We're Blue, We're White

Canadian & US Soccer Supporters Unite

2012-02-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Soccer Supporters Unite

PORTLAND, Oregon (15 February, 2012) - Soccer rivalries are known for their intensity, but leadership of soccer supporters groups from across the US and Canada set aside their rivalries last weekend in Portland, Oregon for the Independent Supporters Council (ISC) conference.

The ISC works to promote supporters’ culture in North America, and defend the rights of soccer supporters. Over the weekend, representatives of supporters of 16 of the 19 teams in Major League Soccer discussed issues facing supporters, and revised and ratified the Independent Supporters Council Charter, including the Supporters Bill of Rights.

“By speaking with a singular voice for all recognized supporters groups regarding issues that may be specific to one group, but that affect all, ISC can effectively use the collective leverage of all groups to protect the interests of each individual group,” said Jason Corliss board member of Red Bull New York's Viking Army SC.

“MLS is beginning to appreciate the role of supporters, and aren’t just marketing the game to soccer moms any longer. It’s a step in the right direction, but we want to make certain all supporters can safely and passionately follow their team wherever they travel,” said Abram Goldman-Armstrong, a founding member of the ISC and board member of the Timbers Army 107 Independent Supporters Trust, which hosted the conference in Portland.

ISC initiatives include:

Coordinating an annual ISC conference open to delegations of supporters from all clubs in the United States and Canada, including in MLS, lower-league levels and women’s soccer
Tracking incidents and advocating for stadium security trained to understand supporter culture
Developing clear, consistent guidelines and fair ticket allocations for traveling supporters
Organizing the administration and funding of a new MLS Supporters' Shield trophy
Advocating for an MLS schedule that is favorable to traveling fans, especially rivalry games

Working for the adoption of a league-wide Supporters’ Bill of Rights

###

ISC - The Independent Supporters Council was founded in 2009 to advocate for the fair treatment of home and away supporters, promote supporter culture, and oppose racism and bias in the stadium. www.soccersupporters.org

The Vancouver Southsiders were one of the founding members of the ISC in 2009

The Real Deal

2011-12-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

At Last Night’s Board of Directors meeting, I was thrilled to be unanimously elected as President of The Vancouver Southsiders.

These literally are big shoes to fill after the wonderful two years we have been led by John Knox aka Johnnie Monster, but I will do my utmost to ensure that we continue to grow and remain the most visible supporters in Vancouver and the No1 Supporters Club in Canada.

To give you some background on myself, for those who don’t know me. I have been involved with The Southsiders for about 10 years now and was one of the founders when we made the decision to go "legit” a couple of years ago.

For our first year, I was your Treasurer, but took over “Events” for 2011, which I have thoroughly enjoyed despite a few obstacles we had to overcome.

I will continue to head up the “Events” in 2012, but will be assisted by some “young blood”.

I also have a wonderful friend and Vice-President in the shape of Brett Graham aka piltdownman, to assist me in working with the Front Office of Vancouver Whitecaps FC and an exciting new Board of Directors.

One of the first thing I will be doing is changing my Southsiders forum name to The Real Deal, which as I mentioned at the AGM is a nickname given to me by Peter Schaad, and is way more appropriate given my age!

The Tractor Boy nickname was given to me by Zach Meisenheimer way back around 2001, because of my penchant for wearing an Ipswich Town top in the Southside as back then replica shirts were hard to find!

We already have several Korean members, but I’d like to welcome the entire Korean soccer loving community to join us out as we’d love to share their well-known passion of the beautiful game.

We may not number the Emerald City Supporters in Seattle or Timbers Army in Portland, but we have our own individuality which I fundamentality do not want to change.

The Bloggers we have in the Southside are probably the best in the MLS and this shows that not only are we a witty and sarcastic bunch, we are also amongst the most informed and envied in the entire MLS.

Thank you for all the messages of support, and I know that, with you, that we are going to have a fantastic year in 2012

Chris Deal

"The Real Deal"

events@vancouversouthsides.ca

photo courtesy of VanCityVilla

MLS Supporters Summit 2012 :: Collaborating Towards Solutions

2011-11-23T11:26:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I had the great honour and privilege of representing
the Vancouver Southsiders at the MLS Supporters Summit in Los Angles.
I attended many meetings between supporters and with MLS Officials.

Independent Supporters Council of the United States and Canada was a
meeting held at a Mexican restaurant close to the Home Depot Centre.
This was the third annual general meeting of the group and was
attended by supporters groups that belonged to the ISC, both press and
club officials were NOT allowed in.

At this meeting issues and best practices were discussed.

It was very clear that scheduling was the most important topic to the group.

Almost everyone was in agreement that a Balanced Schedule is what the fans wanted.

There was also displeasure of Derby matches being scheduled midweek, and thus not
allowing away fans to travel in good numbers. There also seems to be a

league wide problem of rescheduling and moving reserve matches which
the group feels needs to be addressed.

The second biggest priority of the group was pushing for larger away allocations.

The group would ideally like to see the amount increased to the FIFA recommended 5%
level.

After that the leaders of the MLS Supporters groups attended a meeting
at the Home Centre Presidents room with club supporters liaisons and
was lead by Evan Dabby, MLS Senior Director of Operations. At this
marathon meeting a wide variety of issues were discussed. This
included most thing from the ISC meeting as well as how to improve
communication, possible the establishment of Supporter Sub Committees,
and enhancing game day experience.

That evening La Dolca's Massimo Cusano and I met the Whitecaps Front Office for dinner. In a more casual setting some of the issues discussed earlier in the day on a more local level.

On Sunday Morning I attended a meeting on

the future of the Supporter's Shield. The current shield isn't a shield at all, and is rather small.

A KC Supporter has spearheaded a campaign to replace this with something better.

This would be funded by the supporter groups.

Later that morning about 150 supporters attended the “Supporters
Summit with MLS Commissioner Don Garber”. This is the session which
was streamed online. I won't go into too much details as most of you
likely watched online, but about half the session was spent with
people questioning the new imbalanced schedule. The paper I wrote on
how the league can reduce travel and keep a Balanced Schedule was
mentioned several time and was handed to the Commissioner at one
point. Other things that were brought up were the future of friendlies
and adopting a NHL style transparency to discipline actions.

If you would like more information about any of this please contact me
privately as much that was discussed is somewhat sensitive.

Brett Graham aka piltdownman

Southsiders - Vice President & Director of Stadium Ops

BC Place Loud and Proud in the Southside Crowd

2011-10-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

I'm a Vancouver Southsider but I enjoy the taste of prawn sandwiches
too much to give them up. So it was that on Sunday, when the Whitecaps
started life in BC Place against the Portland Timbers, I was sitting
up in the press box, stuffing popcorn into my face like it was oxygen
and watching the game from above.

It was a beautiful place to watch the game. BC Place looks like a real
soccer venue, with the retractable seats extended near the touch lines
and the elegant new plastic pitch showing hardly a trace of the
throwball game two days earlier. The only thing missing was one of the
soccer teams: the Portland Timbers showed up but, sadly, the Vancouver
Whitecaps seemed to have sent eleven statues instead.

More important, it sounded like a real soccer venue.

I was standing amongst the Southsiders for the last stand at Empire
Field two weeks ago and, though I and many of you chanted ourselves
hoarse, our noise vanished into the night air with our team's defense
while, to the northwest of us, Seattle's Emerald City Supporters
boomed and echoed. They had a lot more to cheer about, of course, but
it was still disheartening. All of the talk was "it'll be a lot better
at BC Place", but I was not optimistic.

Well, it was better. A lot better. The Timbers Army was assembled
through open doors to the left of me, close enough that I could have
thrown a beer at them. They're justly recognized as the best
supporters in Major League Soccer and their "our house in the middle
of BC" was a big, if geographically inaccurate, hit. But it seemed
like they'd just be getting into their groove then, in a dense little
wedge in one corner of the vast concrete stadium, there'd be the boom
of "WE'RE BLUE! WE'RE WHITE!"

There was no question whose house it really was.

Visually, audibly, the support was a treat to watch from afar. Was it
the way the Southsiders were concentrated into a smaller area? Was it
the carefully-designed and labouriously-crafted tifo which got the
game started off right? Was it the building itself? The megaphones? A
sense of occasion, of purpose? Whatever it was, it was hard not to
leap to my feet and join in "Boundary Road" as it rang, clear and
true, across the stadium. I knew exactly when it was the eighty-sixth
minute.

The Southsiders still have room to grow and improve. But too many
people to name in both the Southsiders and the Whitecaps have done
yeoman's work getting us this far. There's been so much growth, so
much hope, so much promise over the last year that it was remarkable
to see it coming together, to see the tifo and the flags and hear the
chants and songs of fans ten times more exuberant than the team they
were supporting.

It was much more meaningful than a mere stadium; we've seen three of
those in twelve months. Stadiums come and go, but Southsiders are
forever.

Ben Massey, aka Lord Bob
http://www.eightysixforever.com
Follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/Lord_Bob

86 Thanks You's from the Southsiders Vice-President

2011-10-04T19:44:00.001-07:00

I'm sure everyone realizes what an amazing and awesome event last Sunday afternoon was.

To think that this time last year the Southsiders were a bunch of a 100 or so people standing in the rain behind the net at Swangard out in the 'burbs.
Now we stretch back for over thirty rows in a multi million dollar, state of the art facility in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

What I think is even more exciting, is the way we have stepped up our game and have created a spectacular atmosphere that we can all be proud of.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone of you who helped bring together what was historic moment not only in our lives, but for the Whitecaps, the Southsiders and the City of Vancouver.

All of you who sung and screamed at the top of your lungs out for the full 90 are to be commended. We may have woken up with sore throats and a raspy voice on Monday morning, but I think it was well worth it.
I would like to give a special thank you to our Head Capo, Pat aka AJAX79, ably assisted by Kris and Dan for leading the chants. I'm sure everyone agrees that they are steering the atmosphere in the right direction, which will only grow and improve in time. A huge thanks to our drummers Massimo and Chris for drumming in time which I believe really helps everyone keeps in time.

For those Southsiders who volunteered their precious time on Saturday to help with the game day presentation, a huge thank you from myself and the club.
For those of you unaware of it, those little Whitecaps flags were placed by thirty-five Southsiders who now know BC Place inside out.

A massive thank you to the crew who helped set up the Tifo in the evening. Adam who created the amazing tree for the bonfire together with Kris in the Southsiders arts and crafts department. Adam also took it upon himself to create 'Disco Valentine', which if you ask me is bloody brilliant. I also need to thank my fellow board members who have been working their asses off all season long to get us to where we are today.

I think we all also need to thank the Whitecaps FC, whom without their co-operation we would have achieved all we have.
Firstly to Gary Chung and Roberto Carbrone from the Whitecaps FC Ticketing Team for helping many of us move our seats in order to make more compact sections. I strongly believe that this extra effort on their part has allowed us to really come together as a group at the Stadium and in time organically grow. From the Whitecaps Marketing Department I also really need to thank Caitlyn for the tour and Shawna for the Graphics.

More than anyone I need to thank Hillary Campbell at the Club as well as her team, including Jodie and the 'Poncho Men'. They worked around the clock to get their stuff ready but made time to help the Southsiders had everything we needed to achieve our goals. Hillary even offered to personally go back to Empire with me at midnight Saturday night to go looking for some missing tifo items. Without all their hard work, your match day experience wouldn't have been nearly as spectacular.

We do not need to rest here. We still need to grow bigger and louder, and with your help I know we can.

You've had a few days to rest your voices, we now need to get ready for the next match on Thursday and for the remainder of this season.

Come on You 'Caps

Brett Graham

Vancouver Southsiders Director of Stadium Operations
Vancouver Southsiders Vice President

THANK YOU SOUTHSIDERS!!! and KEEP IT UP!

2011-10-03T11:22:00.001-07:00

Let me start by giving you all a big round of applause!

I didn't know what kind of feed back would be posted on the forum but I am more than pleased by the comments I have read.

As head capo, I take my duties very seriously and am always woried about peforming them to the best of my abilities. After the match I really didn't know what to expect to read here (forum) but am more than happy with the response. I honestly didn't know what to expect since it is our first go at it with our new system but am pretty pleased with what we brought so far. This is our first go at it and will only get better and better.

My goal as head capo, along with my assistants (Kris and Dan), is to get things going and as often as we can and also try to pick eveybody up when the team goes down. I also try to keep the chants going longer and it really seems to be working and on a whole, I BELIEVE that we are on the right track (pun intended ).

You guys/gals don't know how much it means to me to here all the great comments of how people on the far end of the stadium can hear us loud and clear and can even here us over the TA even when their seats are right there. That's frickin awesome and is what I am trying to accomplish while performing my dutties as head capo. Even when we are able to get most of the east side standing and clapping while they have smiles on their face was great. We are truly having a positive impact on the rest of the crowd and the media has also stated this fact.

Another note is that the march was epic. It was so loud and I recieved emails from people that were blocks and blocks away when we were marching telling me that they heard this loud singing and ran over to where it was coming from to see an army of Southsiders marching. You were all treated like movie stars with cameras and video cameras all over the place. Great advertisement for our group, well done . Another thing is thank you all for being safe and respectfull of everyone around us and our surroundings. It's important that we keep that up. I even had a VPD officer come up to me when we were aproaching BC Place and thank us for being so respectful and problem free.

It sounds like we started off with a bang and it will only get better from here. Minor adjustments will be made on my part to better my performance and all you have to do is be loud and proud and bring it match in and match out. All I ask is that everyone looks to myself and Kriss for direction in regards to vocals and for the physical aspect (clapping, bouncing ect...) as well, we can inprove on the later a bit. Next match it will be easier for all of you to see us since we should be able to be more mobile.

I am very proud of our first kick at the can and considering that we were basically doing this blindly (since we had no other practice in our new home) you all did great!

Lets keep it up and become even better to close out the season and next year we will be an even bigger force to be reckoned with!

Again, thank you everybody for coming together and with alll the possitive feedback from people all over the stadium, this can turn into something even bigger!

Cheers!!

Pat
AJAX79

Southsiders: Find Your Pride

2011-09-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you all for enduring what has been in many ways the worst season I’ve experienced in decades of supporting this club.

The play has been entertaining at times, but the results have been simply awful.

We’ve been annihilated on the field. We’ve been stomped out of playoff contention. We’ve completely flamed out of our regional and national derbies.

We’ve seen good friends and excellent people within the Whitecaps organization run out of town or relegated to obscurity.

This is just about the WORST season I have ever experienced in 25 years as a Whitecaps supporter.

However...

This is also the BEST season I have ever experienced, and I’ll tell you why.

Time and time again, the Southsiders have found themselves staring down the barrel of some extremely difficult obstacles which other MLS supporters groups simply have not had to overcome…. and you know what? We’ve come out on top EVERY TIME.

We fought and won our right to exist.

We fought and won our right to stand and sing in a designated section.

We fought and won the release of more seats at a lower pricing tier.

We fought and won the right to bring flags, banners and tifo into Empire in spite of a prohibition by the PNE.

We fought and won the increase to the league’s cap on away travel from 150 to 500 seats.

We fought and won access to away tickets at a fair price when a club-sanctioned travel agency was gouging us.

We fought and won the battle with said travel agency by sending buses down the I-5 at half the price.

We fought and won our right to be heard with respect to discourteous and unlawful conduct by PNE security.

We fought and won the opportunity to relocate our seats en masse at BC Place.

And in the days ahead, I’m quite optimistic that we can get approval for capos with megaphones with BC Place. You have a very capable representative in VP Brett Graham (Piltdownman) working with the Whitecaps on that issue right now.

When you take all of this into consideration, that’s a track record that every single Southsider can stand up and be proud of. You won’t find a SINGLE supporters group in MLS that has scrapped its way through as much BS as we have and come out on top as often as we did.

Once upon a time, long before these battles I’ve mentioned above, we squared off against many well-heeled and influential detractors.

Wealthy developers tried to kill our dreams of a waterfront stadium. They hired a renowned PR firm which created bogus community activist groups to turn the media against us. Whitecaps supporters were demonized as hooligans hell-bent on destroying the Downtown Eastside and harming the vulnerable people within it. We were branded as menaces to public safety and social order, and many clueless reporters regurgitated that nonsense on the front pages of their respective publications.

To put it simply, we got the shit kicked out of us…. and that’s when we did what the Southsiders have always done best:

We fought back.

We exposed those developers and the smear campaign they were trying to perpetrate. We exposed their lies, and we ran those jerks straight out of the media spotlight.

Where’s Reliance Holdings and the Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition now? The Gastown Residents Association? Central Waterfront Coalition? Long gone, with their tails between their legs.

Where are the Southsiders? We’re Canada’s largest supporters group, and we’re about to set up shop in the Whitecaps new $600 million palace downtown, that’s where!

My point here isn’t to relive old glories. It’s to share a lesson that those of us who have supported this club for many, many years learned the hard way through immense struggles and personal investment of time and energy.

There are going to be times when supporting your club feels like a very difficult thing to do. Your credibility will be questioned. Your very existence will come under scrutiny. There will be devastating losses, humiliation, criticism, finger-pointing and embarrassment. Maybe some of you are disappointed with how we sounded in comparison to the ECS. Consider it a life lesson.

There will always be groups larger than ours. There will always be groups more cohesive than ours.

So? Who gives a toss?

We’re not the first supporters club to have a nightmare of a season. We’re not the first supporters club to be out-sung by visitors at home. It happens. That’s football…. and it’s part of what makes the supporters culture so interesting.

Did we have an off night against Seattle? Perhaps…. But that’s only one bad night in 12 years of coming through like champions in every other respect as a supporters club.

A lot of people have posted messages here on this board, and also on Twitter, about their disappointment with us. Don’t waste any time or energy on this. We don’t need to defend ourselves. The only thing that matters is YOUR belief in the Southsiders, not somebody else’s. Get louder. Get more cohesive. Do it OUR way, on OUR timetable.

As Southsiders president, I have always been open to suggestions from members who want to discuss how we can do things better and more efficiently.

That said, I have absolutely NO interest at all in any criticisms or attacks coming from non-members and other self-entitled “slack-tivists” who sit in the stands, twiddling on their smartphones, demanding we do a better job entertaining them.

There are two types of Whitecaps supporters in Vancouver:

Those who roll up their sleeves, make flags, make banners, print flyers, sing their guts out, attend supporter functions and volunteer their time…

…and those who haven’t earned the right to tell me or my fellow Southsiders how this group should or should not go about our business. These jokers say they’re embarrassed by our performance? I’m ASHAMED by their reluctance and apathy.

Ask yourself: What kind of supporter are you?

I know which category I’m in… and those who are in my category shouldn’t waste a second of their time worrying what the smartphone slack-tivists think. We’re a part of a special movement which has traditions and culture that bring far more to the match day experience than any armchair analyst ever will.

True supporters will find pride in the darkest circumstances, and they will always rise above adversity. That’s what the Southsiders do best.

We don’t do what we do to entertain the crowd. We don’t do what we do to compete with other groups.

Find your pride and keep fighting. It’s not a talent show. It’s not American Idol. It’s not the Ice Capades. It’s football.

If you HONESTLY do your part and contribute, there’s not a single person who can take that away from you.

I’ll close here by thanking all of our volunteers who have been working so extremely hard to produce tifo, lead chants and spread the words to our songs with newcomers. You people are the gasoline that keeps the Southsiders engine running, and your contributions to the movement are ALWAYS appreciated. If there is anyone who has a right to feeling disappointed with Saturday’s show of support, it’s you… and in NO WAY should Saturday be construed by anyone as a reflection of your efforts and dedication to the cause.

It’s time to dig deep, Southsiders. Don’t give up. Find your pride and the noise will follow – that’s how it works, and it always does. Be prepared to sing your balls off, because the Timbers Army is going to bring it twice as hard as the ECS did. The ECS has numbers, but the TA has a much bigger heart.

Get ready for the loudest match of your lives.

