Last week, as Peter Wilt discussed in his column here, I was elected as the new Chairman of Section 8 Chicago, the Independent Supporters’ Association (ISA) for the Chicago Fire Soccer Club.  The ISA is a non-profit organisation that aims to represent all Fire supporters, working with the club to represent the supporters’ viewpoint, organising tifo displays, trips to away games, social events, and selling a lot of merchandise and a lot of tickets.

How the hell did I end up being the volunteer sucker taking all that on?  I wasn’t even born in Chicago, or even the United States, and I wasn’t even a Fire fan, or even a fan of MLS, when the club was founded in 1997. I plan to post each week here on my experiences as Chair of the ISA, and so I thought I’d better start with a long but hopefully helpful explanation of how I ended up in this position in the first place. Take a deep breath, and read on.

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In 1997, the home ground of the club I had grown up supporting on the south coast of England, where I had stood on the terraces week in week out since the age of 11, was demolished. The Goldstone Ground, Brighton and Hove Albion’s stadium since 1902, was the victim of the club’s spiral into near extinction at the hands of owners mendacious and brazen enough to try and stiff the club and sell off the property for profitable development to line their own pockets.

Protests marked the final two years of the Goldstone Ground; pitch invasions, poetry and people power ruled the day. Most of it was peaceful, some of it disturbed the police. The Fans United day at the Goldstone, which saw supporters from dozens of clubs travel down to Brighton in support of the fans faced with the Albion’s plight, was one of the greatest days in the history of supporter solidarity.

It was those dying days of the Goldstone, with the club only saved from extinction by the active, creative protest movement that saw Brighton fan and businessman Dick Knight buy out the hounded and chastened owners that same year, that made me realise there was more to being a football fan than standing on the terraces and singing.

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Two thousand miles away, while Brighton were veering on the precipe of extinction, a new club was being born: the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer. The MLS expansion team’s first employee, Peter Wilt, spent the early part of the year convincing the owner of the team, Phil Anschutz of AEG, that calling it the Nike Rhythm as the sporting goods company wanted it to be was a bad idea. Instead, Peter thought, the team needed to have an identity conneced to the history of Chicago, to become a lasting part of the community.

Fortunately, the young General Manager was able to convince his billionaire employer this was the right move, and the Chicago Fire’s name and logo was announced at a ceremony on the 116th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, at Navy Pier in downtown Chicago on October 8th, 1997. In their first season, the Fire won the league and cup double, thanks largely to future Ring of Fire members Piotr Nowak, Bob Bradley, Frank Klopas, Lubos Kubik, Peter Wilt and Chris Armas.

Two thousand miles away, I had no idea this was happening. I knew Major League Soccer existed; I also knew Chicago existed, but I don’t remember hearing of the Chicago Fire Soccer Club. I knew of Michael Jordan, and of the Untouchables. And that was about it. In England, nobody cared much about what they called soccer in the United States.

Meanwhile, I’d left Brighton, and though I didn’t know it, I had essentially left my hometown for good. I went to university in Manchester, going to the odd Manchester City game at Maine Road. On visits home, I couldn’t see Brighton play in Brighton, because we didn’t play there any longer. Without a stadium, we groundshared a miserable few hours drive away around three motorways in Gillingham. It was shit. The first time I went there, we lost 1-0 in front of a shit crowd in a shit ground and I crashed my car on the way home. Again, shit.

After graduating from Manchester in 2000, within a little over a year, I found myself in Chicago, for a Masters degree in social science at the University of Chicago. I was supposed to fly there on September 11th 2001, but, well, you know why my flight was delayed. Little did I know I’d not just be there for the one year Masters program, but end-up staying on to undertake a PhD in history (nope, my dissertation still isn’t done).

Moving to Chicago did not immediately increase my knowledge or awareness of Major League Soccer. I didn’t hear much at all about the league, the country’s sporting culture that fall going crazy over the World Series, and then the Patriots run to the Super Bowl, while the aftermath of September 11th was played out.

