I didn’t ask to be an Arsenal fan, it was just the way it was.  My father was, I was raised to be an Arsenal fan.  I was born in the East End of London and Arsenal played in North London. Almost everybody local and Caucasian supported West Ham United with the occasional Arsenal and Tottenham thrown in. Nobody supported Chelsea, they didn’t exist outside of West London. People with lesser ties to to East End supported Liverpool, it seemed like every immigrant that picked a team supported the scousers. My mother did, and a good chunk of my highly diverse school also did. It wasn’t that these first and second generation arrivals had any ties to Liverpool, it was more about Liverpool being the most successful team in English football at the time.

It used to get under my skin, why support Liverpool when you live in London? I could understand them not wanted to support West Ham United back in the days, these were the fans that threw bananas on the field when John Barnes was at Upton Park. But Liverpool? It made no sense to me but then as I said I never had a choice. I was a one team guy and that was the way it was, and it wasn’t that Arsenal were great, they were anything but good and labelled one of the most boring sides in England. I wasn’t a cloistered kid with fancy replica shirts. The best I could come by was traded Panini Football Stickers and a pair of Arsenal jeans … they had a patch in the knee where I had fallen and torn them and my mother had patched them with the only swatch of fabric that she had. It was red.

We were poor as church mice, and I didn’t get to watch games at home because we didn’t have a television. Even if we did there was only one game on “telly” a week back then in most weeks, unless there was a European Cup, FA Cup or England game being played. Sunday afternoon was Match of Day time, unless I got lucky and happened to be at a friends place during the rare occasion that Arsenal were actually shown I did not get to see the Gunners playing. Not unless I went to Highbury.

They had a marvelous program, I am sure they still run called Junior Gunners which allowed exceptionally cheap tickets to children. By the time I hit secondary school at 11 years old I was a member and was finally able scrimp and save enough to go to games. I used to get 5p (about 8c) for each year I had been alive as my mothers still taxed purse strings tried to give us a little something to spend. If I saved my 55p and supplemented it with money I should have been spending on lunches at school I would eventually manage to scrape enough together to get to basically every home game, to purchase a match day program, and a bag of chips on the way home.

And so I went. With my complimentary Junior Gunners scarf, my Arsenal Wrist Bands, my Junior Gunners Velcro fastening wallet. As the years rolled by my presents became season tickets and shirts. My winter coat was always a replica of the one that Don Howe or George Graham wore.

I am so entwined in Arsenal, it is such a huge part of my childhood that there is no separating it from my core anymore than there is the possibility of me living without a heart and I can look anybody, anywhere in the face and say I deserve to wear the Arsenal shirt I own.  Through hunger, shitty weather, and Gus Ceaser I earned my stripes and learned about Arsenal, the culture, the fans, and their character.

I am not alone.  The West Ham fans I went to school with are still West Ham fans, as is the silly lad that used to save his money to travel out of London to watch Ipswich Town. The Liverpool fans? I don’t know them – those transient rootless people were replaced by Leeds United fans, Blackburn fans, Manchester United fans and these days you see those Chelsea and Real Madrid shirts everywhere. Even right here in Kansas City.

I can never help thinking if they have ever been to Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge? Have they ever heard the roar that the Stretford End or the Kop made during their hay day? The Fernando Torres or Wayne Rooney shirts they sport don’t make them ‘United’ or ‘Liverpool’ anymore than me putting a prancing pony on my Toyota makes it a Ferrari.

People can follow whoever they please, and I keep telling myself this but at my core I still wonder why somebody from Kansas City would pull on a Manchester United shirt and go to Arrowhead to support a team they have absolutely no link to. Tens of thousands of them piled into the stadium this weekend and I’ll admit it – many of them deserve to wear the shirt, they are proper fans that have lived and died with United going way back to do days of Ron Atkinson and beyond. The vast majority have just hopped on the gravy train of trophies and glory that we have witnessed over the last fifteen years, and it shows.