Johnnie Monster
President - Vancouver Southsiders

A Newbies Perspective of Portland Away

2011-08-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Normally when one thinks of “traveling supporters” in football, they imagine a group of die hard European fans, who wake up in the wee hours of the morning to embark on a six hour journey to cheer their club in the opposing team’s city. Not very often does this occur in North America due mostly to the long distances between team locations. However, I think that trend is changing dramatically.

In the MLS, we have seen numerous new teams enter the league over the past few years. Cities such as Kansas City, Chicago, Salt Lake, Houston, and Toronto all have teams in the continent’s biggest professional football league. Three teams in particular who have done so much for the league in its short stints are the Northwestern teams: Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps. These teams have formed possibly the most watched, and most intense derby in North America: The Cascadia Cup. The name derives from the area of which all teams are in called “The Cascades”, and in the few games that have been played this year in Major League Soccer, it has already earned a massive reputation. Seattle and Portland’s thrilling 1-1 draw, Vancouver’s Eric Hassli making a name for himself across the globe after a superior goal to tie Seattle 2-2 at Century Link Field and the immense support that these matches drew are just a few of the highlights of the already huge Cascadia Cup rivalry.

This past Saturday, August 20th at 7pm Pacific Standard Time, was the first meeting between The Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps at Portland’s newly renovated JELD-WEN Field. I had the pleasure of being one of the travelling Vancouver supporters who made the five hour trip to Oregon which entailed waking up at 5:00am. In the days leading up to the trip, I couldn’t have been more excited. I got up at the appointed time, showered, brushed my teeth, dressed, picked up my suitcase for the overnight stay at Portland’s “Heathman Hotel” and got into the car with my father eagerly awaiting the normally grueling drive. In this case, it wasn’t a grueling drive at all.

Upon arriving in Portland, immediately I felt goosebumps. The similarities to Vancouver were extraordinary, and the people were very friendly. I checked into the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours and read a book to kill time, and at 4:00 pm, put on my Whitecaps shirt and scarf, and headed outside for the ten minute walk to the stadium. Even at 5:30pm, ninety minutes before kick-off, Portland’s Timbers Army (Ultra group), and Vancouver Southsiders (Whitecaps ultra group), were already filling the stands at a brisk pace. The atmosphere was electrifying and a European football kind of feeling was in the air, and I cheered and sang with the 500 Southsiders that were in the stands.

Although the match didn’t turn out the way I had hoped with a 2-1 Portland win, I was extremely grateful to my father for making the trip possible so that I could see my home team play an away game. It gave me a sense of pride, like I was helping out my club who I love dearly. The next two Cascadia Cup matches will be played in Vancouver, then after that we’ll have to wait for the 2012 MLS season before the next set of fixtures start, but one thing is for sure: I will be in Seattle and Portland cheering, singing, and standing strong for my team, The Vancouver Whitecaps.

Now, what does this mean for football in North America? Firstly, it shows the amount of support that the teams get. Portland Timbers draw an average of 18,000+ fans and are out of the playoffs in their inaugural season, and have already sold 2,000 season tickets for 2012. Vancouver, despite being last in the league, drew the third highest average attendance in its’ inaugural year, gathering 20,600 fans to Empire Field. Seattle draw just over 38,000 on average to their games, and have the largest ultra group in North America. That leads me to my next point: Ultras. There are many die hards in the Northwest, and all over the MLS in general, but the ones that everyone pays attention to are the Emerald City Supporters (Seattle), and the previously mentioned Timbers Army and Vancouver Southsiders. In just a few months, Vancouver’s paid membership went from 100 to 700, and is still growing. Portland has over 1000, and is also still growing rapidly, Seattle has over 2200 and also continues to grow increasingly faster every day. All in all, games like these can draw new ultras to their respective groups. I for one, joined just two days ago upon returning to Vancouver after my Portland trip. The thought of being an ultra and being a part of a group who supports my team the same way I do is an experience that I want to continue.

Another point worth noting is the atmosphere at the games. The Northwestern clubs, particularly those south of the border, create a European type feel to the games, and that should trigger a gradual upswing in fan support for these teams. In addition, it will influence other clubs and should make their ultras increase in number similar to the Cascadian clubs.

However, along with the positive aspects, there are the negatives. One of these is the potential for “hooliganism” and officials have to take security measures to ensure the safety of all fans. There are ultras attending games who support violence, racism, and other politically incorrect and controversial views and are only too happy to make them known to their fellow spectators. Italian ultras regularly who don’t get their way have been known to become violent, and Turkish ultras literally kill each other for supporting the rival team. MLS ultras certainly aren’t like this, in fact, they’re against hooliganism and what it stands for. This is something Cascadia Cup officials need to realize, as it’s preventing the away allocation for games to be shortened to just 500 per match. Maybe with a little bit of cooperation (which is what supporter groups of all three Cascadian teams do), the officials will realize that there is no danger of violence and will raise the allocation in the near future. Right now, all the ultras can do is attend away games in support of their teams and respect the rival teams supporters and their right to cheer for their team without fear of reprisal.

Overall, it was a great experience travelling to Portland, and I hope to do it again next year in both Oregon and Seattle as the remaining two fixtures will be played in Vancouver. For now, I am happy to report that MLS is on the rise, and so too are the fans and the atmosphere that they create. Look out for us, because we’ll be taking the footballing world by storm one step at a time.

BianconeroSouthsider

The Forgotten Blog Returns

2011-07-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

It was a few days ago GoF reminded me that we (The Southsiders) had a blog we hadn't used for a while.

So here it is, the return of We're Blue, We're White

Anyone is welcome to contact me, if they'd like to Blog

I will resurrect this with Slamo's excellent forum post written the day after the Seattle trip on June 11th 2011

I was standing at the front of the supporter section in Seattle on June 11th, 2011 in the 84th minute when time froze.

A minute earlier Osvaldo Alonso had beaten Joe Cannon with a well placed strike into the lower left hand corner of the net after a bad turnover. In the span of three minutes a well earned 0-1 Whitecap lead had become a 2-1 deficit. I stood partially resigned to defeat, but determined to surpass the hearty effort of the lads on the pitch...

”We shall not, we shall not be moved. We shall not; we shall not be moved...”
In front of me jubilant Sounder fans that stood quietly stunned for most of the match suddenly alive with jubilation no longer watching the match but instead turned to face us and taunt us...

“You only sing when you’re winning...”

Waiving fingers, shaking fist yelling inaudibly with angry mouths. Some throwing beer, it’s okay, it was American beer...hardly beer at all. A streamer comes hurling back towards us – one of our own from earlier. A triumphant moment when streamers flew after we sang the Canadian anthem so loud the anthem singer on the pitch got frazzled and lost the tune and the lyrics. “We’ll show you” the streamer seemed to say as it landed next to me.

“Que Sera, Sera; whatever will be, will be...”

Undeterred I show my support by moving from my standing position in front of my seat to standing on my seat. Flag raised high I muster as many decibels as I have left in my scratched raw throat fighting the pain of a pounding headache from signing full volume for well over two hours – a full 90 minutes with a big bass drum right beside me...

“...it’s not bloody Wembley...”

The ball finds its way deep into Sounder territory kitty corner from where we the supporters stand; still singing, still waving flags, still believing as much as our temporarily broken hearts will allow. Something is happening here...

“Que Sera, Sera”

The song ends and sensing something is about to happen, just a feeling, I reach out and grab Massimo’s shoulders, “watch” I say, but not sure why. The drummer stops and turns towards the pitch and the ball played forward to the same Alonso that had broken our hearts only a moment ago goes astray. Now the sense is large and pounding like my head. I squeeze Massimo’s shoulder and feel fellow supporters leaning forward on me sensing the same thing. Magic is about to happen.

Alonso reaches out with more hope than conviction knowing full well he has no chance of playing this ball. Eric Hassli – Rico, Eric the Red, The Beast, OUR DP, is charging the ball, I shake Massimo’s shoulder, “watch” I yell.

The left foot as gentle as the breathe of a new born baby on the neck of a new Mother lifts the ball into the air creating some space from a defender who is already out of the play leaning in the direction of the errant pass from an easily panicked teammate. The sounds stop in the stadium, but something is happening for sure...the tension compresses the hyper aware supporters while so many Sounders fans continue to taunt and hurl abuse in our direction oblivious to their own pending heartbreak.
Rico continues his run matching his own pace to the pace of the flight of the ball like a Beast about to take down some dinner. The beauty of the moment freezes everyone in green and suddenly there are 10 more spectators to the moment who are no longer players in the act.

Sense would say gather control as the Beast runs on an angle not conducive to a good goal scoring position, but he is “Eric the Red”, a warrior. The ball finds gravity, but seemingly not full gravity as it floats nicely to the ground at a spot pre-determined by the magic in the air.

Then the POWER of the Beast strikes, figuratively, but more so literally. What it must be like to have such control of a moment, to turn the hips at a 75 degree angle while elevating the body ever so slightly off the ground to allow for the freedom of movement - enough so as to allow for magic. The right foot comes around the body while the abdominal muscles engage to allow for the twisting of the hips with enough power to send the still floating ball in an opposite direction and place a dagger into the hearts of 36,000 people.

The loudest sound in the stadium at this moment is the sound of Rico’s foot striking the ball – “BOOM”. The ball loses its moment of peace and is compressed into an egg shape as the Beast strikes it with full might but still deft touch. The ball starts its magic journey and that is when it happens – time stands still.
The ball freezes in mid air already destined for the far corner of the net – maybe with just a kiss to the post to leave a lasting lipstick memory for the fans who thought this was their day. I take this rare opportunity of time stoppage to soak it all in.

Ah, the Seattle fans; look at them yelling at us – they have no idea; spittle spewing out of their mouths, angry insults that we cannot hear anyway, celebrating victory just a few minutes too soon. Look at Keller; his eyes bulging out of his head, his feet coming out from under him – he already knows. Ah Vagenas, don’t worry Peter, there will be no rebound, no loose ball to be put away. Shea, he knows too; he’s got a good angle, he can’t believe what he is seeing but he knows. Eric, why are you still floating? You can land now the magic spell has already been cast – enjoy mon ami.

And time continues: the ball finds its place and the net moves signalling us that – yes, it’s true; it really was magic. The singing and dancing begins for the 500+ Whitecaps supporters who found themselves in the presence of greatness.

This is the goal - a goal that has been seen by millions around the world.

Thank you Eric, enjoy Mon Ami.

Southside At BC Place

2010-11-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

Whitecaps MLS seat selection for the general public gets underway tomorrow.

Want to know where the Southsiders will be?

Want to stand, sing and chant with us?

Want to avoid us?

You can get a full breakdown of what you need to know HERE.

Initial Details Of Southsiders MLS Pre-Sale Announced

2010-11-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

We would like to announce that the Southside presale will be on Tuesday November 16th and Wednesday November 17th. The only area the club will allow you to book your seats at this time will be the first 6 rows of teal and aqua sections 251,252,253 and 254. There are many details we are trying to resolve with the FO, but once we are able to confirm, we will emailed all members prior to the presale.

There are many logistical details which we feel may make the pre-sale more stressful to our members than it needs to be and we are trying to resolve these asap.

Please follow latest updates in the Forum.

Thanks for your patience. We are still working hard to resolve some key issues. A further statement will be made tomorrow.

Southside President Speaks Out About Ticket Prices

2010-11-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

I'm posting this for the benefit of those who are browsing our sites, wondering why the Whitecaps pricing is such a hotly-disputed issue for us.

I'll note here that I am speaking for myself - a long-time founding member of our group who has cheered this Club since childhood. I'm not necessarily speaking for the executive board or the membership at large, although I'm sure many would agree with me.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To all of Vancouver's football fans and supporters:

The Vancouver Southsiders do not claim to be entitled to any discounts, kickbacks, obligations, special favours or prices. Our money is as good as anyone else's when it comes to supporting the Whitecaps. We are not "owed" anything for supporting the Club up to this point, nor are we claiming to be.

The current uproar within our membership is largely due to the Whitecaps' failure to adequately manage the expectations of its new and existing supporters, and rightly so.

The Whitecaps' entire marketing campaign to date has been centred around the $319 price point as the proverbial "cheap seats".

When you look at EVERY team in MLS (and most football leagues in the UK and Europe, for that matter) the cheapest seats are nosebleeds and the seats behind the goal.

It's an obstructed view for most down there, which makes it affordable, and that is why your most active supporters groups tend to congregate there. To those fans it's not about the view, it's about the experience.

It is therefore not at all surprising that members of the Southsiders (and others in Vancouver who are interested in "supporting" as opposed to "watching") arrived at the conclusion that the cheap seats would be behind the net.

However, when taxes and fees are included, seats behind the net are $200 more than what the vast majority were anticipating as result of the marketing campaign. That's quite a shock to the system, let alone the wallet.

Here's the behind the net pricing for the big teams in MLS to illustrate a point:

Whitecaps.........$560
LA Galaxy.........$400
Seattle Sounders..$400
Portland Timbers..$369
Toronto FC........$361
NY Red Bulls......$272

The pricing for Toronto and Seatlle sparked chaos with their supporters this year... and here we are, set to play in a temporary tin-can venue (Empire Field) with no signings, charging $160 more than Seattle and $200 more than TFC.

The Galaxy have Beckham, and their package includes 3 - 5 major friendlies. Last year they hosted Real Madrid and Boca Juniors. We will be paying more than Galaxy fans just to see FC Edmonton and Montreal.

The Red Bulls are in the most expensive and most lucrative market in North America, with the league's arguably highest profile signing in Thierry Henry. Those fans are paying exactly what I paid to stand at Burnaby's Swangard Stadium last year for division two football.

Which brings me to this:

Last year, I paid $270 for the "privilege" of standing on metal bleachers, pissing in port-a-loos, waiting in line at substandard concessions and arriving 2.5 hrs early to ensure I could get a parking space.

Next year I will be at Empire, probably for the entire season. Once again, I will stand on metal bleachers, piss in a port-a-loo, tough it out in long lines for overpriced concessions and pay $30 for parking... and if I want the "privilege" of standing where I have since 1999, I have to pay $300 more more for my ticket than I did last year.

It is absolutely inconceivable that we should be forced to pay the same exorbitant prices for Empire Field as we will at BC Place. There is absolutely no justification for that, not even if we stocked our team with stars in their prime from the likes of Real Madrid.

Speaking of which...

Vancouverites will pay more for their seats behind the net than fans of Real Madrid do. And here's a kick in the ass - we only get two Canadian Championship matches in our package. They pay less than we do, and they get three matches to the UEFA Champions League!

I'm not so daft as not to know that Canada and Spain's economies are apples and oranges. I do however think there is an important lesson there though.

The Whitecaps have a stated goal of becoming a top-25 club on the global stage. Real Madrid has to rank in the top 3 on that list easily.

I would suggest that the Whitecaps should be looking to learn from the best before attempting to climb the ranks on the wallets of the supporters who kept them afloat through the dark days of the 1990s and 2000s.

Hell, they can even look at the bottom feeding dregs of the MLS for some wisdom.

DC United's supporters group, the Screaming Eagles, are paying less than what Vancouverites will to stand behind the net.

In return, their club provides the supporters group with a financial kickback estimated at around $75 per member. This allows the Screaming Eagles to provide their members fans with a free jersey every year, and free beer at tailgate parties before every match.

On a price-per-match analysis, I will concede that the $560 "Aqua" supporters section isn't too high, especially for the Vancouver's vastly overpriced sports market. It certainly pales in comparison to prices for the Canucks.

Unfortunately, Vancouver's fans don't have the option of paying on a price-per-match basis. It's an all or nothing deal, with half due in November, and half due in February.... that's right before Christmas, and right after. The Whitecaps couldn't have dropped this news at a worse time, although I acknowledge that the renovations at BC Place have played a role in this timing.

A more comprehensive and accessible payment plan would do wonders to quell this uproar. Almost every team in MLS has one, save for a few, and none of those exceptions are in markets as pricey as we are.

I also question this:

- Why do end zone seats for BC Lions games at BC Place cost 40% less than the corner seats... but at a Whitecaps match they will cost 55% more than the same corners?

- Why are the sections priced in a way so that two people with an aisle between them have a pricing differential of nearly $100 to $200?

It's a Mickey Mouse pricing plan, plain and simple. The Vancouver Southsiders should have been the Whitecaps' easiest customers to sell this experience to, and now we have several long-time members questioning whether this is a club worth supporting.

And that's why we're pissed off.

Welcome to "modern football" Vancouver!

Sincerely

John Knox
President
Vancouver Southsiders

*** For another personal view of a Board member around the ticket prices, please check out this blog post from yesterday ***

Rival Supporters Belong At Empire Field And BC Place

2010-10-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Following on from Wednesday's blog, the Southsiders released a press release on the issue of travelling fans in the MLS. We'll keep you up to date with any stories picked up from it, but here it is in it's entirety just now:

*************************************************************************************

Vancouver Southsiders want the doors left wide open for soccer fans travelling from Seattle and Portland

VANCOUVER - Next year, Major League Soccer will be home to the legendary Cascadia rivalry between professional soccer teams in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. The league will also have to address an issue it has never had to contend with before - hundreds (possibly thousands!) of "away days" supporters travelling up and down the I-5 to watch their teams play on the road.

It's a scenario that seems to have MLS executives mystified. Media reports out of Seattle suggest that Sounders FC owner Joe Roth has been spooked by public safety concerns, and may limit ticket allocations for visiting supporters to just 150 seats per match. League commissioner Don Garber also met with the Timbers Army supporters club in Portland this week, where he admitted that he doesn't really understand supporters culture and the "away days" phenomenon that is so important to soccer fans around the globe.

IN OUR VIEW:

The three-way Cascadia rivalry is an absolutely crucial part of the past, present and future successes of professional football in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland.

The away days experience is vital to building camaraderie and solidarity within supporters groups, and expanding their membership numbers.

Supporters groups are the lifeblood of successful soccer teams, as they increase club exposure, generate an exciting matchday atmosphere and lend credibility to a sport which must compete with the Big Four sports entities (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) for fans, dollars and media recognition.

Bearing these points in mind, we feel there are steps that could be taken by Major League Soccer which would benefit the teams, their supporters and the league as a whole:

- All home / away derby matches between Cascadia rivals should be booked for Saturdays, Sundays or long weekends. This will make it much easier for greater numbers of visitingsupporters to attend these matches. Midweek fixtures make travel expensive and impractical.

- The three Cascadia clubs should not restrict the number of away tickets available to rival supporters. We believe that the presence of visiting fans on a rival's home turf makes for an exciting atmosphere that strengthens the resolve of all supporters and encourages them to sing and cheer even louder. By welcoming the Cascadia rivalry right onto our doorstep, new Whitecaps supporters can see firsthand that they are a part of something that is truly unique to North American sporting culture. This rivalry is a powerful phenomenon that has the potential to convert casual fans into passionate, lifelong supporters. Major League Soccer should not be shying away from this amazing opportunity.

- Major League Soccer should work with supporters to pre-empt any security concerns well in advance of the 2011 season. This is something which Vancouver Whitecaps FC has done extremely well over the past three years, resulting in a practically flawless safety record, even for matches with a significant presence of visiting supporters.

STADIUM SAFETY:

We believe there are three key principles which should serve as basic guidelines for Major League Soccer clubs who face the prospect of hosting large numbers of away supporters:

- Away supporters should always be seated together in one area of the host stadium. This allows police / security personnel to supervise spectator conduct, and to swiftly identify and respond to any safety issues which may arise. The away supporters seating area should be located at a reasonable distance from the home side's most active supporters groups.

- If possible, away supporters should be instructed to enter and exit the host stadium through one or two predetermined designated gates. These gates should not be anywhere near pre / post match marches, rallies or places of congregation which are known to be frequented by the home club's supporters. If away supporters seek entry at an incorrect gate, stadium staff should immediately redirect them to the appropriate entrance.