For my football fix, I tuned in to Brighton games via a subscription to the club’s internet radio service that autumn, but I don’t recall paying much attention to the Fire making it to the semi-final of MLS Cup that autumn as well.

The next year, the Fire’s own stadium problems became apparent to me, as I learned more about the team: their home, Soldier Field (best known for Bears games, of course), closed for renovation, so the Fire moved to far-out suburb Naperville, playing at Cardinal Stadium, essentially a small college gridiron stadium.

It was there I saw my first Fire game. It was all rather weird; despite all the work of the club, it was little like the experience of watching football I’d had anywhere in England: silly expectations, of course. Despite the best efforts of the hardcore supporters, the whole experience didn’t win me over immediately. Professional soccer seemed an awkward fit in that stadium. But I will say, the quality of play impressed me. Going back for further games, the likes of DaMarcus Beasley and Ante Razov surprised me and interested me: Beasley in particular, with his willingness to beat player after player with his pace, despite the awful hacking his opponents resorted to.

Still, though, I didn’t get to know any other Fire fans, dragging friends there myself, with drinking sessions on the long train ride out there half the attraction for us (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I didn’t feel part of the Fire community, though. I didn’t run into Peter Wilt, sadly, nor any of the friends I’d later make.

The Fire returned to renovated Soldier Field in 2004, and I went to games there infrequently. That I found an even odder experience: the giant stadium hosting small crowds. Now, I’d seen a couple of thousand show up for Brighton games at the Goldstone, and that was a pretty miserable experience on a wet Tuesday night in January, but somehow 15,000 in a 65,000 capacity stadium seemed worse. I still couldn’t call it a passion that matched what I had grown up with the Albion. I would regret this attitude later.

The Fire moved to their own stadium in 2006, Toyota Park, thanks to the work of Peter Wilt (AEG had already shown their appreciation by dismissing him, to the dismay of fans). It was there, from my first visit on, that I became a Fire supporter in the true sense of the word. The Fire had a home, and I felt at home again, a decade on from the crisis at the Goldstone. The 20,000 capacity stadium was intimate, the grass was made for football. And at the middle of the Harlem End, in an area known as Section 8, I was more impressed than in the past by the in-stadium displays, the dedication to singing non-stop, and began standing in the middle of it.

In 2007, I bought my first Fire season ticket.

Those early weeks of ’07 saw my initial encounter with the leadership of Section 8 Chicago, the Fire’s Independent Supporters’ Association. They were encountering problems that piqued my curiosity.

Despite moving into their “own” stadium, I soon learned the Fire didn’t actually own the stadium. It was owned and had been paid for, at a cost somewhere around $100m, by the Village of Bridgeview, a suburb just slightly outside Chicago. The stadium management was unhappy with the behaviour by a small minority of fans, particularly alcohol being sneaked inside, and had decided to institute pat-downs at the gate where the supporters who stood in what was known as “Section 8″ (then section 118 at Toyota Park) usually entered.

This selective targeting was extremely questionable from a legal standpoint. The supporters were incensed. I had a blog on the Offside at the time, and looked into the controversy, getting in touch with Ben Burton, the new head of Section 8 Chicago, and making a phone call to Peter Wilt, by now the ex-GM, who gave me some very interesting insight into both sides of the dispute.

Section 8 Chicago got in touch with the mayor of Bridgeview, and realising the embarrassment and legal liability the Village faced, the mayor very sensibly killed the selective pat-downs. Instead, the supporters collectively worked to police behaviour themselves.

I was very impressed by the organisation of the supporters. Over the year, I got to know more and more of them personally. An away trip to Toronto with 300 other Fire fans the 600 odd miles away for the grand opener at BMO Field brought me further into the fold. These guys were not fucking around, it became apparent to me. The pride in the club and the city so many shared became obvious to me, and I wanted to be part of that.

