Many of the individual members of District Ultras are not new to DC United, or to DC United’s historically active supporters’ group scene –  arguably the consistently strongest throughout much of the league’s 16-year history – but as a group they are a new addition to a scene traditionally powered by the well-known Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles groups.

Pitch Invasion asked Srdan Bastaic, one of the driving forces behind the District Ultras, where they had come from. ”Our core group has been around for much longer, handling all the tifo in the Barra for a long time, but as dominant as we were in, say, the 2005-2007 MLS period, by 2009 or so the supporter scene in US had become much stronger. It wasn’t just DC and Chicago anymore,” Bastaic said. “The DC atmosphere was already stagnating at that point and we wanted to be able to rival the new and old and improved groups. Successful groups need money to run and selling t-shirts and scarves to raise funds really wasn’t going to cut it at that point as it has in the past.”

Bastaic explained that this desire to take DC tifo to a new level and the required funding led to some intense discussions within Barra Brava. “So our tifo crew met, then tried to compromise and talk it through for several months and at the end we didn’t have a choice but to split into a separate group,” Bastaic explains.

This led to a breakaway group of tifo-mad ultras looking for a new section to call home at RFK, briefly floating amongst the other supporter group areas. “Nine of us walked and it was pretty funny for a few months,” Bastaic says. “We were all over the stadium, in the La Norte section one match, then in Screaming Eagles, then between sections. We actually did a few displays by walking into a section of regular fans and putting up these big 20 foot high banners, it was a pretty bizarre time.”

The District Ultras badly needed a space of their own. Bastaic continues, “Around the middle of the season, the DC front office figured we’re not going anywhere, so they gave us a far corner section in RFK. That’s when we started to grow, as people who were interested in our mentality had a stable section to come to.”

DC United versus Seattle, 7.15.10

DC United versus LA, 7.18.10

DC United versus Philadelphia, 8.22.10

DC United versus Columbus, 9.4.10

DC United versus Houston, 9.25.10

DC United versus Houston, 9.25.10

DC United versus Toronto, 10.23.10

That first year in 2010 – with a tifo display every game – was, as would be expected, something of an uphill battle since the District Ultras had to “build everything all over again from the ground up,” as Bastaic puts it. Relations with the club were also “rocky at the start”, though smoothed over as the front office came to understand the group’s purpose: “we’re on the same side after all,” Bastaic says. Support from DC’s Screaming Eagles – particularly helpful with tickets for away games – was a big boon for the nascent group.

In 2011, another smaller though older DC supporters group, La Norte, moved adjacent to the District Ultras, and the two groups have developed a strong relationship together. This helped the District Ultras reach a new level with their support in 2011.

DC United versus New England, 7.20.11

DC United versus Toronto, 8.6.11

DC United versus Salt Lake, 9.24.11

DC United versus Salt Lake, 9.24.11

DC United versus Salt Lake, 9.24.11

DC United versus Chicago, 10.15.11

DC United versus Portland, 10.19.11

DC United versus Kansas City, 10.22.11

Starting a new supporters group is a massive challenge, even for those with the experience of the District Ultras leadership. As DC United General Manager Dave Kasper mentioned on the recent Pitch Invasion podcast, DC United’s support may have to wait until the club moves to a new stadium before it matches the new standards set in MLS support in recent seasons, reclaiming the ground once held by Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles.

One suspects if DC’s support does take a fresh spurt forward, it’ll be in part from District Ultras’ imaginative tifo efforts: as Bastaic puts it, “We’ve got a good mixture of veterans and new blood, and we can really go anywhere from here, supporting our club and representing our city.”

Update: Here’s a roundup of District Ultras’ 2011 tifo efforts

All photos provided by District Ultras. Photos 7.15.10 and 9.24.11 by Neil Brandvold.

To kick things off, we look at Australia with a video documenting the making and display of a variety of banners by supporters of Sydney FC in the A-League.

It’s all fairly simple stuff, but effective and I like the peak at the making of it — always interesting to see how this gets done. Sydney’s biggest supporters group is known as The Cove, and here’s what they do.

We present here a first person multimedia-essay from one of the founders of Egypt’s first ultras group, who we will call “A” to retain his anonymity. Being an ultra in Egypt is not an approved activity by the authorities, and his group have caused something of a stir.

In March 2007, five hardcore fans of Egyptian club Al-Ahly (one of the biggest teams in Africa, if not the biggest) met with one thing on their minds: introducing the ultras movement in Egypt.

The reason for the meeting was that this group of friends weren’t happy about the direction the existing supporters’ groups were heading as at that time, as they seemed to care more about organizing meetings with the players and talking with the media rather than focus on their job — which in our opinion, should always be improving the atmosphere in the stadium.

The general feeling in that meeting was after seven years of organized supporters clubs (mainly two, the Ahly Lovers Union and the Ahly Fans Club) , we had reached the stage where we were ready for the ultras mentality.