- If absolutely necessary, visiting away supporters can be escorted in / out of the stadium by police / security personnel at predetermined times. Doing so will minimize the potential for verbal / physical altercations between rival fans. For example, away supporters can be escorted directly to their seating area 15 - 30 minutes prior to kickoff, and detained for 15 - 30 minutes after the final whistle before being escorted out (this will allow time for home supporters to disperse from the stadium, and once again reducing the potential for interactions between rival fans

IN CLOSING:

Vancouver, Seattle and Portland bring something to Major League Soccer that it has never had before – a legitimate and historical rivalry spanning three generations.This adds credibility to a league which is trying to establish itself in an increasingly crowded professional sports market.

We are of the belief that the pros of hosting away supporters by far outweigh the cons, as their presence on our home turf will only fuel the passion of the Whitecaps fan base. It would be a shame to allow a few misconceptions and fear of the unknown to get in the way of a truly electric match day atmosphere.

A sport only has relevance if there are fans rallying behind it. It's time for Major League Soccer to support its supporters.

Cascadian Supporters Groups Ready For Travel Battle

2010-10-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

The excellent Prost Amerika website broke their story about possible restrictions being placed on travelling support in the MLS next season in the Cascadia republic at the end of last month.

Since then, the Southsiders, Timbers Army and ECS, the three main supporters groups in the region, have reacted with one voice to the Clubs - we'll be travelling in numbers anyway, so get it sorted.

The Whitecaps, Timbers and Sounders front offices have been conspicuous by their lack of comment on this issue, but it's one which we, the fans, are not planning on letting slip to the back burner until we get the answers we are looking for.

Last week, Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson gave some encouraging words to Prost Amerika when he said:

"What I can tell you is this...the fans of all three teams will be pleased when it's all said and done. We're focused on the issue, and we're in communication with Seattle and Vancouver, and they're focused on the issue."

There has been no official comment from either Seattle Sounders or our very own Whitecaps, but with the latter, we're still working on our home support seating plan never mind anything else. That said, allowing a decent travelling support up the I5 from our Cascadian neighbours is a must to help establish the region as the MLS footballing hotbed we're all hoping it will be and create the gameday atmosphere that the fixtures command. The Caps need to be building this into their seating plan.

Seattle seems to be the main worry in all of this. The rumours coming out of Flounderland have suggested that Caps and Timbers fans will have an allocation of the league minimum 150 tickets for away support, a staggeringly small and short sighted figure from the MLS.

Looking in from afar, it strikes me that this decision can be put down to fear and a complete misunderstanding of football culture, not only from Sounders ownership but also by MLS bigwig Don Garber.

Sure there is a chance that if you have a large travelling support then there could be trouble. None more so that when say the Leafs come a calling on the Canucks. None of which is ever reported hysterically in the media of course. Keeping them all together in the one section though should surely be preferable than masses of them being scattered throughout the stadium amongst the home support, because believe you me, we'll be travelling to these games in numbers with or without tickets and we'll be buying them from any source, in any part of the ground. That is what is a recipe for trouble.

What is more worrying to me though is the seemingly complete lack of understanding by some of football culture. Don't give me all that "North America is different from Europe" bullshit. For a rabid supporter in Vancouver, Seattle, Glasgow, London, Milan or Paris, it all boils down to the same thing. Pure passion and pure desire for your team to beat all that is in front of them and the chance to see them do it both home and away.

Very little beats the atmosphere of an away game in your hated rivals patch. That's when it all becomes tribal and that's when the memories are made. Are you going to talk about a 1-0 win against Kansas at BC Place or a 3-0 victory against the Sounders at Qwest? What game would you rather go to?

This season's highlight for me was the two playoff games against Portland and the trip to Merlo Field to see the Caps triumph in the tie was worth every minute of the long journey we made. Last season's playoff semi final in Portland was the best away game I have ever attended in my 27 years of actively following teams around the world. I'd go as far as to say it was the best game I've ever been to.

Can you imagine no Liverpool fans at Old Trafford? No Spurs fans at the Emirates? Can you imagine what the atmosphere at those games would be like?

It appears that many within MLS are only interested in the home markets for each team. They don't want empty seats to be seen on TV and the fear is that there would be some if sections were given over to the away support. Some will argue that they don't want to take away seats from the home market. Surely that would just create a demand and the chance that more people will buy season tickets so that they don't miss out in future years?

Then there's the whole "home field advantage" pish. Having away supporters in your ground should make the home support rise up further and spur the team on more. With the numbers we're talking about, we're not exactly going to get overrun and outnumbered and outsung. If your team can't win because there's away fans present then you should be asking questions about your team.

Clubs, sorry, franchises like Seattle don't care because they sell out their stadiums anyway. Clubs like Vancouver and Portland however do seem to show signs that they know what they need to create the atmosphere that will bring people away from other sports and into their teams.

Last year, in my other blog, I wrote an article called AWAYDAYS about the importance of away travel in football. To date, it's been my most read article ever, with hits well into the thousands and most of them from North America.

The fans here get it. It's a shame that some of the powers that be don't, so it's up to us to tell them.

Caps Loss Signals End Of An Era

2010-10-18T23:53:00.000-07:00

I was going to write this blog last night, but thought a day of reflection was better than just emotional rambling.

24 hours on and defeat still hurts, as the realisation that it's now the domestic football offseason for Vancouver Whitecaps and their fans starts to sink in.

Yesterday didn't just mark the end of the 2010 season of course, it also marked the end of an era. "Division 2" level football is no more for the Caps and Swangard Stadium is no longer the place we will all call home. Our spiritual home since our formation in 1999 has had its last curtain call.

It was a freezing cold early evening by the time things wrapped up. What more could make me feel like I was back at Bayview than losing the feeling in my toes?!

It was a weird feeling leaving Swangard in my Caps garb for what will probably have been my last time, barring any pre season friendlies that the Caps may decide to play there.

I'll look at the goodbye Swangard aspect later this week in the blog. For now though I want to look at the season that has just finished and the League(s) we're leaving behind.

The 2010 season can't really be described as one of excitement. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that there is very little of positive note that we can really take out of it. Even this year's Voyageurs Cup games were lacklustre due to our defensive strength and our attacking flaws.

The two Portland playoff games were the highlights for me. The first leg for the performance, the second leg for the trip down the I5.

Too many draws. Too many games where we didn't have any attacking flair. Too many blanks. That's pretty much the season in my eyes.

Don't get me wrong. I couldn't care less if we won every game 1-0 with only one shot on target. Just as long as we won. Which at the end of it all, we didn't. I've watched enough bad football in my lifetime to know that the end result is really what matters. Well that and the fun you have cheering the team on in the process.

I'll admit it. I went into yesterday's match not even considering the fact that we wouldn't beat the Islanders. The thought never entered my head as I made various plans for the final permutations. I thought a comfortable afternoon lay ahead but left Swangard feeling that we got what we deserved from the match - nothing.

Having watched today's highlights, I've changed my mind on that one. That game was certainly there for the taking and we created more chances than it seemed we did to me watching it all unfold live. Oh for a decent striker on the field to finish just one of them.

Bill Gaudette had a tremendous game in goal against us once again. Top quality keeper that's too good for D2 I feel. We didn't pressure him enough but he was a rock with what we did throw at him.

I thought Caps reject Addlery's first goal was a bit of a fluke, but having seen it again he placed that perfectly. He looked up quickly and saw Nolly off his line.

Poor play by Philippe Davies in giving the ball away for the second as we pressed for an equaliser saw the end of it as we went down to a 2-0 extra time loss in the semis and my dream of a third Championship final in my three years here were shattered.

End of the season. End of NASL/USL/USSF-D2, or whatever name you want to call the shambles of a League we've found ourselves in of late.

Those that know me or have read my blogs will know that I'm not a big MLS fan. Obviously that will have to change and I'll have to ignore as best as I can all of the things about the League that annoys the hell out of me and pretend it's really a proper football league after all. At least I'm going to be watching my Club in a League that has professionalism in some aspects.

No more shitty internet feeds of games, when Mr Buffering is all that we can talk about. No more games played on pitches where you can't work out where the sidelines are becuase of the throwball markings. No visits to markets where they couldn't get a football crowd of four figures out regularly.

Best of all though, the chance to take in around five away games with relative ease (all things considered, although still no half hour trips like I was used to!).

I love lower league and non league football. I will miss the smalltime of it all and the intimacy of the surroundings and feeling a real part of it all. No matter how hard we try, we will lose part of that in the move to the "major league".

Onwards and upwards though. We can't look back, only forward. MLS beckons. One era is over but another is just about to begin and I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Mon the Caps.

Whitecaps Need Three Goal Win To Secure NASL Conference Title

2010-10-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

Carolina Railhawks produced a polished display this evening to secure a deserved 3-1 win over Austin Aztex, thanks to two late goals from Etienne Barbara and Tom Heinemann and a goalkeeping blunder.

The Railhawks did what they needed to do and hold a firm advantage in the race to the NASL Conference title and the number 2 seeding in the USSF-D2 playoffs.

Vancouver Whitecaps now need to do the same and that means beating Portland Timbers by three goals tomorrow afternoon at Swangard.

Since we've struggled to score one goal for most of the season, I don't hold out a lot of hope and that will mean a first round playoff match up next week against our Cascadian rivals and a 5th seeding for the Caps.

Where there's still hope though there's still a chance and the Caps need all of us in the Southside to raise them on the pitch and secure a memorable win tomorrow in what is already shaping up to be an epic day.

Join the Southside tailgate at 1.30pm to kick off the festivities. You'll find us in Central Park at the Southeast corner of Swangard Stadium (see HERE).

There's top quality barbecue food on offer to wrap up the regular season. The "King of Smoked Meat," Arne Salvesen, will be serving up an amazing assortment of goodies: BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, Beef brisket sandwiches, Burnaby Baked Beans and Swangard 'Slaw!

There will be single and combo deals on offer and included with each combo bought is a raffle ticket to take part in a pre match penalty shoot out competition against the Timbers Army on the hallowed Swangard turf.

Everyone's welcome to come along and this invite also extends to the post match festivities we have planned at Library Square Pub, 300 W. Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver.

Hope to see you there and most importanly, hope to see a three goal Whitecaps win.

Mon the Caps.

Playoff Permutations Become Clearer

2010-09-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

Vancouver Whitecaps stuttering end to the regular season could leave them with some horrible playoff implications as the full playoff scenario begins to take shape.

The eight playoff teams are confirmed, but exactly what seedings they will end up with still has a lot of twists and turns left in it as we enter the final round of regular season games.

The Caps long time position as NASL Conference leader, and number 2 seed, has been surrendered to Carolina Railhawks but it couldn't be tighter. Both teams have 44 points, both teams shared the head to head tiebreaker aspect and both teams have a current goal differential of plus ten with one game remaining.

Carolina currently occupy that valuable number 2 seeding position though due to the fact that they could actually score goals. Eleven more than Vancouver to be exact.

With Carolina playing their final game tonight though, Vancouver's fate will be in their own hands so they can have no complaints if they balls things up.

The Railhawks host USSF D2 overall leaders Austin Aztex at 4pm PST tomorrow evening. With the Aztex not yet assured the overall number one spot, and with Rochester Rhinos breathing down their necks just two points behind, the Texans have everything to play for and will be looking for nothing less than a win.

If Carolina lose on Friday then the Whitecaps will need just a point on Saturday at home to Portland Timbers to wrap up the NASL Conference title, the number two seeding and home field advantage in the second leg of both the first and second round playoff matches. Easier said than done I know.

That seeding would mean a matchup with the 7th placed seeds, which we can basically assume to be Mr Dildo's Minnesota Stars.

If Carolina get a point from Austin, we need a win against the Timbers. If Carolina beat Austin, then we need to beat Portland by a margin of just one more goal than them.

It should be a great position for the Caps to be in and will make for a very exciting last game.

If the Caps blow it and finish 5th, the likelihood is that they will end up playing the 4th seeded Portland Timbers in the first round of the playoffs, with the first leg being at Swangard Stadium on Thursday 7th October.

With Portland hitting a fine vein of form just now, it's not the ideal start to the playoffs. There is also an outside chance that Rochester could provide the first round opponents if they were to lose their last regular season game and Portland beat us at the weekend by two goals or more.

For those that may be looking forward to another epic playoff away day though, be warned.

Last year's playoff trip to PGE Park was amazing. It was not only one of the best away trips I've had in all my years of watching football on both sides of the Atlantic, it was also one of the best games of football I've been lucky enough to attend.

If we end up with Portland in the first round this year though, we may be scrambling to get tickets. Portland announced today that they will host their first round tie on Sunday October 10th, but with PGE Park being unavailable due to reconstruction work commencing for the MLS, the game will be played at Merlo Field on the Campus of the University of Portland, with a 6pm kick off.

Merlo Field is a 4,892 capacity soccer-specific stadium at the Clive Charles soccer complex at the campus and seats will be at a premium.

If we do end up playing there, rest assured that your Southsiders executive will be doing everything we can to secure tickets for our members that wish to travel down.

Of course, let's hope that things don't get to that stage and we hold the number 2 seeding.

You'll know what you'll need to do guys, so just go out there and do it.

C'mon the Caps.

Whitecaps May Have Their MLS Television Partner

2010-09-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

To many in Europe, North America is not considered to be a hotbed of footballing fervour. To those of us here, we know that you'll find some of the most passionate football fans in the world in Canada and the US. The problem is that there's not enough of us, but at least it's growing all the time.

One of the first things I was amazed at when moving over here was how much football could be found on our TV screens. Admittedly a lot of it requires extra cash to be shelled out, but for the variety of Leagues and competitions available, it's certainly worth it. There's so much more available than you can get in the UK.

Something which is severely lacking in the football coverage we can get in Vancouver though is MLS action and when we have the Whitecaps making the move next season, what we have needed more than anything is for football fans in the city to see what the League is all about, build up their knowledge and interest in our future opposition and rivals and hopefully get their season ticket deposits put down. Even if the lazy bastards don't want to leave their armchairs, it would be nice for them to develop a desire to watch us in the League next season and beyond, as we own Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

The Caps can do all the marketing that they want. There's nothing better for creating a buzz than being able to watch the actual product that they're trying to sell.

It may just be my perception of things, but the amount of Toronto FC games on CBC this year seems to have reduced. Not a great loss, as it saves me wanting to throw something through my screen every time Nigel Reid opens his mouth with the most irritating accent I've ever heard on my TV and never heard in my entire life of living in the UK. He's lauded as being "the voice of Major League Soccer on CBC". That's not something for them to be proud of and for that reason alone, I would want to see no MLS action on that network. In fact they shouldn't be allowed near any football till they get rid of him.

Sure the TFC games are still being shown elsewhere, but they're all over the place and a lot of them are on channels not free to air and that is prohibitive to the game's growth and the raising of interest in it and the MLS in Canada.

I've personally not had much interest in MLS over the years. That's primarily due to me not giving a flying fuck about any of the teams or players in the League. I had a short one season interest in Real Salt Lake when Kenny Deuchar joined them. He was a legend of my beloved East Fife, but that move didn't last past one season.

This season, I've wanted to make the effort. I've wanted to know who to hate and shout abuse at next year. I've got a few identified as getting on my tits, so that's a good start. I've wanted to watch non TFC games, to see other teams and especially Seattle. That's not been possible without tracking down internet streams. Your average footballing loving Vancouverite isn't going to be doing that.

When you can readily watch more action from the likes of the Uruguayan league than the domestic one, then something is far wrong.

For all those reasons, it is very important to the future of the Whitecaps that they pick their MLS television partner(s) with a lot of thought. We need to get the Caps out there. To challenge for media attention in a hockey mad city by making a visual impact in everyone's homes. To have people talking about the winning Caps and not the losing Canucks and Lions. People need to know, and see, that there is a successful, winning team with a long, proud history in their city and the best sporting atmosphere in Vancouver to boot.

As it turns out though, that job may just have been made one hell of a lot easier for the Caps as it was announced today that Bell Canada Enterprises have agreed to acquire 100 per cent of CTV, in a deal thought to be worth $1.3 billion.

Assuming the deal is approved by the federal regulators, Bell would acquire all of CTV's television assests, including TSN and TSN2. As the Whitecaps shirt sponsors, it makes complete sense that they would then want to showcase their investment to the max by having CTV and the TSN networks as the home of Vancouver Whitecaps FC.

And I would love that.

Now of course this is all idle speculation on my part at present, but it would be a deal that would appeal to me greatly for many aspects and one that I hope the Whitecaps and Bell would be announcing soon.

With CTV and TSN having nationwide potential, and the fact that many households in Vancouver and throughout Canada will have at least two of the channels in their television packages (TSN2 is not available to some and others don't want to pay the extra for it), this would be a fantastic deal for the Caps exposurewise.

It would also have huge appeal in the fact that TSN and CTV have no interest in Toronto FC. We would not need to share our airtime and coverage with another side. We would be their sole domestic footballing output.

I've been worried that if CBC get their hands on the Caps next year, we'll be forced into double headers with TFC games, resulting in horrible, atmosphere sapping early afternoon Saturday kickoffs. Hopefully, with summer sporting schedules being the way they are, CTV/TSN would be looking at placing us in some primetime coverage, meaning decent kick off times.

TSN's coverage of the football that they do show just now (in fact with most sports on the channel to be honest) is also far superior to what you find on CBC and Sportsnet in my opinion and would be worth looking forward to.

It's certainly shaping up that the Whitecaps deal with Bell is looking better and better for the Club and the fans. With the promise of exclusive phone material next season already, you would expect something similar with their television arm now.

And who knows. We may yet see Bell putting their name to BC Place, rivalling Rogers Arena. Will we have BCE Place? Bell BC Place? Bell Communication Place, known as BC to all?

That's all idle speculation for another time.

International Quandary Faces Whitecaps In MLS

2010-09-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

As another round of international games finish up today, one question that the Vancouver Whitecaps need to weigh up is what benefit having currently capped international players on their roster brings.

There were 22 MLS players away on international duty for the games between September 3rd and 7th. Some in competitive qualifiers for Euro 2012 and the African Nations Cup and others just for friendlies. In total, 11 different countries were represented by MLS players, with Jamaica claiming six of them and Canada five.

This number would have been even higher if the US had a game over the period as well.

Whereas it's great for the League to have top quality domestic and international players plying their trade in MLS, it ridiculous that the League doesn't follow protocol elsewhere in the world and call off the domestic program, if not for every team, but for teams who have a number of players away on international duty.

In last weekend's MLS games, New York Red Bulls had four players missing in their 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake. Toronto had three missing in their own 1-0 loss to FC Dallas, namely the Canadian trio of Dwayne De Rosario, Julian de Guzman and Nana Attakora.

There is no doubt that the missing players had a big part to play in both sides going down and Toronto's plight should provide a cautionary tale to the Whitecaps, but one which will be hard to avoid in some respects.

Sure you want to see the best players you can pulling on the Caps jersey, but when you're playing in a league with mickey mouse rules, you follow this road at your peril.

Even East Fife were getting their Scottish First Division games called off when they had their three Trinidad and Tobago players away on international duty.

It's going to be hard for the Caps though. They need Canadians and if these Canadians do well then they're going to be called up by Stephen Hart. It's great for the Club on the one hand and a disaster on the other if games clash with the MLS season and the MLS don't change their rules.

In many ways, it actually would help Vancouver (and Toronto) if Canada continue to play poorly and miss qualifications. That's a terrible state of affairs to be in for the game in this country.

Canadian internationals aside, when the Caps are looking at non domestic players in general they need to be careful not to have too many players from the same country and even the same region. I personally think that avoiding too many Concacaf players is the way to go but going for those not in the international picture and those retired from international football has its merits as well, just as long as they are still on their game (which obviously isn't always the case).

Looking at out current roster, we've lost Nizar Khalfan recently as he was away on international duty for Tanzania. He has also been called up for October, right during the play off run. Cornelius Stewart will also be missing for the playoffs as he has been called up for St Vincent & Grenadines for Digicel Caribbean Cup games.