Some beer, some whiskey, plenty of hours shooting the shit about the Fire and football far and wide, and suddenly I was part of a community, meeting people who would become close, close friends. I joined a supporters group, Whiskey Brothers Aught Five; motto, “drinking, cursing, Chicago Fire.”

WB05 is just one of many supporters’ groups that stand together in Section 8, and come under the umbrella of the Section 8 Chicago ISA (people always get confused by this and think “Section 8″ is one group, but the whole point is that it isn’t; it’s made up various groups and independents, with support available from the democratically elected ISA liaising with the front office). This, it seemed to me, was a wonderful way for supporters to have a collective structure and voice with the club whilst allowing groups and individuals to follow their own path for supporting the Fire. Some groups are serious, some are jovial, some are large, some barely constitute the Wikipedia definition of a group.

They may have fundamental disagreements among them, but since the Fire’s original supporters’ groups the Barn Burners and Fire Ultras 98 began to stand together in Section 8 at old Soldier Field over a decade ago, the culture of Fire support has largely been about finding ways to bridge differences and come together in support of the team. That’s why the mission statement of Section 8 Chicago makes sense to most:

Section 8 Chicago, the Independent Supporters’ Association  for the Chicago Fire Soccer Club, encompasses a number of affiliate supporters groups and independent fans. The vision of the ISA is “. . . to unite all Chicago Fire fans, to create a dominant in-stadium force unseen in any American team sport and to establish a home-field advantage whenever the Chicago Fire play.” The ISA exists to supplement the efforts of independent fans, coordinate between the supporters groups and act as liaison between fans and the Chicago Fire Soccer Club. As a non-profit organization, a board of directors is elected yearly at the Annual General Meeting in February by the assembled supporters.

As an independent supporters’ association, we will create an inspiring environment for the Chicago Fire organization and its fans. We will do this through fostering an increased level of passionate support, providing a conduit amongst the fans and with the organization, enabling participation in activities for Fire fans and organizing, coordinating and directing in-stadium support on an unprecedented scale, regardless of where the Fire play.

As I learned more about the mission and operations of the ISA, I started helping out Section 8 Chicago however I could, beginning with the website, since I had some skills there, and then doing some writing.

Then a very bad thing happened in the summer of 2008.  Some members of an Hispanic supporters’ group, Sector Latino, were abused by security guards at Toyota Park, physically and verbally, with unpleasant racial epithets tossed their way for good measure.

Unfortunately, when Sector Latino and Section 8 Chicago leadership approached the club about the unacceptable behaviour by security, it fell on deaf ears.

For some reason, the then Chairman of Section 8 Chicago, Ben Burton, asked me to help him negotiate a solution to the crisis with the Fire’s front office.  It took a lot of work — an ugly meeting, draconian moves by the stadium management, a protest, a reasonable conversation, and a path forward mutually found, to sum up a month of painful initiation for me into supporter-club relations — but I still believe the resolution of that was a turning point in front office-supporter relations. The following turnover in the club’s leadership brought in a new attitude towards supporters that saw slow but steady improvement in relations.

In January 2009, sucked into the vortex, I was elected to the board of the ISA as Vice-Chair. In the course of last year, though we faced new obstacles in some ways, by the end of the MLS eason we had found new ways to work with the club. We agreed a three-year contract on a ticket stipend for the ISA to continue encouraging growth of the supporters’ culture. The club found room to allow us to conduct massive tifo construction projects at the stadium (like the one below), worked on tirelessly by many folks with more creative skills and energy than myself.

We did Q&As and social events with Technical Director Frank Klopas, who reached out warmly to the supporters’ community. We began work, albeit we did not finish, on a Club Charter, a mutually agreed document between supporters and the club defining the club’s values, and the responsibilities and rights of supporters.