There is a pride in it, of being part of something. It doesn’t matter if it is the Kansas City Wizards, United, Arsenal or Runcorn United. Something more than just pulling on a $110 jersey with Ronaldo or Rooney written across that back that behooves you to get behind your team and yet in a stadium that contained a good 20,000 Manchester United shirts there wasn’t a solitary Manchester United song sung.

Showing some pride, the Wizards fans make their voices heard.
Photo courtesy of Thad Bell/backpost.net

Sure they cheered when Berbatov stroked home his penalty kick, but the “United, United, United” battle cry was not heard once within the stadium. Not once. Meanwhile the Kansas City Fans sang throughout the entire game, and celebrated a victory with gusto and why not, it was our hometown team and for one of the least fashionable teams in all of Major League Soccer it was a day for us to shine, we did, and the fans that opted for fashionable Manchester United left the stadium defeated, as quietly as they had been when they entered. One of America’s dogs had their day, and I have a strange mix of pity and disgust for those that opted out of it for a team they will never see play live again. Pity that they can’t see the Wizards as something to get behind, and disgust that they have opted for United instead and show none of the pride, and know so little of the culture of the club they follow that they cannot even summon a simple one word song that is heard every single time United play.

As always (it seems) I was spending a fair amount of time looking at a thread on BigSoccer.com regarding changing the name of the Wizards.  somebody mentioned iconic Crests in England. And it got me thinking as always about Arsenal .. the frame for all things football in my world.   I started writing and after 15 minutes and a slew of text had passed I found myself more on the fence about name change than I have been at anytime.  I abandoned my post and converted the text into this … it is a bit of a ramble, but that is my way…

Iconography and graphics have changed frequently in England and across Europe.  Even Arsenal and Manchester United’s.  Manchester United’s crest only evolved in the 1970s from its original and highly different logo.  Arsenal’s seems to have changed frequently throughout the years, most recently in the early 2000s as they simplified the graphics, changed the colors as well as the orientation of the cannon.

Arsenal, Wizards and Manchester United
logos throughout the ages.

Of course names changed as well.  Dial Square became Royal Arsenal became Woolwich Arsenal (as they turned pro) and finally Arsenal (as they moved into the new stadium).

Much of this evolution happened back when the the English football leagues where new, which is in reality where we are now.  Maybe it’d be better to get the naming and branding right now, Newton Heath, Thames Ironworks FC, Hotspur FC, and Ardwick Association Football Club just would not have worked so well in 2010 … in the UK the moves were often made to tie the club to broader geographic areas, or to neutralize them from specific locals that no longer where accurate.

In the USA its more about identity, no team doesn’t cover a broad geographic area, but the motivation to link your team to its supporter base via name change is the same.  Wizards just doesn’t do KC justice in this light, but then neither does Real Salt Lake, or Red Bull New York.  Our name is certainly no less silly than DC United just picking United because it is a traditional English naming convention.

I have been opposed to a name change, but maybe its just the natural course of things as teams develop, improve and evolve into the teams they will be for the next 100 years, rather than who they were for the first 15 or 20.  I’m sure fans a hundred years ago were distraught that Arsenal not only moved from South East London to North London (a long old journey even today but made worse then via the lack of river crossings) but also changed their name distancing themselves from their original community.

Those that didn’t change much (or at all) seem odd sounding … Sheffield Wednesday (formally The Wednesday Football Club), Aston Villa, Crewe Alexandra seem oddly out of place in 2010, especially Villa playing in the Premier League with Villa Park a real relic of the past (but a fine stadium regardless).  I love those teams for sticking with their names an roots, the likes of Preston North End and West Bromich Albion are not names that would be chosen today.  There is no derision for them though, I guess people got used to them after a while — hell they have always been there. Much like the (Wiz)ards have been in MLS.  Maybe without a change one day people will quit bitching about ‘Wizards’ and just accept them the way they do Hamilton Academical Football Club.  Or maybe Wizards is so epically bad that they never will.  If I live to 135 years old I’ll let you know …

If the name changed tomorrow I am not sure I’d care in twenty years, in fact I know I won’t.  It is just the here and now where it stings a bit.  Those of us that object in some respects are like old men scornful of change, yet its an undeniable thing and it need not always be bad.  I am glad the Wizards are no longer called the Kansas City Wiz that much is certain. With all the kits, logos, venues the Wizards have played in over the 15 years you figure we’d be used to it but I guess in a way because of all that we understand what an unwelcome pain in the ass it can also be.