Teitur Thordarson has moved swiftly and cut both players from the final 30 man roster for the remainder of the season. A shame for the players but a good move for the Club as we need to have players who will be with us in the playoffs gelling quickly just now.

This is not a luxury that the Caps will have come MLS, so their signings need to be shrewd and not just take in talent. It's a sad state of affairs but that's what we're faced with in the Leagues in North America. If we do this right though then it will be an added bow to our MLS arrow next season.

Teitur Thordarson Gets Vancouver MLS Manager's Job

2010-09-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

As was widely expected, Vancouver Whitecaps annouced existing manager Teitur Thordarson as the man to lead the Caps into their new Major League Soccer era next year.

Teitur has only been with the Caps since December 2007, but in that time he has won the respect and friendship of the Southside and other Whitecaps fans, steering us to two Championship finals in his two seasons in charge and looking pretty likely to guide us to a third this year as well.

Although I personally have had some concerns about the rigidity and choice of his team and formation selections at times over his spell in charge, especially when behind in games, you can't argue with the end results and for me, Teitur has more than earned his chance to show what he has at the top table of North American football.

He has set us out as a defensive powerhouse. We may not score too many, but we don't concede too many either. I'd much rather win a bunch of boring 1-0 games and deliver a Championship than lose a bunch of 4-3 encounters and win fuck all. You can talk about the "beautiful game" and flair in football all you want, all that matters is results as far as I'm concerned. I've spent too long watching lower league Scottish football to care about anything else.

He has been criticised at times for a lack of excitement with his teams, but you can only piss with the cock you have and some of the players have let him down when it comes to banging in the goals this season. He can only put them on the pitch, he can't put the ball in the net for them or supply the service.

With the mad influx of recent signings, he now has what is surely a core of his MLS squad and he has the huge benefit of being able to work with these players in hopefully two months worth of meaningful, competitive games. By the end of that time he'll know who he wants to take, who he wants to ditch and what holes he needs to plug.

Unlike any other MLS expansion team, the 2011 Whitecaps will be going into their first season with a manager who really knows the bulk of his squad. That can only give us one hell of a competitive advantage and allow us to hit the ground running.

Sure he may not know all of the complexities of what is frankly some farcical MLS regulations but he has others around him who will be able to help him in that regards and I'm pretty sure we're going to see the addition of at least one person with MLS experience to the backroom team in the next few months.

He know how to perform at the highest level though. He took Estonia up the FIFA rankings and has delivered one, hopefully two, Championships in Vancouver already.

It may not be a name that's going to sell a wheen of new season tickets, but like all the talk around the designated player(s), I couldn't give a toss if it's a household name or not, just as long as the job gets done on the pitch.

In many regards, not being a huge name to the casual football fan will actually take some of the pressure off Teitur to deliver. Can you imagine if the Caps had appointed someone like Bob Bradley or Martin O'Neill? We'd all be talking about the MLS Championship in year one.

Teitur deserves his shot. He's a good friend to the Southside and we'll be backing him loud and proud for 2011 and beyond.

Well done Teitur. We're standing right there with you.

MLS Schedule Set To Increase?

2010-08-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Never look a cash cow in the mouth. That's the mantra in football these days, especially when everyone seems to want that little bit of the pie.

Sports Illustrated reported Friday that the MLS Board of Governors are considering increasing the number of fixtures each team plays next season from 30 to 34. Not only would this create a perfectly balanced schedule, where each team plays each other once both home and away, it always generates a lot more income for the League in the process.

Whether the impetus behind this move is more financial than alignment, I don't really care. It would just be great to have the MLS looking that little bit closer to what a proper football division should look like. The word is that there will not be a single table at this time sadly, but that the Eastern and Western conferences would stay. It's something I can live with for now, but would hope to see the adoption of a single table as being the next major change for the League.

None of this is certain of going ahead of course, as the final decision lies with the team owners and they will vote on any such proposals during the week of the MLS Cup in November. You would just hope that they would have enough common sense and football savvy to give the fans what they want though, with the added incentive of a few extra bucks likely to be the thing that swings it.

With there not being a desire to extend the season, for weather and media reasons, the next stumbling block for a move to an increased season is that of fixture congestion.

Some will argue that it will be hard to fit in the extra games, especially if those pushing for proper breaks when the World Cup and Gold Cup are on get their way, which I have to say is looking increasingly unlikely. The obvious answer is that of increased midweek games and that's something I'd love!

There's nothing better than a midweek game for atmosphere as far as I'm concerned and we've had some cracking nights like this at Swangard in recent years.

If we're really lucky and the schedulers/fixtures computer are nice to us, some of these midweek games may allow us an epic road trip or two. It would be fantastic to travel down for a Californian double or triple header for example.

A couple of big stumbling blocks may scupper such dreams though.

All the Nutrilite Championship, U.S. Open Cup, SuperLiga and CONCACAF Champions League games also need to be scheduled in. I would hate for the Caps for example to downplay the Voyaguers Cup games and field weakened squads.

We've seen over the years how clubs in Europe seem to fight hard for their Europa League spots and UEFA Cup places before that. Then what happens as soon as they get into the competition? It becomes a giant pain in the ass for them and they field understrength sides and go out early. That's always pissed me off. If they don't want to be there in the first place, then let others in that do.

The nice alignment of it all wouldn't last long either.

Montreal joining the MLS in 2012 would means that unless they add a 20th team at the same time (highly likely I would say), then we're back to the odd numbers game. Even adding a 20th team will increase the fixtures further from 34 to 38 and that might not be too easy to get past the powers that be.

My solution for this would be to just keep the French fuckers out in the first place. Problem solved!

A 38 game season, with single table hopefully, may just be what we have though in 2012. It doesn't do other Leagues around the world any harm and the more Whitecaps games I can get, the better.

November is going to be a very interesting time as it is in MLS world and this development just adds to it.

Caps Finally Return Home

2010-07-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates in the blog this past month. World Cup saturation, work and my AFTN Daily Football Blog have had most of my spare time the last few weeks. Normal service will now be restored however.

Normal service will also now be restored for Whitecaps fans as we get to see our team in the flesh once again tonight, following a gruelling, but largely successful, unbeaten five game road trip in the past 22 days.

It's been 30 days since the Caps took to the pitch at Swangard and in that time they've racked up nine points and consolidated their position at the top of the USSF NASL conference.

It's good to have them home though.

In fact they're going to be home for four games and then face another five game road trip in the farcical fixture list that is the second division in this continent.

That's certainly one thing that I'm looking forward to come MLS time. A more balanced fixture list, with some semblance of professionalism to it. The last couple of years have been a joke, with such long road trips and the amount of games played within days of each other.

What's been really disappointing about the Caps being away from home for so long is that they have been unable to cash in on the World Cup fervour in the city. Whilst Commerical Drive and the various unofficial houses have been enjoying football action, the Caps have missed out in bringing some of these fans along to watch some live football in their home city. Shame.

Still, we in the Southside will have one last World Cup hurrah.

Before the game tonight we'll be having a "World Cup Day In The Southside" tailgate, where, for one game only, you're encouraged to do away with your Whitecaps strip and turn up wearing the colours of your national team, whether that be Canada, Scotland, Spain or Fiji.

The tailgate kicks off at 5.30pm in Central Park, at the southeast corner of Swangard Stadium. There will be smokies for $4 and a pop, chips and smokie combo for $6. It's going to be a scorcher, so hope to see you there.

C'mon the Caps.

Southsiders Celebrate New Whitecaps Crest In Style

2010-06-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday wasn't only a monumental day for Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club, it was also a big step in the growth of the Southsiders.

The group has come a long way from our humble beginnings in 1999 and last night we were on the main stage, entrusted by the Caps to host THE fans event to celebrate the launch of the Club's new MLS crest.

It's by far the biggest single event we have staged as a group and it was a very successful night, with standing room only as around 120 people packed into Cinema Public House to join in the celebrations.

Fans, players, Whitecaps officials and front office staff mingled the night away, as the excitement towards the Club's leap into Major League Soccer continues to grow.

The festivities kicked off with an interesting Q&A with Whitecaps CEO Paul Barber.

With a long experience in the game Paul feel that this is a very close group of people here in Vancouver, unlike anything he has seen before.

"The fans, the players, the coaches, the staff, the people that bring this club together. We're in this together. When we win, we win together. When we lose we're going to support each other through that as well" enthused Paul.

"This is a fantastic football club. Forget Arsenal, forget Manchester United, they're nowhere in this. This is a very very tight knit football club and you should all be proud to be a part of it, because you are part of it and a very important part of it".

It's nice to be involved with a football club whose front office really gets it and it's something that people like myself, who come from the UK and elsewhere, are very unused to at times in our footballing past!

Next to take the mic was Whitecaps boss Teitur Thordarson, who stressed the importance of the fans to having a winning team on the pitch. The players certainly appreciate it and it was great to see so many of them making the effort to come along last night, especially when they had a game tonight.

There was a premiere for a new Southsiders viral video, which seemed to go down well, and then it was the turn of the last speaker of the evening, Southsiders President John Knox.

If you wondered what future the Southsiders see for football and football fans in the city, then his impassioned speech left you in no doubt.

When you go to Seattle and Toronto these days, pubs packed with Seahawks and Mapleleafs memorabilia are starting to disappear, to be replaced by the colours of the Sounders and TFC.

Vancouver used to be a football mad city and we need to reclaim the respect and admiration for the game and the Club here once again. The Whitecaps will be the hot ticket in town from next year and the Southside will be the hot place to watch them. We're proud of our team, we're proud of our history and we want all of Vancouver to be proud of it as well.

The evening was officially rounded off with a prize raffle, conducted wonderfully by Wes Knight. Not only does he have a fucking long throw, he also has fucking good skills as a MC!

Last night was also fans first opportunity to purchase a selection of the new MLS branded gear and the merchandise booth did a roaring trade, as did our very own membership booth.

With the official ceremonies over, the football talk continued long into the night, which probably led to the overly subdued Southside for tonight's 1-1 draw with Carolina.

Thanks to everyone for coming along and making the night the huge success it was. This is only the start. We're growing by the week and by this time next year let's hope we see a Seattle-style footballing takeover in Vancouver.

The Olympics showed what Vancouver people have been looking for. A chance to kick off their heels and scream their lungs out. The Southside is their natural new home.

Come join us.

** You can see some photos of the evening on the Southsiders Flickr page **

** For membership details of how to join the Southsiders, visit our official website HERE **

Vancouver Whitecaps Unveil MLS Club Crest

2010-06-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

Today was a monumental day for Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club.

With around nine months until they kick their first ball as a Major League Soccer club, the Caps officially confirmed their MLS Club name this morning at a press conference at Vancouver's Convention Centre. The big news though was to be the unveiling their new club crest.

The name of the club remains true. They will be Vancouver Whitecaps FC. The name may keep it's roots in the past but the new crest certainly leaps into the future with a fresh and modern look.

I'll admit that I wasn't initially blown away by it. At first glance it seemed a little bland and simple, but it's the simple subtleties that have actually really grown on me in the passing hours. When you view it from afar, it comes across as very striking. What I like most is that it is certainly fresh and modern, moving away from any old image of the Club's past, whilst embracing it at the same time and showing that the CLub, much like the city itself, has moved on with the times.

The crest comes about following a 10-month consultation process that included world-renowned soccer brand Adidas, Publicis Canada, Whitecaps FC ownership group, staff, fans, and season ticket holders.

The new "brand" and logo, which will be used throughout the club from November 2010, draws its inspiration from the spectacular geography of Western Canada's largest city, as well as the club's long tradition of success. The MLS Caps will continue their long tradition of using white as one of their primary colours, while the club have also incorporated the colour of 'deep sea' blue as a reflection of Vancouver's natural landscape.

"This new logo and brand takes into account the rich history and tradition that we have established as a club, while providing a fresh representation of one of the most beautiful cities in the world," said Whitecaps FC president Bob Lenarduzzi. "The new brand and logo not only engages our many fans that have supported us since 1974, it will also engage new fans to our Club and to the MLS with a symbol that truly reflects Vancouver and the incredible
landscape that makes this city unique".

The new logo sees the words 'Vancouver Whitecaps FC' written in white on a deep sea blue background, with the renowned mountains of Vancouver's north shore sitting above the Club's name in white and reflecting down on the city's waterfront - below the Club name. The colour used to symbolize the refection of the mountains on the waterfront is a lighter blue or "Whitecaps blue", which pays tribute to the primary colour on the Club's logo worn during the historic 1979 Soccer Bowl championship. Lining the new mark is the colour silver, a distinct nod to the Club's numerous championship titles that have been won since 1974.

This morning's event was MC'd by Pete Schaad, with Bob Lenarduzzi and Caps CEO Paul Barber making speeches, along with a fantastic video showing the Caps crests and championships through the years and a model of the new look BC Place.

Paul Barber took the opportunity to speak about his first impressions of the city, after causing big news when he made the move from Tottenham Hotspur to Vancouver. He ensured everyone that the MLS experience was "designed to deliver an absolute unforgettable period of time" for fans, whilst the renovated BC Place would be "one of the great theatres to watch the Whitecaps".

The Caps also took the opportunity this morning to announce more details about next year's season tickets. There will be a cap of 16,500 season tickets for year one and deposits for 10,000 of these have already been sold. The remaining 6,500 deposits will go on sale at 10am on Saturday morning, with our debut season shaping up to be the hot ticket in town for 2011.

Prices for next season's ticket packages were confirmed as starting at $319 for a minimum of 17 MLS home games. Taking into account the likelihood of Voyaguers Cup games and friendlies, this will work out at fantastic value for money, especially if you're in the Southside.

With the new jersey and kit sponsor due to be announced shortly, this is certainly an exciting time to be a Whitecaps fan. I wish it was next year already!

*** Don't forget the Southsiders have a special logo celebration event tonight, which features a Q&A with Paul Barber. The event kicks off at 7.30pm at Cinema Public House at 901 Granville Street and it will also be the first chance to buy new Caps MLS gear.

You can see some photo's of this morning's press conference on the official Southsiders Flickr page HERE ***

MLS Logo Excitement Continues To Build

2010-06-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

Not long now. In fact, at the time of writing this we're around nine hours away from finding out what the new Vancouver MLS team name and logo will be.

The name has been a closely guarded secret. The Club have said that the Whitecaps name will not be disappearing but that isn't to say it's going to be in the official team name.

Will we see just a plain Vancouver FC, known by a "Whitecaps" nickname? Or will we still have Whitecaps FC or Vancouver Whitecaps FC to build into our songs? I personally may be in the minority here, but I'd really have no objection at all to going down the first route.

If the name has been shrouded in secrecy then that's nothing compared to the new team logo, colours, strip and sponsor!

The new team logo is the big deal tomorrow though and I can't wait!

As a sucker for things like this (sad anorak if you wish), the chance to be there at the unveiling is pretty exciting. I have no idea what to expect. All we've been told at the MLS one year countdown event is to expect something that will capture Vancouver and be fresh and exciting.

I'm personally hoping for some kind of design inside a heraldic shield and I wouldn't be surprised to see the famous lions somewhere in there (the mountain variety, not the CFL team that is).

The Club are unveiling their new logo at 8.30 on Tuesday morning – which you can watch live online at vancouvermls2011.com/announcement.

To celebrate this historic day, the Southsiders will be hosting our very own special event later in the evening at Cinema Public House at 901 Granville Street, starting at 7.30pm.

The event will formally kick off our MLS membership campaign and will be Vancouver's first-ever opportunity for fans to purchase Vancouver MLS merchandise featuring the new logo. Items for sale will include team scarves, T-shirts, hoodies and other apparel.

Also on hand for the evening:

- a Q & A session with Whitecaps FC CEO Paul Barber. Paul, as most of us will know, is the former executive director of Tottenham Hotspur and former director of marketing and communications at the English Football Association. His transfer to Vancouver sparked international headlines, and he will be answering questions about his plans to turn the Caps into a globally recognized and respected soccer club

- a few words from Whitecaps head coach Teitur Thordarson. The Icelandic tactician will share his thoughts on how supporters groups like the Southsiders actually do make a difference for the players on the pitch. Many Whitecaps players will also be in attendance

- a presentation of some cheeky viral videos courtesy of the Vancouver Southsiders

- the Southsiders will be holding a raffle for a massive pile of prizes, including Vancouver MLS-branded merchandise and tickets for the special Whitecaps bus trip to watch the Seattle Sounders play DC United at Qwest Field on June 10

So don't miss out on all the fun. Come one, come all and if you've wondered what we're all about and/or just want information on how to join us, then this is a wonderful event to come and see first hand.

One more sleep!

Retro Day Sees Rowdies Sent Packing, Again

2010-06-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Retro Day at Swangard brought the rain and three points for the Whitecaps in a game which wasn't a classic, but certainly had more goalmouth action than some of our recent games.

The weather put a little dampener on the Southside's dressing up (see Photos) but kudos to those that made the effort. Even Tampa Bay got in on the act by resurrecting Gary Coleman to turn out at number 7 for them. Well, Different Strokes was a top rated show back in 1979 after all, so it did seem only right. Mr Drummond would have been proud.

We thought that one guy at the game at particular had made a real effort with his old fashioned clothes that probably weren’t even fashionable when they were new, old style haircut, flared trousers, unbuttoned hideously patterned shirt, large medallion hanging down and backward views, verging on the little bit slow. It was like the last thirty years hadn't happened for him. Turns out he hadn't dressed up for Retro Day at all and it was just a Timbers fan up on vacation from Portland.

Martin Nash's penalty on the stroke of half time was the difference between the teams, after Scott Buete had handled a Marcus Haber cutback.

Vancouver should have wrapped things up in the second half when Philippe Davies had a great chance just after the hour mark, but his weakly hit effort from an Ansu Toure cutback should have found the back of the net but instead found the arms of Rowdies goalkeeper Daryl Sattler.

Tampa are your untypical expansion side in that they're actually doing well in their first season and they will feel aggrieved at not getting anything out of the game and they certainly had their chances, especially in the last ten minutes of the game when the Caps’ Luca Bellisomo saw red for his second bookable offence.

Aaron Wheeler and Aaron King both missed open goal opportunities for Tampa in the second half. Must be something about that name. It must mean "make an arse out of it" in Latin or something.

Jay Nolly and his backline were immense again in keeping yet another clean sheet, but also yet again, our weak attacking threat was shown up. I hadn't actually noticed that Marcus Haber was playing till he was down our end in the second half.

Somehow we keep grinding out the points and still keep atop that NASL division. It's not pretty. It's not fun. But much like that fat chick you pick up as the nightclub closes, it gets the job done (to paraphrase a famous Ian Holloway quote!).

Having seen more than my fair share of shit football over the years, I don’t care how we get those three points, just as long as we do and we win the Championship.

C'mon the Caps.

** This was meant to be posted last night but there was a problem for a lot of west coast Bloggers in getting new posts up until now, so apologies **

Retro Day: Tomorrow We're Going To Party Like It's 1979

2010-06-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Retro Day at Swangard Stadium and it's going to be rowdy.

With Vancouver Whitecaps taking on Tampa Bay in the NASL, it's hard not to cast our minds back 31 years to the Caps NASL Soccer Bowl triumph against Tampa Bay Rowdies on September 8th 1979.

Different incarnations of the teams, different league altogether now of course, but the memories still linger, especially for those amongst us that were watching the Whitecaps the first time around, which sadly doesn't include myself.

Vancouver won the 79 Soccer Bowl by a score of 2-1 in front of 64,045 fans at Giants Stadium, home of the mighty New York Cosmos. With the Caps having disposed of the Cosmos to reach the Championship final, the pro Cosmos crowd were pretty anti Vancouver, but that didn't stop the trophy heading west to Van and a homecoming parade of over 100,000 fervent fans.

You can savour some of the excitement of the time with this vintage article from Sports Illustrated.

The Caps had averaged 22,962 in attendance that season, the fourth highest in the NASL, as they wrapped up a Western Division consisting of Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Los Angeles Aztex.