Importantly, we also opened up new channels of communication for supporters with Fire owner Andrew Hauptman. I expressed some frustration on these pages last summer about the direction of the club’s leadership, but this soon improved as Ben Burton and I met with Andrew for a frank and productive discussion, followed-up by a public Q&A forum organised by the ISA. Meanwhile, we built a solid and fruitful relationship with our new liaison at the club, Emigdio Gamboa, who has put countless hours of work in to help us.

And meantime, our efforts at promoting the supporters’ culture bore fruit, thankless to the tireless hours of work put in by volunteers manning the growing tailgate, the beer buses to games, the social events, putting together the tifo displays and making sure we could safely visit every stadium in MLS. In 2007, Section 8 barely filled one section of Toyota Park, 118. By the playoffs, Section 8 overflowed from three entire sections, a growth from a few hundred to 2-3,000. On our own, we would sell over 1,000 tickets on our online store to the Conference Final.

Section 8 filling the Harlem End of Toyota Park

After a long year of work for the ISA, it took me a while to decide to run for Chair this year, with the heroic Ben Burton retiring from the position after three years. My wife has been a Fire fan for longer than me (having attended the first game in 1998), but all the volunteer work is extremely time consuming. At the same time, it was through the Fire and Section 8 community that I had met my wife in the first place. And it was through that culture that I had made so many good friends. The future of the club and of the supporters’ relations to it means a lot to me, partly because it means a lot to so many close to me.

Soccer is just a sport that doesn’t matter much at the end of the day, but the people you meet and share these experiences with do. So I decided I owed it to the culture and community I had come to and had been embraced by to give back what I could. Over the year I will share the ups and downs of this here: I’m sure it’ll be fun, frustrating and fueled by plenty of beer, and hopefully capped by the Fire’s first MLS championship since the club’s inaugural season.

Section 8 Chicago has formalized its structure & become a proficient non-profit with an annual six-figure budget.

The nature of the Chicago Fire’s organized fan support has matured over the years much like MLS itself.

Section 8 Chicago, the Chicago Fire’s Independent Supporters’ Association, held its Annual General Meeting last Saturday in the Toyota Park Stadium Club and it was remarkable to me how far the supporters have come.  A dozen years ago, there were a couple of Fire supporters groups, the Barn Burners and Polish Ultras, who worked separately and successfully to organize support for the expansion MLS team.  The groups met in bars and discussed activities online as S8C does today, but the depth, breadth and formality of the organizing has grown tremendously.

The original supporters groups, while not as formalized as today’s S8C, were critical to the success of the team in the early years and critical to the success of today’s supporters groups as well.  Barn Burners 1871 and the Fire Ultras laid the foundation of today’s professionalized Section 8 Chicago, an umbrella association working on behalf of more than a dozen supporters groups and thousands of independent fans.

The Barn Burners and Ultras had bus trips, tifo, scarves and tailgates as do today’s supporters, but the level of all has grown along with the professionalization that has emerged under the leadership of the S8C independent supporters association’s first two chairmen, Marcin Tłustochowicz and Ben Burton.  Under Tłustochowicz, S8C instituted board positions and responsibilities, added more road trips, merchandise sales and more regular tifo displays.  Under Burton’s leadership the last three years, S8C increased its fundraising, amended its by-laws and grew its marketing and road and home support.  Much to his chagrin, S8C failed to finish its club charter with the Fire under Burton’s watch, but it certainly wasn’t due to a lack of effort or passion on his part.  The Fire is finally taking the club charter seriously and will likely ratify the important document in new chairman Tom Dunmore’s first term.

The Barn Burners were the original Fire supporters group.

Saturday’s meeting exemplified the organization’s growth.  The location of the AGM alone is a sign of growth  both for the team and the supporters.  Prior to Toyota Park, the Fire never hosted a supporters event, which normally were in back rooms of local bars and restaurants.  This time, printed copies of the AGM’s agendas were passed out at the door and the AGM started with an hour-long social that brought supporters together with club seat holders and Fire staff.  Unfortunately, the timing didn’t allow any players or coaches to attend.  There was no upper management present, but Fire broadcaster Fred Huebner attended and a very nice letter from Fire owner Andrew Hauptman was read to the 100 or so in attendance.