April 2007 saw the first time the new Ultras Ahlawy banner was displayed in the curva nord next to the AFC banner, and we took our place in the stand next to them, five of us ready to battle the world until our philosophy reaches everybody.

People were impressed by our debut and our strict adherence to the ultras mentality. We were an extremely small and selective group, with very good connections with all the different groups and leaders of the stadium and this helped us in our campaign to generate money to create the first ever tifo in the Cairo derby.

In May 2007, it was the fifth anniversary of Ahly’s 6-1 victory over Zamalek, and we created a tifo that contains a devil (our nickname is the red devils) blowing candles in a cake that has five candles in reference of the fifth anniversary. It was the first time that normal fans saw choreo in the derbies, and it was a huge success — normal fans loved it.

At this time, we received help from some of the top boys of the other group in the curva (AFC) and a bond was created as they were very interested in the ultras mentality and they were excited to have us in the curva. However, the group leader was anti-ultras; we saw him as a sell-out and considered them to be a pro-modern football group.

In July, due to a fixtures mix up, we were only given three days between the semi final and the final of the Egyptian Cup — despite the hard work we put in and the help of some of the AFC, the choreo did not come out as good as we hoped. But it made us more determined to improve and the friendship between us and some of the AFC main lads grew as it became obvious we shared the same vision. At the end of July, we had a meeting with the AFC leaders and they decided that it was time to join forces.

As the new season started, we decided to create a new banner for the away games as well as a tifo to honor the first anniversary of the death of our player Mohamed Abdel Wahab, who died on the training ground.

In September came the Cairo derby. We were determined to create an amazing tifo to restore our pride after the below average display in the cup final and we decided to create the biggest tifo in the history of Egypt (the previous record was 40′ x 20′). The We Are Egypt giant flag we created, measuring 50′ x 30′.

The biggest game of the season for our ultras is the away trip to Ismailia, which is considered to be the most dangerous game in Africa due to the hatred between the two sets of fans and the political problems that go back to the 1960s.

We decided to organize the biggest pyro show in the history of Egypt: pyro wasn’t widely used in Egypt and not more than two or three at a time, as it was banned by the police and they would arrest you on the spot if you use anything.

As you can see in the video, it was a good day.Two weeks ago, we prepared a huge choreo for the occasion of the second leg of the Champions League final, which consisted of three giants tifos each containing a drawing of one of the cups we previously won and the new cup that would be handed out for the first time in that game (since we kept the old one for life after we won it three consecutive times).

Between each tifo we had stripes of green/yellow and red to symbolize the colours of Africa.

Since we began,we have faced a lot of problems with the club: they refuse to grant us any rights such as using the club facilities to draw our tifos and they do not allow us early access to the stadium to prepare our tifos and choreographies. The police often refuse to grant us entry to some of our material for silly reasons, such as claiming the sticks for the big flags could be used as weapons. Still, we have our ways of getting them inside the ground.

We are still a very young group (only six months old): we began with only five members , yet in those six months we have become the most active group in Africa, creating five tifos in six months paid for ourselves. 50-60 members now usually attend our weekly meetings and we have around 130-150 members in the stadium. We also have our own website www.ultrasahlawy.com with a forum that contains 800 members.

The ultras movement is very young in Egypt, but the idea of organized supporters has been here for a while, and despite all the struggles with the club and with the police we are hanging in and growing rapidly.

But some are trying to grow the culture in Britain, such as Aldershot Town’s Red Blue Army. Aldershot Town F.C. were formed in 1992 after the collapse of Aldershot F.C. They now play in the Blue Square Premier, the fifth tier of English football. I asked Daniel Rogers, a member of the ultras group, about their activities, and he also shared many photos after the jump.

Q. When did your group start and how many members have you had traditionally?

A. The group officially started in 2005 but we were together as a group of singing supporters for years before then, in the first two years we had about 60 members. However, not many of these were active, this year we have 30 members with nearly all of them active, in my opinion this is a better way to be.

Q. How well do you get on with the club and other supporters around the Stadium?

Unlike some groups we have never had any major concerns with the club. Occasionally we have been labelled hooligans but using the word ‘Ultra’ it is not a surprise. Supporters generally like what we do, we bring colour and noise to the grounds we visit and aim to be the 12th man of the team. However, some fans don’t like us but we don’t care.

Q. What’s your view on the development and future of Ultras culture in British football?

The ultra culture in Britain seemed to burst into action a few years ago, Red Ultras (Aberdeen) seemed to be the first onto the scene and are still setting the pace, however just like anywhere it is becoming harder and harder to support your team. With rules becoming stricter and Police handing out banning orders for the smallest of things it seems as if ultras are being pushed out. However we will not give up. This sort of thing just brings groups closer together and shows how dedicated we are.

Daniel also provided some photos of the group. Click on the images for larger versions.

Photo credit: Goldstone97 on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.

Photo credit: sasakei on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.

Photo credit: redia_09 on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.

(By the way, we’ll be featuring the ultras from Japan throughout the week in photo daily.)