Times may have changed, but you can't help but excitedly look forward to renewing these rivalries in the "major leagues" once again next year. The whole thing gives you a strange nostalgia for an age yet to come.

Before all that we still have this season to 'excite' us, so tomorrow the Southsiders, with the Caps backing, are having a retro day to celebrate our most famous triumph and to look forward to the future at the same time.

So for one day only, it's 1979 all over again (although feel free to be any retro year you fancy!).

Ah September 8th 1979. I remember it like it was only yesterday. "My Sharona" by The Knack (a football tune if ever I heard one!) was number one in the US Billboard and Canadian RPM charts, whilst Cliff Richard's "We Don't Talk Anymore" held that honour unfortunately in the UK.

Other big hit songs that year, for those that want to enter into the spirit and sing along, were Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees (good if we go a goal down) and "Le Freak" by Chic, whilst Donna Summer was "Hot Stuff" and Amii Stewart wanted to "Ring My Bell". We might save "YMCA" for Evil Bert to belt out though.

Singer Marianne Faithfull married Ben Brieley of UK punk rock band The Vibrators, who coincidentally were playing in Vancouver last Saturday evening! It's all tying in.

Alien was the top film at the box office the day the Caps won the Soccer Bowl, whilst M*A*S*H, Dallas and Three's Company were amongst the top rated TV shows.

For Retro Day, the Southsiders want to see everyone in their best outfits from 1979. For some that'll mean retro kits and for some that means big sunglasses and even bigger moustaches and hair. For others, just having that hair again would be nice! Be sure to raid your closets or hit the costume shop before coming to the match. The Club will be offering prizes to the best dressed fans.

There will also be 70's music played on the concourse behind Swangard's main grandstand and throughout the stadium before the game and at half time.

Before the game kicks off, we're thrilled to invite you all to our pre-game tailgate festivities. It's the Southsiders Retro BBQ Boogaloo, where we'll have the much-anticipated return of Good Ol' Uncle Arne's AMAZING pulled pork BBQ sandwiches!

The tailgate gets underway at 1:30 pm and all newcomers are welcome. You'll find us in Central Park, to the southeast corner of Swangard Stadium.

This match coincides with our "Bring A Friend" Southside ticket promo. For each $16 ticket purchased in advance, the Whitecaps will donate $3 to the Southsiders tifo fund. To access these special tickets, please contact our Director of Events, Massimo Cusano at events@vancouversouthsiders.ca.

Even the Whitecaps players will be entering in the retro spirit by having shots on target and scoring goals! How can you miss all that!!!

So dig out your old clothes and kits, get those afros going and relive the worst style decade known to man!

And in the meantime...

Another Bore Draw Ends Caps Voyageurs Cup Campaign For Another Year

2010-06-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Voyageurs Cup wrapped up tonight with a soggy scoreless game at BMO Field in front of a sparse crowd. Don't know if I'd have come out in a torrential downpour to watch a pointless match either, although the lure of seeing my team lift a trophy would probably have been the clincher in getting me along.

As expected, Toronto fielded a young side and the Caps made a few changes themselves but the weather was always going to put any free-flowing football on hold. What we hoped for though was the Caps to show some desire to maintain their strong record against TFC and that's pretty much what we got in the first half, as Vancouver were by far the better side, despite playing with a man down for the last 14 minutes of it.

Philippe Davies' shocking lack of bottle in shooting, when clean through after only 3 minutes, summed up the Caps campaign and problems this year. Shot shy.

Marcus Haber saw red on 31 minutes when he went in with his studs up and caught Doneil Henry. Stupid tackle, the conditions played a part and sure I've seen them only be yellow at times, but at the same time I've also seen them red, so not too much complaining from me. As soon as you go in at pace with your feet off the floor, then you're asking for trouble.

It was a meaningless game, pride apart, so I would have been quite happy if Teitur adopted the Fife way and just kicked fuck out of everyone in a red shirt. A few sending offs offset by a few TFC injuries and I'd have been happy. Sadly didn't happen. The Scottish way is clearly not the Icelandic way!

Toronto dominated the start of the second half, but what they had in possession they lacked in attacking threat, whilst Vancouver seemed to have left their enthusiasm for a contest in the dressing room. When Johnny Steele crashed a header off the bar on 66 minutes then it let us know that we were still in the match and still looking for that win. Well it should have. Instead we sat back in defence whilst Toronto stroked the ball around and still offered fuck all in the way of breaking the deadlock.

Thankfully the final whistle came and put everyone out of their misery. Another 0-0 draw for the Caps. Their fourth draw in the tournament, remaining unbeaten, but having only scored two goals in the process. Hmm, maybe we do have the Scottish way about us after all. Going unbeaten in the group stages but failing to qualify.

Let's be frank though. With the team we had out (it was close to being our starting line up), we should have won that game comfortably against such an inexperienced Toronto side. Losing Haber didn't help, but we should have been ahead by that point in the proceedings anyway. I think it says a lot about our current team and tactics at the moment. Strong defensively, but very little elsewhere. Unlike last year, it's hard to see things clicking into place this term.

But that's the Canadian Championship all over for another year. A bit of an anti-climax, with Montreal denying Canadian football a grand finale, but all we can now do is to look forward to next year.

What shape the tournament will take, no-one currently knows. The addition of Edmonton will now make it at least four teams strong. There's been a lot of debate all over as to what the future of the Voyageurs Cup should be and who should be included.

We're unfortunately a long way away I think from a US Open style Cup, but I would love to see that at some point. That would always be my chosen path. Regional qualifying for now would make sense. Get teams like Victoria and Abbotsford in there. Get some local derbies and rivalries going. It's the only thing that will help grow the game here.

What I would hate is for them to have us playing a two legged game against Edmonton and playing the winners of a two-legged game between Toronto and Montreal. It's pointless and kills the competition for the fans.

I could see Sportsnet, or whatever TV company gets the rights, pushing the CSA for something like this though. It would pretty much guarantee them six meaningful games to show and not the situation we had tonight. So if that does happen, it's something else to hate Montreal for. Their lack of pride and respect for the competition would have got us to that stage. The only pleasing aspect of it is that they would never represent Canada on the international stage for a while.

Back to this year though and well done to Toronto. They deserved their trophy this time. They did what they needed to do, whilst we couldn't get any scoring threat going in the four games. We were piss poor frankly. Keep the Cup shiny, as we'll be going all out to get it next time, hopefully with some strikers in tow.

Good luck to Motagua in the preliminary round of the Champions League. Do Honduras and the west coast of Canada proud.

A View From The Southside #1

2010-05-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

There's no denying that the game on Wednesday was pretty dire stuff. The Impact had promised to put on a good show for their fans. That seemed to mean wasting time for most of the second half and showing themselves up for the scum that they are.

It was the biggest waste of time in Canadian football in fact since Toronto's annual production of playoff merchandise.

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The Sportsnet commentators for Wednesday night's Voyageurs Cup match in Montreal were woeful. It was almost enough to drive you to listening to the French chick on RDS. Aye, right.

Between them going on about DouDou and Aaboubou, I wasn't sure if they had a bad stutter or to expect Yogi Bear to have a shot in the commentary box and talk about picnic baskets.

The doddery duo seemed to get confused a little too easily, especially when the Caps were warming up Simon Thomas.

It was the most confused I'd been watching a game since an English Championship match a couple of years ago between Wolves and West Brom. I spent the whole match looking for a player on the pitch called Ray Darby, but to no avail. It was strange for I was sure that I heard the announcer in the pre match promo telling me "to stay tuned to see the big black cunt Ray Darby". Ears clearly playing tricks again.

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For those of you wondering why the Montreal Ultras were so quiet at Wednesday's game it was due to them having a beach party, complete with inflatable beach balls, crocodiles and even a paddling pool.

No one had seen such a collection of plastics in the stands since the last match at BMO Field.

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I'll admit I was a bit down after the match, so decided to head downtown to one of our sponsor pubs to drown my sorrows. I soon cheered up though when I got sitting beside a table of three pretty girls.

The first was from Ottawa. Really into politics. She said her father taught her everything she knew. The second was from Vancouver. Really into hiking and the outdoor life. She said her father taught her everything she knew. The third girl was from Montreal. Really into sex....

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Unfortunately we have to finish on a more sombre note.

I received an email during the week asking me if I would donate some money to help fund a funeral for a former Montreal player. The email was asking for a dollar.

Sceptical, I replied asking "only one dollar to bury a Montreal player?"

I got a reply confirming yes, so have now sent them ten bucks along with a note which says "Here's a tenner. Bury nine more of the bastards."

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[For background to this new section of the Blog see the Southsiders Forum. Apologies for the lack of updates in the Blog recently. Remember though that you can check out the daily AFTN Football Blog HERE which often has a Whitecaps and North American slant.]

Caps Fail To Get Job Done

2010-05-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

Going in to tonight's match at Saputo Stadium in Montreal, the Caps knew exactly what they had to do. Win.

It didn't matter if it was by a barrowload or a scrappy one goal counter, the three points were all that mattered if they were still to harbour hopes of lifting the 2010 Voyageurs Cup.

Buoyed by a 2-0 victory at home to Rochester over the weekend, that belied the Caps pressure and possession in the game, the most pleasing aspects were that we got ourselves back on the scoresheet again and Jay Nolly and the backline increased their time without conceding a goal to a staggering 418 minutes.

The big question surrounding tonight's match of course was which version of Montreal Impact would turn up. As it turned out it was a slightly weaker version of their first team, but still a strong line up. On paper at least. On grass it turned out they were shit.

Vancouver dominated the first half, but apart from Cornelius Stewart forcing Whitecaps reject Serj Djekanovic into a great point blank save after 9 minutes, we had little to show for all their possession and seven shots.

With no changes at half time, the Caps continued where they left off and dictated the play, getting their reward five minutes into the half when Ansu Toure drove home from just inside the box, with the help of an Impact deflection.

1-0 Caps and cue wild celebrations on the west coast.

The worst thing Vancouver could do now was to sit back and try and defend their lead. It's just not something we seem capable of doing. Thankfully they didn't and continued to push for a clinching second goal.

Vancouver joy lasted twelve minutes though when Montreal equalised against the run of play. Philippe Billy was left shockingly unmarked at the back of the box and drilled home an Eddie Sebrango pass.

Game back on.

Vancouver kept pushing and kept dominating whilst Montreal seemed bizarrely content to timewaste whilst drawing a meaningless match for them.

As the game went into the last ten minutes, Montreal decided to start to play some football and had some chances to kill of the game and Vancouver's hopes. As it turned out, Vancouver managed to do that themselves.

With the clock ticking down, Montreal reminded everyone why they are Canada's shame, continuing to waste time, clearly happy to finish bottom of the table again.

The final whistle gave Toronto their second successive Canadian Championship, leaving Vancouver to wonder about the what ifs and face a meaningless game in Toronto next week.

Disappointing all round. We can't paper over that fact. At least in tonight's game though Vancouver left the field with some honour still intact.

*** POSTNOTE - Just to add a wee edit, as we touch on in the comments below, since the original post was made as I was going out the door and was pissed off! Vancouver got what they deserved due to their impotent attack. There's no taking away from that. We did not score enough goals and have no-one to blame but ourselves. Toronto deserve the Championship this year. Hopefully that should make us hungrier next year. Mon the Caps ***

Whitecaps Left With Toughest Route To Cup

2010-05-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

If Vancouver Whitecaps are going to be crowned Nutrilite Canadian Champions for the first time then they're going to have to do it the hard way.

With a potential Champions League qualifier against Honduran side CD Motagua at stake, a point from last night's match against Toronto did little to help the cause. Sure it keeps us in it, but we're on a life support machine and we're just waiting for someone to flick that off switch. Don't be surprised if that person stinks of garlic and has a baguette under his arm and a beret on his head.

A third goalless draw in a row, albeit the most entertaining of them, was frustrating if not a surprise. I went into the match expecting a 1-0 defeat but getting a point doesn't excite.

Let's not beat around the bush here, Toronto were poor. Call them what you will, a makeshift side, an experimental side, a weakened side. Whatever they were it wasn't the top TFC out there either in personnel or performance. If we can't score against that, then there's not a lot of hope out there if we go to BMO in two weeks time needing a win to clinch the trophy. It won't be a lesser TFC facing us on the park that day.

To get to that stage of course we have to beat Montreal next week in Quebec. I won't go down the whole "they owe us" a weak team saga again, as it's getting boring now I know. I actually hope they don't put out a weakened side as if they do and we fail to beat them, then that just leaves the Caps looking like chumps. I'd rather win in glory or go down to a full strength side.

I know some of the Toronto fans would love Montreal to play a weak team to shut us up about last year, but as if they will really. I think the quote of the day about it all was from Teitur when he was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying: "I'm actually expecting them to send the junior team".

Back to last night's game, Toronto were outplayed for most of the match and by the second half there only really looked like being one team who would score. Now that's based on possession obviously as opposed to our scoring prowess, but we did have some great chances in the last ten minutes to give ourselves an easier qualification route to the Champions League.

We so lack a spark up front. Marcus Haber can't do it all. He can't create and score at the same time. He needs help and when he returns to West Brom soon then we'll really be in the shit.

There were some positives from the game -

* Cornelius Stewart was outstanding and is becoming a real find

* Greg Janicki's commitment to the cause, whilst still suffering a weeping head injury is wonderful to see and what you want from your players

* The return of Martin Nash, as second half sub, added some bite into the middle of the park and some much needed authority. Looking ahead to future MLS years, if only he was a few years younger

* Another clean sheet for Jay Nolly and the backline. Three goals conceded in eight competitive matches is immense

That last point is what gives us the chance going in to the last two games of the tournament.

We're not conceding. That's a great base. Two more games without letting in a goal gives us the get out clause of just needing one spark of brilliance in each match to take us through. It won't be pretty but what the hell, I'll gladly take it.

I've been saying this for weeks now and it HAS to happen at some point. We will all of a sudden click and the goals will come. Not sure from whom but it will happen and then by October we'll be wondering what all the fuss was about. We just need it to click in the next fortnight.

Mon the Caps.

Whitecaps Need To Blitz TFC From Kick-Off

2010-05-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well tonight is the big one. Our Nutrilite Canadian Championship hopes can be ended if we lose to Toronto at Swangard tonight.

A win puts us in a very good position and even a draw keeps us in the hunt, but with all to do. Exciting stuff and what the trophy should be all about. Taking aside the fact that obviously we want to win, it would be bad for how the tournament will be perceived if there are two meaningless games left.

Toronto are starting to look like they are finally clicking as a team, but it does kind of depend on what team turns up at times with them on the road. Whether injuries, especially to de Guzman, are likely to keep some out of the starting line up we don’t know. Could be injuries. Could be fatigue. Could all be a smokescreen. I tend to think the latter.

From a Caps point of view, what is very important is that we try and create as intimidating an atmosphere in the Southside this evening. Loud, noisy, obnoxious, abusive. It’s never been more important.

It’s also important we mix it up on the pitch from the start. If any of the doubtful players are playing then we need our guys to go in with some crunching challenges from the get go. If someone has a sore ankle, target it.

Every year this is the home game I most look forward to. With our inability to score at the moment, but great defensive showings, it’s not going to be a high scoring goalfest. TFC are the favourites, but let’s hope all our pieces click into place at just the right time.

We can't play for a draw. We can't be defensive. We need to just go for it from the off. We need to play on any tiredness and make them wonder what's hit them.

C’mon the Caps. Do us proud.

*** The Southsiders will be having a pre-match tailgate party at the southeast corner of Swangard Stadium in Central Park from 5.30pm. Come one, come all. Special burger and hotdog combo deals (with chips and pop) will be available to purchase. The weather is gorgeous at the time of writing so should be a great night ***

BC Place Construction Cam

2010-05-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Going downtown over the weekend, you couldn't help but notice how weird the Vancouver skyline is without the BC Place roof. I've only been living here for a couple of years and I find it strange, so it must be really weird for those who have been used to seeing it since 1983.

The deflation on May 4th marked the end of an era but the start of a new one, as work began on transforming the old venue into a first class sporting stadium to host the MLS Vancouver Whitecaps next summer, along with the CFL Lions.

As a sad old anorak of many years, I love seeing stadium renovations/building taking shape. It's been great to see the temporary Empire Stadium come together. I'd still prefer us to be playing there than BC Place (obviously Waterfront Stadium is still my first option), but it's still exciting to be moving to the dome as well.

If you want to see how the BC Place contructions and renovations are taking shape then there's a construction cam for all you fellow saddos HERE!

Be fun to see it in all it's stages as MLS excitement builds.

All We Are Saying Is Give Us A Goal......Or At Least Some Shots

2010-05-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Another Saturday. Another goalless draw. Maybe I should just start using a template for the blog.

I'm sure it's not going to be like this for the rest of the season, but at the moment it's hard to see this changing or where exactly our next goal is going to come from.

The Whitecaps recorded their third scoreless draw of the season yesterday, their second consecutive one, and their second less than inspiring match against Montreal in eleven days. Isn't it great that Montreal are MLS bound now so that we can look forward to many more years of crap matches between the two sides.

The positive ones amongst us are taking solace in the fact that it wasn't as bad as last week's match against Baltimore. That wouldn't be hard. I've seen impromptu games in the park that were better than that snoozefest.

This week was better. There were improvements, there were some good individual performances (Janicki, Akwari and Sanchez were my standouts) but we still have no real attacking threat. We looked more like a cohesive unit. We strung passes together, at times, and we did have the ball in the net twice, but both goals were ruled offside.

The signs are there that things are coming together and there's a long way to go in the League season, but what we really want is for the magic wand to be waved to make everything perfect for this coming Wednesday's crucial Nutrilite Championship game against Toronto. It's not looking promising, let's put it that way!

Defensively we're looking strong. Two goals conceded in six league matches is phenomenal. Four goals scored on the other hand, not so much. It still sees us leading the NASL Conference, but when Austin Aztex can be leading the early single table standings, I think that shows you the quality of this year's USSF D2.

I won't go on yet again about how the attack is the area of concern etc etc. I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about that by now. The most frustrating thing about Saturday's game though was the constant punt, punt, punt.

Route one football isn't the horrible stigma it's made out to be you know. I've watched enough of it in my time. It has it's place and when you have a tall man like Marcus Haber leading your attack, it can be a big boon to your chances.

When you are resorting to punting constant high balls up to 5 foot 5 tall Randy Edwini-Bonsu then perhaps it's time to review the tactical aspect of the team a little bit. Either that or the quality and sensibilities of the players providing those balls.

Randy should be going wide, skinning the defender and delivering the cross to Marcus. Not the other way around.

Perception of how we played on Saturday is very interesting. Statistically it tells a different tale. We had 8 shots yesterday. That was actually three less than the week before against Baltimore. We did manage an extra shot on target though - a massive two in the game.

I can't fault Marcus and the rest of the attack though. You can only piss with the cock you've got, as we say in Scotland. Possibly the fact that Montreal had a huge useless dick on the field in Peter Byers may have led to shrinkage.

The midfield is woeful at the moment when it comes to attacking flair. More importantly, we have no one who seems to get the creative juices of the team flowing.

We are in desperate need of an old fashioned half back (for those of a certain age!). A holding midfielder. Someone who can be a Billy Bremner/Norman Hunter style tackler. We need bite, we need hard challenges and someone who can put themselves about a bit. Johnny Steele could provide this if he can get himself fully match fit physically and mentally.

Looking ahead to Wednesday, if DeRo and de Guzman are carrying knocks, as is suggested, a couple of crunching early tackles should take care of those problems. Big Z could be just the man to leave that foot in just that little bit too long, but not long enough for the ref to see much wrong.

With Toronto starting to look better each week, and coming of what was a huge away draw for them down in LA, we need to get the advantage right away and being right dirty bastards from the off, but clever with it, should do the trick.

It might not be pretty, but after the last three matches, I don't care how we get the win, we just need to get it.