The meeting itself was more IBM and less Animal House than previous AGMs…though the presence of beer and Jim Beam at the board members table served as a reminder that this was still a meeting of fans that included the election of a Whiskey Bros. 05 supporters group member as its new chairman.

The formalities of the meeting began with a welcome from outgoing S8C Director of Marketing Melissa Hamming, who served as the AGM’s moderator.

Director of Finance Mario Ortega led the audience through five pages of proposed by-law amendments, which revised board of director titles and descriptions, allowed absentee voting and created a clearer process to amend by-laws in the future.  A couple of friendly amendments were added by those present and the changes were agreed to by acclamation.

Next came the annual election of officers highlighted by the uncontested elevation of Vice-Chairman (and Pitch Invasion Founder and Editor) Dunmore to Chairman.  Dunmore accepted graciously and rightly showed his appreciation for the herculean efforts of Burton, his predecessor, over the last three years.  He promised continued growth, improved relationships with the front office, outreach to Fire fans and peace in our time.

Dunmore’s Vice-Chairman role will be filled by Joel Pitkel, another longtime Fire supporter who has been active in efforts to organize a North American affiliate of Show Racism the Red Card.

Director of Events and Director of Operations were the only two contested positions. Josh Graning won the former with the help of a well designed campaign flyer highlighting his “experience, initiative, honor and dedication” as well as his “humility”. Graning won over absentee candidate Marc Bahnsen who was out of town for work at another AGM…US Soccer’s…and had his campaign speech read to the supporters by the moderator.  Michael “Giaco” Giacometti was re-elected to head up operations over perennial candidate DJ Racis who gave an eloquent and serious speech that was followed by an equally thoughtful extemporaneous rebuttal by Giaco.

Ortega was re-elected Director of Finance after reviewing the 2009 finances with everyone.  The gross income and expense of approximately $154,000 isn’t challenging the GNP of any small island nations yet, but is still impressive for the registered non-profit. Road trips, ticket and merchandise sales and tifo displays are the main areas of revenue and expense for the S8C.

From the left: Fire's founding GM Peter Wilt with Section 8 Chicago Chairmen Ben Burton, Tom Dunmore and Marcin Tłustochowicz in front of the Toyota Park player tunnel and Section 8 touchstone from Old Soldier Field.

A few further things I picked up on from the day:

Learning: I learned more about how Chris Rolfe originally came to the Fire’s attention.  While Fire Assistant Coach Mike Matkovich deserves tremendous plaudits for coaching Rolfe with the Fire Reserves, developing his skills and promoting his ability to the Fire, two others deserve mention as well.  Rolfe was discovered for the Fire reserves in 2003 by Fire Reserves Assistant Coach Jeremy Alumbaugh.  And then during the 2004 PDL season, Fire Assistant Coach Craig Reynolds importantly served as a mentor to Rolfe and nurtured his development in the summer before the Fire drafted him.

Observation: I saw several club seat holders at the meeting including longtime Chicago soccer supporters John Keller, Chet Young and Doug Thompson.  Club seat holder participation in the AGM is a very good sign.  While active volunteers for S8C primarily consist of fans who stand in Section 8, as an independent supporters’ association, it represents all Fire fans.  Under Burton’s leadership, they have worked to open lines of communication with fans in all areas of Toyota Park both with themselves and with the Fire and Toyota Park staff.

Learning: Fire player developmental staff tells me that new Head Coach Carlos de los Cobos has done a great job already integrating the developmental staff with the first team staff to create a true club culture.  This marks a sea change from the separation of departments that existed previously.

Observation: New Fire Communications Manager Brendan Hannan brings soccer and MLS knowledge, enthusiasm and sensibility to the job.  Brendan, multi-lingual Communications Coordinator Franco Sui Yuan and Jeff Crandall, also added to the communications department from the USL, give the Fire a level of soccer acumen that will pay off dearly.

