Soccer may not always be front page news in Toronto but it’s far from being laughed at by the population, and that was the case well before Toronto FC arrived.

Can anyone answer me this: Why do they insist on maintaining the CFL? Do an extra man and 10 yards really make the game that different?

But, I digress. It’s annoyed me this entire season that Toronto’s fans seem to think that they are somehow God’s gift to the world. What particular aspect of that belief annoys me the most still escapes my complete understanding, but I still try to figure it out.

Perhaps it’s the fact that they’ve been around for one year, supporting a very mediocre team, and yet they act as though they were a well-established and storied Barra Brava direct from Buenos Aires, which has just been discovered by soccer anthropologists from the States who only this year decided to look NORTH of the border?

Or maybe that, although they are passionate, they are still in anglophone North America, so soccer is still laughed at by a large part of the population (so who really cares that 20 000 screaming fans show up)?

Or that these Canadians continue to drown their Gold Cup sorrows, not by rightly claiming that the goal should not have been called offsides, but rather by claiming a superior supporters group?

Whatever the most annoying aspect of the Toronto FC fans is, it’s awfully annoying.

It’s one thing to have large passionate supporter groups, they are all over the league, but when have we seen such a demand for tickets in any city in MLS? 14,000 season tickets, a waiting list of over 5,000 that grows bigger everyday and every ticket for this season sold out before a single game was played. All this with very limited marketing from the management, no gimmicks and no crazy priced tickets just because some English soccer/pop star was showing up.

Don’t get me wrong even I’ve heard enough about Toronto this season and some of the stories are just ridiculous, ignorant and to a point almost embarrassing. However in the end I’m not sure this league has seen anything like this before. Hopefully the clubs which have attendance issues and the new expansion clubs can look to why Toronto FC has been so successful thus far.

Toronto FC and its fans have certainly provided a fine spectacle for the league in their first year. I’ve got plenty of admiration for them. But between their horn auto-blowing (fair enough, everyone has a right) and eagerness to cast themselves as something above and beyond anything ever seen in North American soccer…something ought to be considered.

There would be no Toronto FC, Red Patch Boys or any of that, were it not for the ESC, Screaming Eagles, Section 8, and other long-time supporters organizations – all of which have been every bit the equal of Toronto’s fans, and have proved durable too, each through some pretty lean stretches (some leaner than others.) Because MLS (I am convinced) would have ceased to operate long ago, or at best would have dissipated into a totally anodyne and irrelevant experience, without those groups bringing what they bring to the show. So, good job Toronto and please keep it up, it’s great to be excited about your side…but don’t get too far ahead of yourselves. Speaking as someone who remembers when 21k in the Swamp on a Wednesday night was a bit of a letdown.