Mon the Caps.

Montreal Loss Leaves Whitecaps Knowing Exactly What Needs To Be Done

2010-05-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well that's us halfway through this year's "exciting" Nutrilite Canadian Championship and we now know what scenarios Vancouver Whitecaps face in their three remaining matches.

Toronto ran out 1-0 winners at Montreal, in the latest bore-a-thon in the tournament (following hot on the heels of our contribution last week). With games like the last two, maybe it's good that Sportsnet decided to only show this year's matches on their East and West channels. These games might put the Canadian public off domestic football for a while if they were shown nationally.

The game was played in front of a disappointing crowd, as the Montreal public followed their Vancouver counterparts last week and decided to stay at home and watch men's figure skating instead. To be fair to them, they didn't exactly miss much at Saputo Field. It was dull as dishwater.

I went into the game with a three wishes: a 0-0 draw; an injury or two match suspension for de Guzman; an injury to Matt Jordan. Sadly, none of these things materialised. Fucking lying genie.

Montreal's defeat now ends their hopes for glory this year, so I'm looking forward to the Caps facing a weakened B team in the game there in a fortnight. Of course we can be pretty sure that's not going to happen, but if they have any scruples and sense of decency then that would be the case. The way we've been playing mind you, I wouldn't back us to get the job done even against such a side.

The Impact's elimination now sets Vancouver two paths to qualification:

(1) If the Caps record two wins and a draw in their three remaining games then we win the Championship by a point, maybe two, no matter how we achieve this scenario

(2) If the Caps lose in Montreal, but beat Toronto home and away then we win the Championship by a point

If the Caps lose in Montreal, beat Toronto once and draw with Toronto once, we're out. Any loss to Toronto ends our Champions League dreams for another season.

A defeat next week will also make the final two games in the tournament irrelevant and that won't be good for Canadian football or the tournament's attempt at getting regular TV coverage.

So what it all boils down to is that it's all in Vancouver's own hands this season. We can't blame anyone else this year if we don't do the business. It's going to be tough, especially with our lack of firepower currently, but at least we're looking strong defensively. I just hope that Teitur doesn't set the stall out for not getting beat next Wednesday.

Now is the time for the players to step up. Reclaim your pride from last year and show the country why you will always be Canada's team.

Caps Firing Blanks As Weaknesses Become Evident

2010-05-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

When it comes to boring football matches, watching a meaningless midweek League match in the Scottish Third Division on a freezing cold wintry night between two uninterested teams takes some beating. Or so I thought.

It was nice of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Crystal Palace Baltimore sides to serve me up a slice of home, but it was ok lads, I wasn't homesick. I just wanted to watch a decent game of football. You know. One with shots, saves, action, everything that wasn't on display at Swangard Stadium last night.

When a winless expansion team comes a calling to their soon to be MLS hosts and it's hard to work out which team is which, then that's when you know that things are starting to go wrong.

I don't think it was being presumptuous to expect the Whitecaps to beat a struggling team with a record of played 3, lost 3, score 1, conceded 5. To do that though you need to have more than one shot on target.

Yes, that was the Caps sum total of saves forced in last night's encounter. One. Eleven shots, one on target.

The match report on the offical Whitecaps website said of the game that the Caps "struggled to find a way past Palace goalkeeper Evan Bush". Actually shooting at him might have been a start and not from fifty yards out!

It was a dire goalless draw that was played out, devoid of any entertainment on the pitch that just led to us making our own off it. The result bizarrely leaves the Caps sitting top of the NASL Conference in USSF D2, with a grand total of four league goals in five games.

I think we know where the problems lie.

Teitur's tactics are a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not really sure what shape and style we're trying to go with yet. I'm not sure the players are either.

The defence is, on the whole, pretty shored up. We have a serious lack of firepower up front though. I love Randy as a player but he's not a MLS starter yet. He's not even a NASL starter really. He was pushed around a lot last night. Our midfield is crying out for some creativity. It's had for the frontmen when they're not being supplied with anything decent to work with in the first place.

When you think that our players this season should be playing for a MLS future, the way things are shaping up so far, we're going to be relying heavily on the draft next year. There are very few players who are stepping up and making a claim.

I know it's early days and we didn't start last season too hot either, but you just can't see where the goals are going to come from at present, which is a major worry, especially with Toronto coming up in a crunch Voyageurs Cup game.

Some may say that this season is just for experimentation and is a nothing season. The hardcore fans won't agree. We should be trying to win every competition that we enter. Bob Lenarduzzi said as much as the MLS one year kick off event.

With Montreal back in town on League business next Saturday, we have to try and make some changes and soon. The dross on display today was unacceptable. Good players (like Johnny Steele) don't become awful players over night, so we need to get to the roots of all these problems.

For me, the constant chopping and changing of the squad doesn't help. Every year is a rebuilding exercise and the players will take time to bond and fully function as a unit. That might explain why they struggle to string together passes to each other.

I can take drawing or losing matches if we have some oomph about us. Made a real go of it.

On our displays so far this season, we're missing the impact players and that's something that Teitur has to address asap.

Vancouver Whitecaps v Crystal Palace Baltimore Extended Highlights

2010-05-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Hope the Club don't mind but I've decided to put up some re-enacted action from tonight's game for everyone:

And Montreal Make Nineteen

2010-05-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

It's not exactly come as a surprise, as we've all known it was going to happen for a while now, but today saw the official announcement that Canada's shame, aka Montreal Impact, will be joining Major League Soccer as the 19th team come 2012.

So, should we care? Should we happy for them? Is it good for Canadian football? You know, all the usual stuff.

Now before I go any further, let me say for some cretins in the east that can't seem to read the disclaimer to the right, the views expressed in this blog are those of the individual blogger. That's me. It's not the view of ALL Southsiders. It's not the official viewpoint of the group as a whole. I don't see that as such a hard concept to grab.

So, back to Montreal...

Let me start by saying I hate the fuckers. That way you'll save time knowing where this is going to end up if you want to. I would have gladly seen them never enter the MLS and be stuck in the lower leagues of North American football until their poutine riddled bodies gave up the ghost and they went bust.

That's not going to happen. I accept that. They're in. A bit behind the times and they could have been in a year before of course if they hadn't pissed about, but they finally made it.

I do find that football fans in this country (and the US) are way too nice at times. I don't go for all this "we're a minority, we need to stick together" crap. We need hatred for the game to truly flourish here as far as I'm concerned. As I've said before hate is good for football as long as it doesn't spill over into stupid violence.

Why should we be pleased Montreal get in? Say a European Super League was set up. Do you honestly think Man U fans would want Man City to get into it? They'd love them to be frozen out. Same with Celtic and Rangers fans, Spurs/Arsenal, the list could go on and on. It's great to see your "local" rivals miss out.

It's going to be a long wait for the Montreal fans. I know it's seemed like an absolute age for us, so it's going to be worse for them, not helped by the glamourous trips they'll face to Baltimore and Minnesota whilst they're waiting.

Now the talk on the Southside Forum is whether we should be pleased that they're now in the MLS and whether their addition benefits Vancouver and Canadian football.

I do accept that their addition the MLS will raise more awareness about the game in Canada and that can only be a good thing, but I see very little benefit to the Whitecaps with their addition.

They will obviously be the natural rivals for Toronto now and that should be a great one to watch playing out over the years. I feel more affinity and more excitement though about the west coast American teams like Seattle and Portland. Hell, even San Jose, LA and Chivas games are better for us as we can actually go there a lot easier than flying hours across country and timezones. Part of the reason that the Toronto and Montreal rivalry will be excellent is that the fans of both teams can travel in numbers to the away games.

The addition of Montreal also further dilutes an already small pool of quality Canadian players. They're not in abundance at the moment and unless the MLS starts to drastically open up their rules around residency and devloping home grown players, the game in Canada will not flourish.

In addition, generally there's a severe lack of actual top quality players in MLS squads as it is without adding more teams.

Whilst we're talking about dilution, let's also look at national television coverage. More Canadian teams, less national television coverage of Whitecaps games and let's be honest here, the east coast media don't give a toss about west coast teams. They're not going to be falling over themselves to show Caps games.

This also brings up the horrible possibility of pressure on the Caps to have crappy early kick offs for double header TV purposes. I would hope the Caps would not bow to this, but we all know that money talks. I'm kind of biased as I prefer nighttime games, but the atmosphere at early kick off the last few seasons have been dire.

You just have to look at how the Canucks are forced to play their games against the Leafs at 4pm to suit TV purposes.

If we add into the mix that we always seem to play shite against Montreal, then I really find it hard to generate much excitement about their entry into the MLS. I'd rather more concentrate on our own.

Canada's Shame Draw With Whitecaps

2010-05-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

Fucking gutted. That pretty much sums up how I feel after tonight's game, but that's the wonders of Cup football.

Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact played out a one all draw in the Caps' first match of this season's Nutrilite Canadian Championship. I guess you could say it was a slow builder of a game from the Caps point of view. That's being generous.

It's not that I'm gutted that the Caps were robbed of three points or anything silly like that, as we most certainly weren't. It's more gutted that the team turned in such a piss poor performance for most of the match. We could and should have done much better and that's one of the big disappointments at the end of this evening.

Why it took 75 minutes for Vancouver to wake up and actually look like they wanted something from the game is both a puzzle and an annoyance. Up to that point Montreal, who looked equally poor for most of the game, seemed in complete control after going one up after 31 minutes. In control but threatening very little it has to be said. Even up to their goal they didn't seem much of a danger.

They didn't really need to offer much of course when the Caps were even struggling to string passes together at times and even the usually steady Jay Nolly had a few shaky moments. Nothing was coming from the midfield in the first half and it seemed like we weren't playing with any attack at times. There was just nothing up front.

I hate the 4-4-1-1 formation that Teitur adopted for the start of this match. It's not just tonight, I just don't like it at the best of times and especially not when you're the home team. With Montreal lining up 4-5-1 it was clear that neither side were looking to commit themselves forward too much early on.

Montreal opened the scoring through Peter Byers just after the half hour mark and it was a beautiful through ball from Tony Donatelli that did the damage. It was what we were missing from the game the whole night and it caught the Caps defence flat footed especially Greg Janicki.

Byers finished really well, although he should have been booked for goading the Southside after he scored. He could have had a lot worse with his actions.

Even if he hadn't scored, the Impact would have had a penalty as Janicki was all over Byers as he tucked his finish away, seemingly wanting to swap shirts mid-match.

If we thought that would spur on Vancouver we were very much mistaken and it didn't seem like we would have any way back into the match the way we were playing. We were dominating the second forty-five possession wise but with very little in the way of a danger to the Impact goal.

Montreal's actions in the second half were a disgrace though. They were happy to timewaste and go down injured at the slightest thing. I thought the five minutes of added on time at the end was a few minutes short of what it could have been and that could have proved vital at the end of it all.

The turning point for Vancouver came in the 78th minute, thanks to a series of fortunate events followed by a moment of Impact madness. Jay Nolly sloppily played a Chris Williams backpass short to Janicki in the Caps box. Montreal sub Reda Agourram quickly pounced on the mistake but Janicki did well to recover and knock the ball away leading to a slick Caps passing move upfield.

As Marlon James headed towards the box from the right, he found himself sandwiched between two Montreal defenders and went down with seemingly no contact just on the edge of the box. WIth what the Impact have done to us recently, we deserved a break.

The resultant free kick came across and the Impact's Adam Braz inexplicably bulldozed Janicki out of the way and sent the big defender sprawling towards the goal. A clear penalty and a second booking and a sending off for Braz.

Braz was going to miss the next match with TFC anyway after picking up a booking earlier in the game, but he was somehow furious uttering "fucking cunt", which was picked up nice and clear by the TV mics, as he left the pitch. No idea why he was complaining as it was a clear foul.

Jordan's antics at trying to put Marcus Haber off the spot kick should have seen him booked but it didn't put off the big guy and Marcus coolly slotted home to the bottom right hand corner for his first goal since returning to Vancouver on loan . One apiece with ten minutes and stoppage time to go.

The goal sparked the Caps into life and saw them camped in the Montreal half for the rest of the match. James came oh so close to netting the winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time but after doing well to get on the end of a long ball, he saw his effort go agonisingly inches wide of Matt Jordan's left hand post.

The game ended in more controversy, and more shame for the Impact, when they were reduced to nine men when Agourram was sent of for lashing out at Chris Williams in the dying seconds. Obviously they're aiming to be the thug team of the NASL this season. A straight red and there should be no complaints from Montreal on that one. Of course there will be as they're moaning bastards at the best of times.

So a draw was how it finished. Not much use to either team's chances and it leaves Vancouver needing to take six full points from Toronto I feel for them to progress as Champions.

During the second half we were saying that we would take a point by that stage, due to the way we had been playing. By the end, the point felt like a deflating defeat.

There's still a long way to go in the competition and the Caps know it's still all in their own hands.

I can't wait for the TFC game already. Let's just hope they play for the full ninety minutes like men possessed this time around. Mon the Caps.

Time To Show Why We're Canada's Team

2010-05-04T23:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow sees the Caps kick off their 2010 Nutrilite Canadian Championship campaign. A campaign that will hopefully see Vancouver reach the holy grail of the CONCACAF Champions League for the first time.

It really is only fitting after all for Canada's most successful football side to be rightly seen to be Canada's team on the international stage.

We certainly have a great shot at it again this year. There's no point crying any more over last season's debacle in Montreal. That's history, we'll just never forget or forgive.

Canada's shame come a calling tomorrow and there will be no better way for payback than to pretty much end their chances of success in this year's tournament before they can even begin.

A poor Toronto side have already dented their hopes in the first game of this year's campaign with a 2-0 victory at BMO Field last Wednesday. The Impact looked a very poor side and will be missing that man we all hate tomorrow, Roberto Brown - The Falling Down Clown.

Brown's decision to punch Nick Garcia in the head last week was cowardly at best and it was good to see Montreal respond by banning him indefinitely. The CSA two game ban automatically rules him out for the game tomorrow anyway, but let's hope we don't see him back in the Canadian game any time soon. I'm pretty sure he will be though but he's been a disgrace on many levels for years now.

The Limpact always seem up for playing against Vancouver, not so much Toronto it would surprisingly appear, so we'll no doubt see them battling away tomorrow. We showed enough in the loss to Portland last week though to convince me that things are starting to click with all the new players and I see a comfortable 2-0 victory tomorrow evening, with Marcus Haber finding his first goal upon his return.

I have to say that these are the games I most look forward to each season at the moment. I'd quite happily forego all the League stuff. For me, this is the real excitement and there's nothing like a midweek nightime Cup match for atmosphere and thrills in my experience.

There are two slight dampeners on proceedings for the Caps and their fans tomorrow though.

The first, of course, is the fact that the game will clash with the Canucks Game 3 match up with Chicago in the NHL playoffs. How this will affect attendance we don't know yet. A lot of tickets will have been sold well before the playoff dates were decided. Whether these people choose to come along to the game or stay at home and watch the hockey is anyone's guess at the moment.

You would hope that if they were interested enough to buy tickets in the first place that they would show up, but we all know how fickle the hockey loving Vancouver public can be at times. At least TFC don't have to worry about such things. There's never any May playoff action clashing with the football there.

With a nationwide TV audience, it would be disappointing to see any empty spaces at Swangard tomorrow, but that in itself is the other dampener.

It isn't really going to be a national TV audience, as the game is only being shown on Sportsnet West. Fine if you have the complete Sportsnet regional package, which according to them most people do, but in reality it sucks for those not able to afford such luxuries and having to make do with their own Pacific station. I mean, who can't live without their dose of Tampa Bay Rays?

Shame on the station for showing baseball instead. Why bid for the rights then treat the tournament with disrespect. How is the game meant to grow in the country? It's already up against playoff hockey and now you make it hard for locals to see it.

Nothing will dampen our spirits in the Southside though. We're looking forward to tomorrow so much already. So remember Southsiders. Sing loud. Sing proud. And show everyone why we are Canada's team.

Attendances Suffer As USSF D2 Teams Struggle With Other Attractions

2010-05-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

The 4th week of fixtures in USSF Division 2 have just come to an end, but already there are some alarming signs in terms of attendances for teams in both the NASL and USL.

The Minnesota Stars were only able to attract 753 people to their match against Austin Aztex on Saturday. As shocking as this figure is, it's an improvement on the 627 people they drew to their match against Rochester Rhinos three days previously.

The interest of around 1700 people obviously having waned since the novelty of the team's first ever home game just days before that. Or perhaps three games in eight days is too much for the Minnesota public to handle.

Another new club, AC St Louis, have lost nearly 3000 fans from their first home game to their second, but it's not just the new kids on the block that are feeling the pinch.

The Portland Timbers seem to have a thing for Thursday night games. Two of their three home League games so far this season have been on a Thursday. The other a Saturday. Both the weekday games, including the Caps trip down there last week, attracted crowds of just over 5,800. Their season opener was on a Saturday and drew a crowd of 15,418.

They have four more Thursday night games and two Wednesday night games scheduled for the rest of the season, so it will be interesting to see if this is just a blip due to other attractions being on in the city, namely the Portland Trail Blazers being in the NBA playoffs and having home games clashing with both the Timbers Thursday games.

Now I can take or leave basketball to be honest. I never see the point in watching anything but the last two minutes of games. That would surely have let the Portland fans see both the Timbers and Trail Blazers play on the same night!

The other part of the Timbers problem is that they have to schedule their games in conjunction with the Portland Beavers minor league baseball team. No excuse for having the Caps play on a Thursday night though as they then arranged a friendly on the Saturday instead, depriving more Caps fans making the journey down from Vancouver for the weekend. We also host Portland on a Thursday night, which is equally as farcical.

I have nothing against midweek games personally. In fact, I love the fact that our Voyageurs Cup games are on a Wednesday. There's few better atmospheres than at nightime, midweek Cup matches in my experience.

The Caps themselves have been hit with lower attendances for their two home league games this season and the pre season game against Seattle. I'm blaming that on the crappy 4pm kick off times. It has been said that it's because the Vancouver public don't like the cold April nights. Well they don't seem to like the early April afternoons either!

With so many other sporting attractions clashing with the football season here, what is seen as minority teams and sports are always going to struggle to gain a foothold. That's why scheduling and timings are key to maximising attendances.

We're going to take a hit on Wednesday when our opening Nutrilite match is going to clash with the Canucks in the NHL playoffs. Same problems as Portland and I fear a same result attendancewise.

Midweek matches and early kick off times will not do for us in general going forward. Hopefully the Whitecaps front office will take notice and have some say in the scheduling of their MLS matches next season. I do have a fear that television will dictate early kick offs to allow double headers being shown with TFC matches.

As for this season, if the clubs are struggling to attract the numbers at the start of the season when everything should be all fresh and new, I fear for the future of some of these clubs come the season end. Yes, there was all the uncertainty about the League(s) actually happening this year, but now it's here, where are the fans? If people really do need more time to decide to come and watch games then that's frightening.

With the three big supported sides all scheduled to leave for pastures new, the future of division two football in North America could take a big hit.

Caps Fall To First Defeat Of Season

2010-05-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

First off, apologies for this blog appearing later than planned and also the lack of activity the last couple of days. Been enjoying myself down in Oregon, well apart from the result of the game on Thursday night that is.

The Caps lost out 2-1 to the Portland Timbers on Thursday down at PGE Park in Portland, their first defeat of the season. The ever dangerous Ryan Pore did the damage with a brace and his match winner, four minutes from time, was a killer blow for the Caps after a gutsy performance where they fought back from going down to an early goal to dominate proceedings at times.

Losing the deciding goal after Portland had gone down to ten men was particularly galling. I personally thought the dismissal of Mamadou Danso was harsh on 85 minutes, but with the way the ref was brandishing the yellow card about all night, it had been on the cards from early on.

There's not much point in doing a match recap as it feels so long ago already but here's some general thoughts from the game.