Learning: While both are working on new languages, de los Cobos’ English is improving faster than Matkovich’s Spanish.

Observation:The AGM attendance was diverse in its gender, ethnic, age and socio-economic makeup.  Soccer is known for the diversity of its fan base, but it was still refreshing to see that old and young, rich and poor and people of various ethnic backgrounds came together for this meeting to show their support of S8C and the Fire.

Learning: Fire staff are optimistic that Collins John’s trial will lead to his signing and reunion with former Fulham FC teammate Brian McBride.  As usual with any trial, how he fits in to the team and his salary needs will ultimately determine the outcome of the trial.

Observation:

Tradition is a continuum. While it is natural to think about a team’s tradition pertaining only to what’s happened in the past, it’s very much about what’s happening in the present.  While the off season is always a time for optimism, early indications in 2010 provide good reason to think that the Fire’s rich tradition will continue to grow.

As that crowd at New England indicates, MLS teams have traditionally had trouble selling playoff games: the sales model has long depended on group sales that require a lot of advance planning, and the short turnaround for playoffs makes this difficult.

On Saturday night in Chicago, the Fire turned this on its head by selling out Toyota Park with a crowd of 21,528, and the supporters’ sections were as vibrant as I can ever remember them. The team responded, with a 2-0 win sending the Fire to the Eastern Conference final, hosting Real Salt Lake next week at home.

As the Vice-Chair of Section 8 Chicago, the Chicago Fire’s Independent Supporters’ Association, I had the opportunity to observe it all close-up. Please forgive a little self-indulgence as I take you on a trip through the game.

Preparing for the Game

In the tunnel at Toyota Park, players pass the sign below on their way on to the pitch. Underneath the sign is a small chunk of old Soldier Field, where the Chicago Fire began play in 1998, winning the league and cup double in that inaugural season and putting the club on the road to what has become its hallmark: tradition, honor, passion.

That chunk is from Section 8, where different Fire supporters’ groups soon joined together to support the team. The name has stuck, though supporters now gather in sections 117 and 118 of Toyota Park, the Fire’s home since 2006.

I took the photo below as supporters gathered inside the stadium last Tuesday night to prepare a tifo display, the club being generous enough to offer their facilities for our preparation. The Fire let us use the visitor’s locker room to tape together red and white table rolls for a tifo display planned to cover four sections of the stadium. S8C funded the design by supporters’ group URS, at a cost of $500.

As well as assisting us all week — relations are definitely improving — the Fire’s marketing effort this week was outstanding. Promotional events across the city and many, many media calls got a real buzz going around Chicago for the game. I stopped by one event outside the ABC studio in downtown Chicago, as fans gathered for a clip on the nightly news. It takes serious effort to sell-out a playoff game in MLS, especially when you have a small season ticketholder base, and the Fire’s staff put that effort in all week.

The Fire even donated 200 of the scarves below they ordered for promotional purposes and gave them to Section 8 Chicago so we could offer them with a special ticket sale on our website. We ended up capping our own ticket sales of over 1,000 on Saturday morning, meaning we completely packed out the Harlem End.

Fire fans outside the ABC studio downtown.

Gameday: The Tailgate

Tailgating is a Chicago tradition. Yesterday was the perfect autumnal weather for gathering outside before the game, and a large, boisterous crowd got there early. The Section 8 Chicago tailgate, open to everyone, has become a gathering point for hundreds each game, with food cooked by overworked volunteers and a keg of Half Acre’s excellent Over Ale for the beer. Once our beer buses from the city arrive, it gets awfully busy.

We sell merch at the tailgate to raise money. The anti-Revs scarf went down well yesterday.

Some last minute freehand banner painting at Toyota Park.

