It never fails to escape me how serendipitous writing about Sporting Kansas City can be. I’ve seen the very best and worst of fan behavior over the last 30 years, from the wretched days of hooliganism in England, to demonstrations of unfailing support that have changed games and left me in awe. Roll back to 1989 and an FA Cup 3rd Round Replay at Highbury on a Wednesday night. Arsenal were on a roll, playing amazingly, and would go on to win the league and they were unlucky not to grab a win at West Ham United’s Upton Park the prior Saturday.

The Hammers were hopeless, bottom of the standings, and Arsenal pounded them – absolutely dominated them – and somewhere near the end of the first half the thousands of West Ham fans in the Clock End started a methodical relentless chant …

“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”
“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”
“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”
“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”
“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”
“Johnny Lyall’s Claret n’ Blue Army”

After a few minutes they mixed it up … the west side of their away supporters paddock would sing it, with the east side repeating it right back to them, then the west side firing it right back and on and on and on and on …

After 10 minutes of that the Arsenal fans grew restless and started to try and fire back, but every time there was a silence or lull in play, and for the entirety of the half time period, West Ham could be heard … and the bastards were getting louder, and Highbury’s home faithful a lot quieter. They kept going and going and going …. 10 minutes turned into 20, 30 … and the stadium was theirs, it belonged to West Ham United.

In the face of such belligerent, unyielding noise there was nothing to be done, there was no pausing in between the lines in their simple damned chant, there was no choice but to sing over the top of them but they never stopped. Highbury – and its famous North Bank – quit, and as the home field advantage became West Ham’s the game changed. West Ham managed to start playing, and finally in the 77th minute nodded in the game winning goal via Leroy Rosenior.

They changed the game … and they never quit singing the John Lyall song for the remainder of the game. I have no doubt to this day that they made the difference that night. Sometimes at Highbury it felt like if we made enough noise on a given day we could also force Arsenal to be better, and I’d never seen Arsenal fans shut down at home that way whilst there was still a game to be played. The West Ham fans were magnificent ….

Last night after the unveiling of the 2013 home jersey there was what essentially amounted to a mini-pep rally at Sporting Park. Robb Heineman talked about aspirations of the team and how the fans needed to step it up even more to help the team towards those goals. Peter Vermes reiterated the same speech, talking about an Assistant Coach in MLS who had said that a game at Sporting Park was the longest 90 minutes in MLS.

I thought about this on the way home, what we could really do to take things up a notch in a stadium that is already loud and proud. The obvious things jump out – the people that don’t sing and chant might consider it – but that is a lost battle there, not everybody goes to games for the experience that is standing in the middle of the KC Cauldron. People will argue about if we need more or less drums, more songs or less songs. I’ll just point to the West Ham fans on a given day who simply refused to see their team beat and simply never quit singing for even a second for close on 70 minutes.

What if Sporting Kansas City fans became relentless? What would that mean?

Maybe that when things are not going our way the support really shines, maybe that if we fall behind that we don’t get quiet, that we don’t lose heart even when it feels hopeless. That we simply accept that sometimes the support we generate is enough to push a tired player to one last burst that can change a game, that an injured player might refuse to come off when there are no subs left, or that visiting teams and officials could simply learn to dread and fear stepping into Sporting Park in a whole new way.

It takes effort, and maybe it takes an East London “we survived the Blitz and kept on smiling” attitude.

Maybe it just takes pride.

Part of the mentality of London, and West Ham – and maybe of England – over the years has simply been one of no surrender. The idea that you can take it in the shins, be hopelessly defeated and then shrug and stand up because … you are just not going to quit. Maybe it’s the way us Island Race folk live, maybe it’s just the way we have been conditioned to think. It translated to the terraces in the most abominable way, but as I said at the beginning I have seen the best and worst of fans.

Bradford City took a beating on Sunday, a League Two team playing Swansea of the Premier League in the English League Cup Final and boom … 5-0. Their EPL opposition finally showed the gulf in class and it was not really a fair fight, and 82,000 fans in the stadium split roughly down the middle – half from Swansea, half from Bradford – and in the second half it was the Bradford fans having a ball. They conceded the third goal, the game was over – and then ‘Stand up if you love Bradford’ echoes around Wembley Stadium – the tens of thousands rose to their feet and for the remainder of the game continued to sing, and wave flags so much so that it was an amazing thing to witness on television.

Sure they had much to celebrate, having made it to a final from the fourth tier of the English ‘pyramid’ but they’d been humbled. After going to bed the night before dreaming of heroic little Bradford getting it done one last time in a run that saw them beat Championship high flyers Watford, as well as Premier League Wigan, Arsenal and Aston Villa over two legs, it all fell apart. When it did, Bradford’s fans really did stand up, cheering loudly late in the game when they got their one and only shot on goal and generally having a party – they made a memorable day out of a horrible scoreline.

In KC … we have a tendency to wallow a bit. There, I’ve said it … things don’t go well and we huff and puff, rant about referees but when the shit really hits the fan we get a lot quieter. Precisely when the team needs a lift the most. It is easy to sing loudly and passionately when we are winning, it is a lot harder when you are down to 10 men and 3-1 down with 20 minutes to go. This doesn’t make us bad fans, this makes us human beings, but as supporters it does show us there is a little extra step we can take – getting behind the team when they are failing, and doing so in a way that changes games and days out for the better.

That is the step we can take. The question is … can we?