- My Caps Man of the Match was Nelson Akwari. His goal aside, he was outstanding for most of the match at the back and was a commanding presence in both boxes.

- Jay Nolly had a jittery first half I felt. He was his usual composed self. I don't know if this was down to the pitch or him just having an off day, but he made up for it with some fine stops in the second half.

- Marcus Haber did well at holding the ball up but he's still not what I want from our main striker. I want him in the the box getting on the end of crosses, not the other way around. I still feel he doesn't use his height to our advantage but that said, he had a good game and caused threats, but we badly need a prolific striker to finish our chances.

- It was disappointing that this game was on a Thursday night. I only found two other Caps fans who had made the journey, so a big hello to Keith and Leah. Hope you have a great weekend down there.

- It was a great game of football. Easily the best USL/NASL match I've seen this season. I was surprised how well we played as I didn't expect much coming in to the match. We did well and matched Portland in all areas, bar taking more chances. You couldn't help but watch the game though and wonder how many players on display would be making the step up. One Portland fan, who admitted to being very conservative with his picks, felt maybe 4, maybe 6 of the current Timbers squad would be making the MLS leap with the team.

- Once again, hats off to all of the Portland fans I spoke to who made me feel very much welcome at the stadium. As always, a classy bunch down there and I look forward to many more visits in the "big leagues".

Sadly I'll miss the July 3rd visit down there due to work commitments I just can't get out of, but hopefully there will be a playoff visit to follow. It's a great stadium to visit, a fine set up and as always, an enjoyable matchday atmosphere. Just a pity that the basketball took prize billing on the night of the game, but more on that next time.

Caps Remain Unbeaten But Still A Work In Progress

2010-04-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

Vancouver Whitecaps ran out 1-0 winners against AC St Louis this afternoon to maintain their unbeaten start to the season.

The first ever meeting between the two sides was far from being an entertaining encounter but the most pleasing aspect was that the Caps kept their third clean sheet in a row.

The Caps starting line up saw enforced changes and by the time the game ended the Caps are going to be testing their squad depth quite early in the season.

The difference between Vancouver and a very poor St Louis side was a 19th minute Mouloud Akloul strike. The French Algerian defender couldn't enjoy the moment of his first goal for his new club though, breaking his ankle in his fall as he put the ball in the net.

Despite the Caps outshooting St Louis 11 to 1, there was very little dangerous goalmouth action from the home side, with Jay Nolly virtually a bystander at the other end.

Greg Janicki had the best chance to add to the advantage on 31 minutes but his header from a Wes Knight throw crashed off the bar.

There wasn't a lot more to take from the game than the three points. We're certainly looking more solid at the back, but I just don't see where our goals are going to come from when we come up against a team that may actually be able to score one in return.

With Portland away the next stop on Thursday, we'll face our toughest test of the season so far. These are the games when we get to see who are our key guys and hopefully see them step up.

With possible MLS contracts on the horizon for both teams' players, it should be an interesting encounter.

Whitecaps Weekly Deserves A Place In Your Planner

2010-04-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

What the game in Canada needs to promote itself here is some quality football magazine-style television programmes.

I know it's a lot to ask here. I appreciate there isn't going to be a great demand for the main stations to show this primetime, but they do have a lot of scope the rest of the time. How many times do you really need to show SportsCentre and Sportsnet Connected in a 12 hour period FFS?

Oh for a Soccer AM style show to brighten up our Saturdays mornings/lunchtimes and fill in the time from the Premiership finishing and our own matchday starting.

Gol TV do their bit to promote the cause. They've had their Toronto FC Today programme running for a while now and their latest addition came last week when Whitecaps Weekly aired for the first time.

Not that we knew much about it. The publicity for it hasn't been great and I have to admit that I seldom look at the Gol TV schedules. Thanks to Masster on the Southsiders Forum though, we know about it now.

I missed the first show but caught this week's one.

Kicking off with the highlights on the Caps site from last weekend's goalless draw in Miami (hats off to anyone who could come up with watchable action from that horrible feed), it then moved to an interview with Whitecaps (and 86ers) legend Carl Valentine.

The six minute segment was an interesting chat with Carl, covering his time around the legendary 1979 Soccer Bowl win onwards, and featuring some nice old footage of the Caps in game action and even training. Great for a guy like me who wasn't around in the city at that time.

It was interesting to hear him say that the fans then felt "that they were part of the team" and how close knit everyone was back then. Hopefully these feelings will be the same next year. There was also talk about Canada's achievement in reaching the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, which Carl took part in. No footage of this though, I'm assuming Gol TV didn't want to pay for that on the show's budget!

The rest of the show consisted of interviews with Bart Choufour (Head Coach of the Caps Prospect Boys and former 86ers youth development director) talking about past, present and future work surrounding our great residency program; and a chat with Bob Lenarduzzi about the 79 Soccer Bowl and other stuff.

It's all quite lightweight just now. More gloss than analytical, but who cares?! So the production value of it isn't the best and neither is my usual picture quality of any programming on Gol TV, but it's great to have a show like this devoted to us pre MLS.

It deserves our support and can only get better, so stick a date in your weekly planner or PVR now. It first airs at 5pm PT on a Tuesday and is usually repeated eight times over the next few days. For those that missed this week's show then you catch it again on Friday at both 2pm and 10pm.

Remember, when spreading the word of football here, every little certainly does help and needs to be taken at every opportunity. Well done to those involved.

Caps Playoff Bound In 2011? The Debate Rages

2010-04-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

Our Blog on Monday commenting on Ali Gerba's "tell all" interview with The Score has certainly fuelled some debate the last couple of days. Great to see, as the more debate we can all generate about Canadian football, the stronger state that it is in.

The more interest we can generate in the Vancouver MLS franchise at the same time, then the more our job is getting done in spreading the Caps word.

The 24th Minute blog asked some serious and pertinent questions about my statement that I feel that the Whitecaps will find themselves in the MLS playoffs before Toronto do. Even tonight's excellent It's Called Football podcast were discussing the topic.

What is behind my confident claim? Am I slavering pish? Can I back this up with facts? Well without time travel, no, it's all assumptions on both sides of the argument for now, but obviously that's what the internet was built for!

What I do know is that Vancouver certainly gives the impression of entering the MLS in a more organised fashion than Toronto FC did in 2007.

They have worked very hard in the last year to make sure that they have some talented individuals in the right roles.

By bringing in Tom Soehn as Director of Soccer Operations, they have secured the services of a man who has been around the MLS since 1996, both as a player and a manager who knows what it takes to win in the League and secure silverware at that level. He may not have that glowing playoff resume but it's still a better MLS record than some.

The biggest coup as far as I'm concerned is bringing Paul Barber over from England to become the Caps Chief Executive Officer. A man of his standing is not going to leave his role at Tottenham Hotspur, a club he has supported all his life, if he didn't know something special was happening in Vancouver. He is not here to fail. He knows the game inside and out and he has contacts and plenty of them.

Toronto on the other hand have Maurice Johnston. My fellow Scot's career is very familiar to me - as a player. He has been a flop as a manager at two MLS clubs, now and he is being proven to be a flop as a Director of Football as well.

Don't kid yourselves Toronto fans. If MoJo had what it takes to be a football manager do you honestly think he would be hanging around the MLS? He'd be back in Scotland or the UK after being headhunted by one of his former clubs. Even in Celtic's worst plights in recent years, Johnston was nowhere on their list of potential new managers. Rangers, Hearts and even Partick Thistle would have no interest either. Now why would that be?

With MoJo at the helm, TFC are going nowhere, certainly not the playoffs, and he also shows no signs at all of going anywhere else, any time soon. Preki isn't going to be the answer when MoJo is still backstage.

Those are some of the reasons that I feel the Caps will be in the MLS playoffs before TFC will. Notice I am saying playoffs and not winning the whole shebang. Even Mr Optimistic me wouldn't go that far. Not just yet, but all you need are the breaks once you get that far.

Of course I'm realistic enough to know that success isn't primarily achieved off the pitch but on it.

A lot of talk is focussing on the fact that the MLS draft is going to be diluted next year due to Portland having to share it with us and the Caps having the whole Canadian national player rules imposed as well. The current Caps roster features eleven Canadians incidentally. TFC has it's five domestics that they need.

Remember that these draft players aren't the best that the League has to offer or haven't shown that to be the case so far anyway. The Caps have taken on some interesting players to assess this season. Players that could definitely make the grade in the MLS. How many we will take, or be allowed to take with us when we step up always confuses the hell out of me with all the weird rules with discovery players, development players and all that farcical stuff that spoils the MLS.

There is very little difference I feel in the top NASL/USL players and the bottom MLS ones. In fact I'd favour the former on many occasions.

I know this wasn't the case for Seattle when they joined last season and even those players who did make the step up didn't see that much action. That's how it's worked for them. They're not us. We seem to be planning more carefully with who we're assessing. We have some of the cream USL crop from recent years.

Just because the MLS fans aren't seeing these players week in, week out doesn't mean they can't do the business. I think a lot of MLS fans are deluded about the actual quality of play in the League. A lot of it is crap and I know crap, I've watched enough of it in Scotland over the years.

Vancouver will also have the advantage of being an active team joining the League. If a decent core of players can be kept together and allowed to be brought on, they will know each other well and be more of a unit than the continuing ragtag TFC squad that has had so much turnaround in their four short years of existance.

Bringing through players, possibly with lower salaries, may also allow us to go for the three designated players and who knows what quality that may provide us with? Although I think we will stick with just the two in our first year and I would expect them to be of a hell of a better quality than Julian De Guzman. 8 goals in 233 career club games (wikipedia stats before someone nails me on that!) is not worthy of taking a DP position at any MLS club.

Obviously no-one knows what the future holds in store for either team. I'll either be right or wrong in my playoff assertions but I still firmly believe them. Whatever happens, it's going to be a fun road getting that answer and 2011 can't come soon enough.

Playing For The Jersey(s)

2010-04-20T23:38:00.000-07:00

Seattle Sounders unveiled their new third jersey today.

"It's electric" declared the headline. Only in the shock sense. It's hideous, unless you're of a Norwich City persuasion or have trouble seeing in the dark.

I really don't see the point. Then again, I'm an old traditionalist who doesn't like clubs bringing out third strips at the best of times. No matter whether it be the Caps or anyone else.

Only exception I make to this is if it's for some nod to a historical event and even then there's limitations and should really be incorporated into the main home or away kit.

Sounders owner/GM Adrian Hanauer said of the kit that "It's another opportunity to make a statement about our brand". Whenever I see a team bring out a third strip, the only statement it makes to me is that they want to fleece as much money out of the fans as possible.

Of course the unveiling of any new strip at this moment in time just gets us more excited about the new Whitecaps MLS jerseys.

There's still no firm date as to when these will be revealed, but the clever money is on sometime in June. We still don't know too much about them apart from that there will be a sponsor and Bob Lenarduzzi has indicated that the new strips and Club crest will be in a new, modern, refreshing and exciting direction, unlike anything before in the Club's history.

I find this exciting (yeah I know I need to get out more and it goes against my traditionalistic views) but I'm sure some won't be pleased with the final result if it's too far removed from what we've had before.

There's been rumours of navy blue as a colour, which pleases the Scot in me, and a multitude of possible sponsors, but it looks like we still have a few weeks before we'll find out for definite.

As long as we don't have a pointless third strip and there's no colours that make us look like a lifesaver ice lolly then we're doing better than Seattle already.

Ali G Dishes Dirt On TFC

2010-04-19T23:13:00.001-07:00

Some of the chatter doing the rounds before the Caps season started was that we were about to sign TFC reject Ali Gerba.

Now how close this was to becoming a reality I don't know, but it didn't happen for whatever reasons and I don't think it was a big loss for the Whitecaps.

Even though we do seriously need a proven goalscorer at the moment, Gerba doesn't have the top level credentials I feel we're looking for. He was a flop at Toronto in the MLS, arguably the highest level League he has played in, with just one goal in 11 appearances. His international goal record is impressive on paper but he hasn't turned it on the same way at club level when he's needed to.

Why was he a flop though in the MLS? Was there more to it? Well he seems to think so, citing playing with a knee injury, and if you haven't already seen this interesting interview doing the rounds from The Score's website, then check it out:

It's a very interesting interview with regards to what comes across as the shambles that is Toronto FC right now.

That said, you have to possibly take some of what is said with a pinch of salt. He says he doesn't have an axe to grind and is not just being bitter and out for revenge, but he is clearly unhappy with what went on and how he left. This is a man after all that has played for 14 clubs in 11 years (albeit turning out 3 times for the Montreal Impact and twice for the Toronto Lynx in that time), which should raise some questions in itself.

Watching the interview, all I could think of was that it came across like a "shoot" interview in wrestling. Gerba was very composed and articulate the whole time however and came across very well meaning in taking these "problems" public.

Gerba is particularly critical of TFC Manager and Director of Football Mo Johnston and new head coach Predrag "Preki" Radosavljević and all of the "politics" involved at the football club and "how nasty it can get".

Preki's tactics are slated and he hints that he may not have the full support of the dressing room. There appears to be a lack of enjoyment there. Not good news for TFC fans but great news for the Caps facing them soon in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship games.

Gerba also talks about the "lack of professionalism" when coming to treating individuals, but not how the club itself is run. MoJo is also accused of making some bad decisions, to the detriment of TFC making the playoffs. This of course will just add fuel to the fire of the TFC fans who have had enough failure and want him out immediately.

In between all the dirty laundry, the interview does possibly give us the quote of the season:

"They treat me like, I don't know if I was a rapist or some kind of a bad influence on the dressing room"

WTF!!!

So was he not given a fair chance or did he just not make the grade and wants to hit back? We'll possibly never know, but there is still an outside chance that he could end up playing in the MLS with the Whitecaps or Montreal down the road. Then we'll know if he is just bitter or has a case.

Although I've just said that the Caps not signing him wasn't a big loss, I'd be prepared to give him his chance here, as long as he was fully fit when he got here and that he isn't a bad influence on the dressing room (he says he is far from being that).

More pleasing to the ears of Caps fans was Gerba's feeling that Vancouver (and Montreal) are more likely to reach the playoffs before Toronto do! I think that's something we all feel!

In the meantime, if I was a TFC fan just now, this interview would make me more angry around what is happening at the club than I possibly already was. There's certainly a lot of questions that have come out of Gerba's interview.

How the club will address these to appease the fans will be very interesting or they can just ignore them and pretend that everything in the MLSE garden is rosy. It could be a very long season for TFC fans, but not in a playoff sense.

Roll on May 19th.

Not Much Magic In The City Of Miami

2010-04-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

I had such high hopes of the NASL when it was first announced. It was a chance for the Clubs to take control and run the League the proper way a League should be run.

Now obviously it’s still early days. All of the legal wrangling, and the delay in even having any details of a season to begin with, hasn’t set the League off on the first steps it would have liked. The League owners hands are obviously tied in a number of areas and are still shackled by their forced association with the USL.

It would be harsh to be too judgemental at this stage but things haven’t got off to a great start so far. Crowds have been very low and you do have to wonder how the League can possibly survive once ourselves, Portland, Montreal and all our fans leave for the MLS over the next wee while.

I felt that our home opener last week drew a disappointing crowd of just 4,934 in the grand scheme of things. It seems great though when you look at the 1,235 Miami drew for theirs last weekend and the 1,694 and 1,029 Carolina and Baltimore attracted respectively to their home openers on Friday night.

At least St Louis drew a sold out 5,695 fans to the first professional men’s football match in the city in 33 years. There’s hope there if Claude Anelka doesn’t fuck things up too much (more on that later in the week in the lead up to our game against them next Saturday).

We’d love to the see the League thrive and grow to become a real alternative to the MLS in North America. To do that they need quality franchises. Miami certainly don’t seem to meet that criteria if yesterday was anything to go by.

We covered the shambolic match webcast in yesterday’s blog. We don’t know if we can point the finger of blame at Miami for that, we think not as the other feeds yesterday were also atrocious with regards to the buffering aspect. The other unprofessionalism on display was certainly the work of the Miami franchise.

Making PA advertising announcements during action on the field is just plain tacky. To blast out music whilst the game takes place is just downright wrong. They had the Rocky theme blaring out during one Miami attack yesterday FFS.

I thought there would be some rule against this but turns out there isn’t. There really needs to be if Leagues here want to avoid a mickey mouse tag. Once the NASL have sole control of their affairs, that’ll hopefully be one of the new rules they’ll introduce for the sake of the professionalism in the League.

Sure it’s not Miami’s fault they have to play in vast stadiums devoid of any atmosphere and fans, but you then have to ask, does a franchise with such a low fan base actually deserve to be in the second tier of the game in North America?

You do have to feel sorry for the hardcore Miami fans. At least they try. They’re enthusiastic, try and make noise throughout and it’s not their fault that the rest of the city don’t appear to give a fuck about the team.

I hate to knock anyone that is trying to generate an atmosphere at a game, but come on guys, your Miami sound machine calypso wing is more grating than atmosphere inducing after a while. I really felt we had been conned and were in fact "watching" a subliminal advertising campaign to make us go and see Stomp.

I did find it hilarious though that they were chanting "this is our house". Not something I'd be fucking bragging about! Never heard anyone proud to say "we love this shithole" before.

Still, good marks for effort lads. It can’t be easy for you there.

There was an advertising board at the game in Spanish that said "America's team". Looking at the crowd they had at yesterday's match, someone seems to have forgotten to tell America that fact.

NASL's Web Of Fear Disappoints

2010-04-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

The Caps got their first away game of the season under their belts this evening. It was far from a classic. It wasn't even pulp fiction. A boring 0-0 draw with Miami, in a match that had little to excite, the Caps were left ruing Marlon James' second half penalty miss as they had to be content with leaving Florida with just a point.

We'd hoped to do a match report of the game in the blog tonight, but that task was made pretty much impossible by the horrendous live webcast of the game, so if you want one, you can find it HERE on the official Caps site.

When the NASL announced on April 8th that all 180 USSF Division 2 games would be available to watch free on each Club's website this season, we thought it was great news. If today's broadcast was anything to go by then I honestly think I'd rather have nothing but post-match highlights to watch.

The Miami feed was pretty much unwatchable, buffering every 25 seconds or so, constantly stopping and starting the action. When you actually did get to watch a brief part of the game, it would then suddenly jump ahead of time to catch up to the live action – bizarrely usually when someone was just about to kick the ball or there was some kind of goalmouth action.

We originally were told that the problem was at Miami's end, but fans looking to watch the other NASL games this evening were faced with the same problems and there were also buffering problems last week, although not nearly as bad as tonight.

Even if we had managed to get an uninterupted feed of the game, it would have been horrendous viewing anyway.

We won't even begin to go into Miami's unprofessional set up (we'll save that for tomorrow!), but the whole feed had no commentary, no replays (which I can live with), no scoreboard on the screen and camerawork that appeared to be filmed by someone who has never actually seen a camera before in their life, never mind a football match.

It was like some kind of psychadelic trip at times. One particular fine mazy run by Caps sub Nizar Khalfan seemed like it was filmed from some amusement ride. It's not exaggerating to say you felt seasick after watching parts of it.

The cameraperson seemed to have trouble following the ball. We had choppy pans, zooming in and out rapidly in the same move, numerous sky shots, headless players running with the ball and ball-less players who were at least running with a head. They even had people walking in front of the camera! I mean FFS!

My team in Scotland, East Fife, got brand new college students to film their games this season as part of their coursework and they did at least ten times the better job than the person filming tonight.

Whoever was responsible should be ashamed of themselves. Is this really what the USSF are proud to have their branding on, as was the case for the whole of the match that we could see?

Last year's USL webcasts had their problems. A major one for me was that I had to keep watching it via Firefox as Internet Explorer and Vista just wasn't a working combination for it on my laptop. The commentators ranged from the excellent to the clueless and some of the camerawork wasn't the best. Compared to what we have this year it was worthy of an oscar.

This is a free service we know, but it's not even worth that amount of money. They should be paying us to watch it. What we have now is regression, not progression surely not the image NASL are looking to project.