We also took the time to arrange a surprise for the retiring chairman of Section 8 Chicago, Ben Burton, after three years running the organisation and putting in hours that shame paid MLS staff. With the help of the Fire, we got a jersey signed by the entire team, presented to him by club chairman Andrew Hauptman. A little later, former Fire president Peter Wilt privately presented Ben with a very rare 1998 MLS jersey (Nike did not sell ’98 jerseys). After all that, it was time to get everyone together and into the stadium early to welcome the team for warm-ups.

Section 8 Chicago chairman Ben Burton with Chicago Fire chairman Andrew Hauptman. Photo credit: Marty Groark, official Section 8 Chicago photographer.

Supporters’ Player of the Year Award
After the tailgate, we headed inside the stadium, but I had one thing to do before the game began. This year, Section 8 Chicago organised the first-ever stadium wide vote for the Supporters’ Player of the Year, and we contributed $2,500 to be donated to the winning player’s charity of choice. The vote was very close after a season in which there was no obvious stand-out due to long absences for almost every key player, but the sole remaining Fire original from 1998 CJ Brown won the award for his stout defending. The Fire invited us to present CJ the award before the game, so I donned an unlikely credential and wandered onto the Toyota Park turf for the first time.

Myself, holding up my WB05 supporters' group scarf, along with three fellow Section 8 Chicago board members. And a big cheque. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

2009 Supporters' Player of the Year CJ Brown receiving his award. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

The Game

It was literally standing room only around the concourse of the stadium, as the Fire set a playoff record crowd at Toyota Park. In Section 8, it was loud from warmups to half an hour after the game.

Those table rolls we taped together at the stadium came out pretty damn good. We unfurled that at kick-off to get the crowd going. Unfortunately some idiots poked holes through it so I’m not sure it’s reusuable, but it looked pretty damn good.

We also hung up all of the banners that have been made in recent weeks, including a couple for the induction of Chris Armas into the Ring of Fire two weeks ago.

And, as tends to happen at Fire games, it turned out some supporters had brought some pyro of their own. There were problems with security again, with some ticket mix-ups and the flares causing friction: over-zealous aggression from security never helps, not that supporters are always blameless either. But overall, it was quite something to behold.

Banners for CJ Brown, Mike Banner (get it?), Chris Armas and Chris Rolfe. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

Section 8 before the game. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

A lot of table rolls taped together. Photo credit: Drew Santo.

We are red and we are white: the tifo display viewed from the east side. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

Section 8 in the tenth minute. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

Looks like it's warm in there. Photo credit: Drew Santo.

After the Fire's second goal, section 8 somehow got louder. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

Postgame

I’ll let the team speak for themselves on what they felt about the atmosphere.

“The fans were absolutely tremendous tonight. I was telling somebody earlier that they were out there already chanting when I was warming up. It gave me goosebumps just warming up because they were just fantastic. Hopefully we have that same atmosphere next weekend, we’re really excited to have that game here. It’s not going to be an easy game, Salt Lake had a great win against Columbus, it’s going be a battle but it’s just nice to have it all on our home field.” — Goalkeeper John Busch.

“I can’t remember seeing a crowd like that here. They were energetic from the start all the way through the end of the game, and all the players really fed off the energy they brought tonight.” — Midfielder John Thorrington.

“It was a special night. We had a full house. I think the guys understood what was at task, understood the moment from the get-go. We deservedly got the win. The crowd had a huge effect on us. Our guys fed off that for the whole 90 minutes and so hopefully next week we can pack the house like we did tonight.”" — Fire head coach Denis Hamlett.

“It’s great. It’s so awesome when the atmosphere [is like that]. The fans were great, they inspired the guys to fight for each other.” — Brian McBride.

CJ Brown heads to Section 8 after the game, doing his famous victory dance. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

Fire original CJ Brown after the game. Photo credit: Marty Groark.

The Chicago Fire, from the team to the front office to the supporters last night lived up to the hallmark of tradition, honor and passion. Now it’s time to stand and deliver in the rest of the playoffs, and take home the MLS Cup.