choreographed tifos as “juvenile”, “fake” or “contrived”, claiming that following a guy with a bullhorn is an insincere an experience as what they would call “the Mexican Wave”.
That critique seems to have fallen on compeltely deaf ears in the the 21st century US (I would say it had more support in the NASL, but the British influence in NASL crowds was also much stronger), and it is interesting to speculate why. Demographics certainly has a good deal to with it, but I also think that there is an aesthetic appeal to the “Latin”-style tifo that genuinely appeals to the US soccer fan, in part because it is so different from the “standard” North American spectating experience. There is also a degree to which the British experience is grounded in decades of tradition that MLS simply doesn’t have. Given that the Revs haven’t been playing DC for 100 years (and given that there is no strong New England-DC regional rivalry outside the game), there is simply less material for fans to use in coming up with chants and songs. The same thing goes for players, particularly given the volatility in MLS rosters.
It’s interesting that the Toronto fans have leaned much more towards the British-style of support than other MLS supporter groups that I’ve seen.
Whilst they do embrace some aspects of tifo, their chanting is definitely more British-based than the Fire’s Section 8, for example. It’ll be interesting to see whether they end up influencing other MLS groups at all.
@ursus: I didn’t know that about British supporters and the tifo, etc. I sympathize with the tradition aspect, but still, is that getting them anywhere these days? Ridiculous.
@Tom: I think it largely depends on how teams will market. I get (admittedly uninformed) sense that they have such a strong British flavor because TFC went and hit the pub trail and now the people who watch the Premiership are the ones chanting at their games. And if you market to the usual MLS crowds, you probably get the small core of Latino (or other ethnic minority) supporters that suck in other hardcore fans, which gives you Section 8, the Barra, etc.
Max, I wouldn’t agree it’s ridiculous exactly. Standing and singing a variety of songs – often pretty amusing and inventive ones, as ursus mentioned earlier – has long been the British tradition, and one I grew up loving being a part of.
And in grounds where standing is still allowed, I’m sure it’s still strong. The larger problem is the all-seater stadia, that separate groups of loud supporters apart, and the prices that drive out the traditional fans that used to make a lot of noise.
I do think the tifo of continental or latin American teams is a lot of fun, but I wouldn’t say it’s intrinsically better, just different. One thing I’m not crazy about in Section 8 is how long the songs go on, and how orchestrated they are by the capo – but, that is a deliberate style choice that I respect. They have their reasons for it. It just wouldn’t be my personal preference, and TFC fans seem to be going more down the British route.
What’s exciting about MLS groups is that, due to the variety in their origins and demographic makeups – as well as openness to ideas around the world that they can get from immigrant groups or simply from youtube – they are quite an interesting experiment in the merging of different styles in different ways.
Sorry, didn’t mean to say the British style is ridiculous, just the attitude of British fans who might consider the continental or Latin styles as lesser fandom.
I think I’m generally with you on style preferences. I really enjoy pure voice and on the spot chants; apparently there was once a time in DC where the Screaming Eagles filled the role of the impromptu chant/song makers and the Barra did drums, flags, long songs, etc. I like that balance and I’d love to see more of it in MLS. I do think it’s much more prevalent in lower leagues, though.