I guess this is me saying I am not going to fret about it either way, what happens will happen.  It won’t stop me going to games and hell I buy new merchandise every year or two anyway, I don’t buy a shirt or a scarf for life.  I get the feeling those old Wizards shirts would become a real statement if we did change and they were around in 10 years or so … a kind of ‘fuck you, I was here when..’ badge of honor that distinguishes the old fans from the new.

In terms of name change, none of it detracts from past glories in my mind. If ‘The Wiz’ had won it all in the MLS inaugural year we’d still claim that honor today as the Wizards.  Its all the same team, right here in Kansas City and I doubt people will forget anytime soon that our ‘<insert euro-centric prefix>’ Kansas City ‘<insert hated new name>’ were once called the Wizards or the Wiz.  If it is done well enough, there might be the same wry smile I see from today’s fans when they talk about the old Rainbow logos and Charlie Brown shirts.  Change isn’t always bad … and sometimes it is wonderful.

I guess we will see what happens.

I haven’t been a Kansas City Wizards fan for that long, in fact I think it’d be fair to say I really only have been for two seasons. I started coming to games and held a season ticket prior to the fact but the transition from a guy coming to watch the Wizards because there were no better options to a guy who would not choose to be anywhere else on game day has been a long one. There hasn’t been much to love about the Wizards for some time and my relationship with them is akin to falling for the ugly chick that you used to think of as one of the guys … until you got to know her a little bit better and start looking beyond the surface.

I’d been to the odd game at Arrowhead and the cavernous empty spaces didn’t do much for me, neither did the football, or the crappy name or the horrible PA Announcements. It wasn’t very appealing baking to death in a concrete bowl but when I heard the Wizards were leaving Arrowhead something began to needle me. I’d never lived in a place without a team before and the thought of them leaving town entirely didn’t sit well. I started to monitor the website looking for updates on where the team would be playing and the announcement never seemed to come. Finally news that Community America Ballpark was ‘home’ seemed to come ridiculously late. I flipped over to the season ticket section on the site and noted that there was a standing section … behind a goal … and the entire season ticket only cost $150 (approx). Score. I became a season ticket holder within minutes.

I emailed all my friends trying to get them on board but none took the bait and so I went to the first game with my wife who bought a single game ticket. I arrived on the Grass Berm and was told to SIT DOWN. What the hell? It turned out that the banking was too steep and there where safety concerns and my grass and mud made mock terrace wasn’t really going to be all that it cracked up to be. I wanted to stand up, instead I got into the routine of bringing along a blanket and my wife. It is funny, in hindsight that with the new stadium coming that a much maligned grass slope at the further maligned Community America Ballpark is what sucked me in. As the season rolled onwards I got used to coming to games, I enjoyed the view, I liked sitting on The Berm and thought that one day it’d be a fun place to bring kids. The Wizards squeaked into the playoffs and by the end of the season I was hooked.

Looking back over the last few years, and watching games at CAB it is hard to imagine that this weekend I will be taking pictures of Ryan Giggs and Sir Alex Ferguson and the remainder of the Manchester United squad right here in Kansas City. It feels strange. Over 47,000 tickets have been sold at this time. Amazing. The Kansas City Wizards Stadium is being built at an almost alarming (but most welcome) pace – with an uncompromisable emphasis on quality. The World Cup has come and gone and 12,000 fans crowded into the Power and Light District to watch the USA play Ghana. Really? Yeah … 2010 has been kinda like that.

So here I sit, in bed, feeling like Sunday is a cup final. I can’t sleep. I wonder if I’ll see or even speak to Giggs or Fergie over the next two days, I have my camera charged up and ready to go for the once in a lifetime chance of taking pictures of Manchester United from field level. It all seems so surreal and weird.

No matter what our place in the standings may be, win lose or draw, these are good days to be a Wizards fan. OnGoal – the Wizards ownership group really deserve a tip of the cap. And me? I am just enjoying the ride, enjoying that I am endlessly amazed by the upwards progression of football in a City that has been deemed a backwater by the snobs in LA and Seattle and wondering what comes next.

I am not going to talk about the game, because frankly as a spectacle it wasn’t up to much and the problems that the Wizards have on the field are nothing new.  Week in week out it seems to be the same story and I doubt you want to read about it anymore than I have the heart to talk about it.

One thing is certain.  There can be no excuse for this defeat.  There were no notable injuries that forced our selection or tactics.  This was the preferred starting eleven.  The Philadelphia Union remain as the final team separating the Wizards from the bottom of the standings, not just in the Eastern Conference but MLS as a whole.  They are only one point behind the Wizards and have played one game fewer.  We have nothing to crow about, even after defeating them at Community America Ballpark. We had a six-point lead on them after two games, and they are now just a solitary draw behind in terms of points.

It is as if we are chasing the bottom of the table.  We started week one at the summit of the MLS standings, and a measly thirteen games later we stand just a draw above the MLS laughing stock that the Union are, and we seem destined to become.

It is certain that change is needed.  But in terms of a way forward I am nonplussed.  Part of me wants Peter Vermes to be run out of town and I think that is reflective of a vast number of Wizards fans however I also don’t think it will do any harm at all to let him ride out the rest of the season.  It is not that I have any particular faith that Peter Vermes can turn this caravan of despair around however I am wary of a firing leading to yet another poor and rushed hiring of a first team coach.

What I would love to see was an organizational statement that actually admitted that this season is over, and some moves to get some reserve team players out there to get them some experience than can maybe help us next season.  I’ll take Bunbury starting for Wolff, Graham Zusi on for Jack Jewsbury or Davy Arnaud, and Besler on for Conrad.  I’d get Hirsig out of limbo and throw him out there, get Chhetri on the bench and clocking some minutes.  We might as well see what they can do.

We might get massacred in a few games but would it really be any worse that what we have now?  A loss is a loss, except the latter option might actually help the Wizards, and who knows?  After a few weeks we might find out the kids can play.  They will learn more than they doing playing PDL whipping boys, the Kansas City Brass.

The bottom line is it would be hard to be worse than Jimmy Conrad was last night, hard to be as ineffectual as Josh Wolff has been this season, hard to be as undisciplined and nonsensical as Davy Arnaud and his three red cards and endless bitching, and Jack Jewsbury?  He has played well enough, but he isn’t exactly the future either.

Look at our roster and ask yourself who you expect to see still playing in three years as a starter for an MLS side.  There are not many on that list.  This also needs a change if the Wizards are to improve, new coach or not.

The new Kansas City Wizard’s Stadium is taking shape at an amazing rate and I was lucky enough to be given a guided tour around and throughout every area of the stadium that was accessible.   This excluded the third level of the west side of the stadium — turns out I am not that great on a ladder and I didn’t want to deal with another one. Many thanks go out to David Ficklin for making this happen and allowing me to share this with everybody.

Looking South across the West side of the stadium.  Note the curve in the stand
designed to get everybody facing the field and feeling close to the action.

A little perspective on the roof trusses — these things are massive.

Actually standing on the West side of the stadium’s pre-casts. Looking South.

The tunnel flanked by the home and away dugouts.

The home dugout.

A view of the West side of the Stadium from what will be the Plaza area.  Note the central
white steel column.  The supporters signed that one.

Developments are quite stunning and this stadium is going to be breathtaking.  I described it as being a “small big stadium”.  It is going to be intimate, but its also impressively large at the same time.  I think it is going to be a loud and intimidating place for visiting fans.  It certainly feels a lot bigger inside than it does walking the perimeter.  I’ll be writing more on this tomorrow, but for now there are over a hundred Kansas City Wizard’s Stadium pictures from today available on the kcwfans.com Facebook page.  There is no need to ‘Like’ anything or have a Facebook account to view the pictures, although if you do use that Like button you will get notice next time I post pictures.  This will hopefully be in two weeks.