It was not only embarrassing to the League, it was also unacceptable and very damaging to the product and the game in North America. If the League are hoping to eventually promote themselves as a serious rival to the MLS then they need to get the basic things like this sorted out pronto.

What worries us as a group is that we are trying to grow the Southsiders this season. Trying to reach out to what will be the Whitecaps post MLS entry crowd now and get them on board with the current team. To show them how good it can be watching the team when it's not "major league".

Can you imagine organising a pub night to show an away game to a new and eager audience but then you are faced with this complete shambles? Try explaining to them that the problem is not at your end and that it's not you that are shockingly disorganised.

This was easily the worst coverage of a football match I've ever seen in my entire football watching life. It was a fucking joke. Roll on the MLS indeed.

Promoting MLS Is Not Going To Be Easy

2010-04-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

Well that's the hockey playoffs here and the city has gone it's usual Canucks crazy way, leaving very little to no room for the Whitecaps and Southsiders to try and grab sports fans attentions.

I've said it before in the blog that, yes, I know it's a hockey mad city. I think most of us know it didn't always used to be this way as well, but changing that just now is not likely to happen any time soon, so best we just learn to co-exist with that fact and just look at how best to get our foothold into the sporting public's attention here for MLS coming.

In amongst all of the happiness that the new season had begun and the Caps had got off to a winning start, was the surprising fact that the attendance at Saturday's season opener against Minnesota was surprisingly low. Only 4,934 fans turned up for the first game of the season on a beautiful and sunny April Sunday afternoon with no other major sporting distractions in the city.

I find that both alarming and quite frankly shocking. The Caps already have more season ticket deposits for next season than those who could be bothered to turn up last weekend.

The Whitecaps have done a great job marketing themselves in recent seasons and this year's campaign is going to be a cracker. It's hard to see what more they can do really.

Our obvious comparison to aim for is what's happened in Seattle. They've embraced the MLS. It's going to be harder here on a number of counts.

First of all, as an avid lifelong football fan myself, I find the MLS pretty boring most of the time. This will change next season when I actually have an interest in how other teams are performing, as it will affect our standing.

Did anyone see last night's Toronto-Philadelphia match up? Talk about a cure for insomnia, especially the first half, yet a record crowd of 21,978 packed in to BMO Field to see TFC win 2-1.

At the moment Toronto are "Canada's team" in MLS terms. We could argue that they're the team we need to excite football lovers about MLS action across the country and especially those in Vancouver that prefer to watch the game on television just now. That they're partially responsible in helping excite Vancouver for the MLS. If any of that is true, then we're pretty fucked!

TFC are a shambles this season so far. The only excitement being generated is watching to see how are they going to manage to fuck things up this week. Last night they got out of jail thanks to bad goalkeeping, poor Philly discipline (a developing trend already this season) and a penalty with nine minutes to go saving their blushes after allowing their ten men opposition to get back into the game.

If I was in two minds about whether to buy a MLS season ticket next year, they'd not be selling the idea to me.

Thankfully we have the atmosphere and crowds generated by both Toronto and Seattle to possibly help us out. Of course, it would be easier to do this if people could actually see these things more regularly.

Last night's game was on Gol TV. Not only does that channel cost most people extra money on their package, for me at least, the picture quality of the channel isn't the best (that may just be a Telus thing).

Finding regular MLS action on our screens that doesn't involve TFC is extremely difficult. I'd love us to be able to easily watch every Sounders game live up here. To let people know what we can expect and achieve come 2011. To set up some electrifying derbies.

I'd like to watch other teams too. I'm realistic enough to know that the standard networks aren't going to be airing this in primetime viewing but the MLS should be making sure that their product is being aired somehow to as many people as possible across the continent, on whatever channel(s) that might be.

Part of the reason I don't care about the MLS is that I can't get to watch very much of it unless I do so online. That's the kind of thing that can not only kill the Whitecaps ambitions but also the League itself.

It might not be pretty to watch at times, but a lot of Leagues are like that. A lot of sport can be like that. At least give us the chance to make our minds up about it.

You'll only kill interest by causing disinterest.

Friendly Announcements Don't Light My Fire

2010-04-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

"Impact to play AC Milan at Olympic Stadium" was the dramatic headline in today's Globe and Mail.

It was also announced that Montreal were to take on another Serie A side, Fiorentina, ten days before the Milan fixture.

At first glance it was impressive news, then when you saw the dates and looked that little bit deeper, you realised that it wasn't that exciting after all.

With the World Cup just days away both the Italian sides will be bereft of their main, big name talent. In fact, it's hard to list any big name Milan players that are likely to be there off the top of my head.

Are football fans in this country really so starved of seeing big name teams that they're happy putting up with any crap that comes along their way?

I was disappointed last season when the Everton friendly with the Caps fell through. Less so that there were no friendlies at all for us over the course of the season. The Everton game would have been a good team coming to Swangard. A worthwhile friendly for both teams and the fans.

I'm not a fan of friendlies at the best of times. Competitive games are what excite me and it always has been that way. It's probably why my wife hates playing me at anything. Can't play for fun!

If the Caps don't get a "name" friendly this season again, then I really couldn't care less. It's a distraction to the season more than anything. Why Montreal would want to play a pointless friendly against a weak side just three days before they face the Caps in what could be a vital Canadian Championship game is a complete mystery to me. Maybe they plan to just lie down against us this year like they did with TFC last time around.

If I was given the choice of watching a bunch of unknown players play for a big name side or a pretty much full strength English Championship or League One side, I'd pick the latter every time.

I can't see how friendlies like these two actually help the game in Canada. Maybe the Impact fans are just very easily pleased.

Programme Culture May Be About To Take Off In Canada

2010-04-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm a collector. A pack rat I believe you call them here. Wasn't a term I was familiar with till I married my wife, but she soon let me know it!

One of my loves is collecting football memorabilia and especially football programmes. I used to have a huge collection but when I moved over to Canada from Scotland, I felt it wise to get rid of a lot of them.

Well, some at least, obviously not my near complete East Fife home programme collection from the 1950s to present day, along with all my Fife aways from the 80's onwards. Even though they just sit in their folders in a cabinet, I still like to have them near!

Football programmes (notice the proper spelling!) have changed almost beyond recognition in the last couple of decades. Many were forced to with the onset and popularity of the prolific fanzine industry that sprung up from the late 1980s in the UK, of which I was proudly a part and still am, albeit in web form. In fact, they're not programmes anymore of course, they're "matchday magazines".

One of the things I miss when it comes to watching football in Vancouver is the lack of a proper gameday programme at the Caps. One that is different for every match. Still being involved with producing the East Fife one doesn't help!

The programmes that the Caps have produced over the last couple of seasons have been excellent. Glossy, packed with info and pics and of course best of all, free. The problem with them though was that they were basically season-long ones and you were getting one/two over the course of the year.

The whole programme culture isn't big here. I know and accept that. Online media has taken over so much of the written sports coverage in general that printed matter doesn't have the same appeal to many people any more. Even newspapers suffer at the hands of all this 24 hour constant information stream that is available to us.

It wasn't always like that in North America of course and I have a large collection of old NASL Kick Magazines to prove it. There was a demand for programmes before.

Of the local sports teams, the Vancouver Giants hockey and Vancouver Canadians baseball teams sell one-off season long programmes. The BC Lions sell a programme for every home game but the information inside only changes twice a season. It's just the cover that changes for every game. Sad person that I am, I buy one for every game anyway! The Canucks were similar, changing it a little more over the season. This season though they've switched to game specific, fold out programmes, which is great. Doesn't have much info in it and it's basically a glorified poster, but hey, it's free.

The Canucks way is the road that the Whitecaps have chosen to go this season. I was delighted on Sunday to see individual matchday programmes issued for this season. For those who haven't seen them yet, they're free foldout ones like the Canucks with squad listings, club news, ads and a player poster. Basic, but great to see. Baby steps and all that.

But could the football programme culture in Canada be about the change? If it is, then we're going to have Toronto FC to thank for it!

TFC announced on Sunday that they are going to be issuing gameday programmes from this season, starting with their home opener against Philadelphia Union this Thursday.

Selling for $5, the 64 page programmes will be produced in a limited supply for each game but sound great. New content is promised for each issue and they sound like your good old traditional UK style programme with articles, history, news, stats and a lot more.

It's what we need here in Canada, so a big well done to TFC from me for taking this step. Hopefully it's one that the Caps will follow next season and other clubs around both the MLS and NASL.

I dunno, first real grass, now football programmes. Toronto FC are starting to turn into a proper football club. Scary!

Caps Brace Sees Opening Day Win As Deldo Fails To Penetrate

2010-04-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

The sun was shining, the Southside were in fine voice and humour and the Caps notched two second half goals for the opening day win. Welcome back football, you've been sorely missed.

Season openers are often pretty dire affairs, with both teams struggling to find their feet and shape and with little entertainment on offer. To be fair, that was pretty much the first half.

To give Minnesota Stars full credit, they had the better chances in the first period in what was their inaugural competitive match.

Vancouver threatened first and had the ball in the net on 16 minutes, but Dever Orgill's effort was ruled out for handball. Two minutes later and the Southside were screaming for a penalty when Marlon James looked to have been impeded in the box but the referee waved play on.

It was the Caps who were breathing a sigh of relief moments later though when Greg Janicki crashed a LeiLei Gao free kick off his own post, with Jay Nolly beaten. It was the closest either team came to scoring in the half and the Stars were also unfortunate when Nolly pulled off a tremendous reaction save to keep out a deflection from a corner on 34 minutes.

As the half came to a close the Caps felt aggrieved when journeyman Stars keeper Louis Crayton went down injured following a clash with Orgill in the box and the referee blew to allow treatment as Vancouver piled forward towards the empty net. Crayton was eventually stretchered off, but play could have been stopped after we had scored!

So goal-less at the half but you felt that the Caps would turn on the style in the second half against a pretty average Stars side, and they did, piling on the pressure from the kick off.

The Caps should have had a penalty for handball on 54 minutes but again the ref waved the appeals away but Vancouver were just delayed taking the lead. They did just that on 62 minutes when Luca Bellisomo powerfully headed home Martin Nash's free kick from the left.

Vancouver had a few half chances before Marlon James tied things up with 14 minutess remaining when the big St Vincent and Grenadine striker flicked home Nizar Khalfan's cross from the right. Khalfan looked excellent when he came on and was causing a lot of problems on the right wing.

Minnesota could have pulled a goal back with ten minutes remaining, but there was no-one in the box to put away Melvin Tarley's dangerous cross across the face of the goal.

It was typical of a poor second half from the Stars, who showed very little against what was almost a Caps onslaught. Later on in the season when Vancouver are a bit sharper, the scoreline would have been a lot more one sided. As it was, the 2-0 final sets up Vancouver's season nicely.

It's hard to take too much from the game. It'll be quite a few games I think before we see how Teitur's team will be shaped this year. A few players impressed though. I felt that Greg Janicki and Zurab Tsiskaridze were solid and strong at the back. Have great confidence in them both as the season goes on. Khalfan's pace and skill made the difference when he came on and it was good to see Luca on the scoresheet.

If you want to give your opinions on any standout performances then you can vote in our new 3-2-1 competition on the forum. Just go to the thread HERE.

Minnesota have impressed me a lot off the pitch in the build up to the new season and we'll be looking at that in more detail in a future blog post. On it, they still have a lot of work to do.

The Whitecaps have been great for second tier football in North America the past couple of decades. Both the team and the fans have been a huge asset to the USL over the years and now the NASL.

The Leagues clearly recognise this and are sad to see us moving off to MLS pastures new next year. Their thank you present to the Southside apparently being the Minnesota players, or more specifically their names.

It was like a gift from above to be served up a team with players called Deldo, Two-Boys and LeiLei. When the PA guy read out "number 15 Devin Deldo", we just looked at each other and thought we must have misheard. I think we've already had the chants of the season in the Southside in game one!

So with a top notch tailgate, which included the best pulled pork sandwiches ever and a visit from the coaching staff, a fine three points on the pitch and a fun time off it, the 2010 season is off with a bang.

I can't wait for St Louis' visit already. Mon the Caps.

Game Time - At Last

2010-04-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

First off, many apologies for there not being as many Blog updates so far.

We've been working on a new website for the Southsiders and that's taken up most of my free time at the moment. The good news is that it is now finished and you can find it at www.vancouversouthsiders.ca.

New website. New season. It's been a long time coming but finally, we have some live competitive football to watch once again.

We'll catch up with comment on all the latest news over the next week in the Blog, so keep checking back.

As to what this season will bring? Well, we just don't know yet.

The pre season has been no great shakes. We seem to be struggling in the goalscoring department, but have Marcus Haber back on loan from next week's game, so we still have no real idea as to what style and shape of team we'll see in our last Division 2 season.

Last season, we started poorly and ended up in the Championship games. Bob Lenarduzzi has stated that the Club are looking to win every competition they play in this year. It's not just going to be about looking to the MLS future.

That's good enough for me to get excited. Now on to Swangard...

Can The Whitecaps Capture The Vancouver Olympic Fervour?

2010-04-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

We've moved into April, a new season is just eleven days away and the excitement is building. We'll soon get to watch some live competitive football again after the horrible lengthy off season that we have here.

It's our last season outside of the "big" league and no one really knows what it will bring on the pitch. Off it, we're not too sure either. Will there be a string of sell-outs at Swangard, as the lure and build up of the forthcoming move to MLS captivates the Vancouver public's imagination? Or will it just be like the last few seasons where it's the hardcore of true football fans that know that supporting your local team is all that matters, no matter what level they play in?

When I attended the Caps MLS countdown celebrations last week it was great to hear Bob Lenarduzzi and Carl Valentine regale us with tales of the Whitecaps old NASL days. The proper NASL that is! As someone who wasn't in the city at the time and someone who is a football history buff, it was a perfect night out!

The Whitecaps 1979 Soccer Bowl triumph was Vancouver's largest sporting celebration prior to this year's Winter Olympics. When over 100,000 people line the streets to see the celebratory return of the team, you know it's a football mad city.

At least it was then. Is it still now?

I'll be honest here, I personally have concerns as to how the city will treat the Whitecaps move to the "majors" and I sometimes wonder just how much appetite, interest and excitement there is for it and if the interest that is there what need to make this work the way it has elsewhere. I also know I'm not alone. Even The Province's Marc Weber has questioned it on occasions recently.

There's no doubting that there is a huge football loving population in the city, from the multinational ex-pats to homegrown fans. I just haven't seen a lot of evidence that we're going to take the city by storm like the Sounders did in Seattle and TFC did before them in Toronto.

I so want to be proved wrong and I probably will be and this time next year we can all look back at this post and laugh.

Having only moved to Vancouver in 2007, I have nothing to base this on really apart from apprehension. Well that and the friendly between the Caps and David Beckham's LA Galaxy side just a few weeks after I'd moved over.

Now obviously friendly atmospheres are usually a bit stale, but it was awful in BC Place that night. Yes it was packed out but it was mainly young kids and teenybopping girls who just wanted to scream any time the has-been centre of attention went anywhere near the ball. When the crowd had to keep being reminded that they weren't allowed to keep the balls that went in to the stand, it just left me shaking my head in disbelief.

Now, I'm pretty certain that the majority of people in attendance that night won't be the core target market for the new MLS Caps. The strategy is clearly going to be for the Setanta-EPL-European watching stay at homes. It's getting them off their asses and to the games that it going to be the hard part for the Caps front office.

The initial sell out of 5,000 season ticket deposits in less than 48 hours was impressive. It's the next stage that will be key.

At the MLS event last week, as I was walking around with my bag full of new season ticket goodies, several people asked me what the bag was. Discussions then revealed that many of the people in attendance had not purchased season ticket for the forthcoming NASL season, with one adding that he had "no interest in the team just now".

Sad to hear, but not unexpected of course. Even with the buzz of last season and the original MLS announcement and hype, we struggled to sell out Swangard at times. The North American sporting culture is all around "major leagues" and college sports. Division 2 and minor league teams will never carry the same sway. Never.

For the Caps though, the challenge in the next 11 months is to build up a buzz in the city for the 2011 season. To create a hot item ticket. The must have sporting ticket in town. To capture that Olympic buzz and the passion of sports fans all over the lower mainland and beyond.

The BC Lions have been fortunate in moving to the smaller capacity Empire Stadium. Every game will be a sell-out. Tickets will be hard to get. It'll be the hot summer ticket and it should create a demand that will carry forward to their return to BC Place and boost their season tickets sales going forward.

The Caps need such a buzz and in this hockey mad city it will be hard. You just have to look at the recent "Best Of The City Readers Choice" awards handed out by the Westender newspaper last month.

Under the category "Best Local Sports Team", it read: 1st - Vancouver Canucks (no surprise there), 2nd - Vancouver Giants (huge surprise for me), 3rd - BC Lions.

I'd have loved to have known where the Whitecaps placed. I would hope 4th and the Canadians didn't pip us to that spot! Knowing some of the knobs that read and write in to the paper though, it wouldn't surprise me. After all they did vote the Winter Olympics as "The Most Spectacular Failure" just days after everybody else was saying it was the best thing for the city and country ever.

You always have to take such polls with a pinch of salt, but it does show how much work the Caps need to do in establishing the team in the consciousness of the city's sports fans.

In the NASL days of old, the Whitecaps were Vancouver's number one sports team. Carl Valentine was voted the sports hero of the city. Will we see anywhere near this enthusiasm rekindled next year. Those in attendance last Thursday certainly still had it. We just need more from the past, more from the present and lots more for the future.

In the meantime, it's up to all of us Southsiders to make sure we spread the word, bring the newbies, keep the special atmosphere we create and show them why football is the best sport in the world and that the Vancouver Whitecaps games are the one place that you want be next summer. It's an uphill battle on paper, but I think we can do it.

Remember, it's us that will be the ones creating the atmosphere and the buzz. We need to lead by example and hopefully the city will follow.

Mon the Caps.

*** With the new season just around the corner, we'll be upping the regularity of the blog posts from now, so keep checking back ***

One Year To Go: Whitecaps Countdown Event Kicks Off New MLS Season

2010-03-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

The MLS got underway this evening with new boys Philadelphia Union heading west to take on Seattle Sounders at Qwest Field and going down 2-0 in the process.

Watching the game tonight, it was hard not to get excited, as one year from now it's going to be us that's going to be the MLS new boys and hopefully making a better entrance into the League than Philly.

The Caps held a series of events today to mark the one year countdown to our joining the MLS, culminating in some very enjoyable festivities at a sold out event at The Transcontinental in Vancouver this evening.

Club President Bob Lenarduzzi, Director of Football Operations Tom Soehn and Club CEO Paul Barber were all present and the proceedings were MC'd by the wonderful legend that is Carl Valentine.

A number of Southsiders were also in attendance and it was a great opportunity for us to see current fans mingling with guys going back to the NASL days and what are going to be some of our future fans.

As the speeches were made, the excitement in the room was palpable. Memories of the NASL glory days were relayed and for someone like myself who wasn't around in the city at the time, it was a joy to hear. Just what the Caps meant to the city of Vancouver back then was very evident and to be part of bringing that back to a city, forever changed by such a positive Olympics experience, is one we should all look forward to.

The event also gave us the opportunity to pick up our season tickets for this year and let's not forget that we still have a season to look forward to before joining the North American top flight once again.

It's a fact which Bob Lenarduzzi certainly hasn't overlooked and it was pleasing to hear that the Club aren't treating this season as just one of transition. They want this season to be one of success and advancement and Bobby set the goals of winning both the USSF-D2 Championship and the Nutrilite Canadian Championship.

This season will give us the chance to hit the ground running when we go into MLS. We have the opportunity to be the best prepared of any of expansion teams to date and with the enthusiasm, commitment, knowledge and experience that is now clearly guiding the Whitecaps organisation, we have a lot to look forward to.

For now, let's put all this MLS talk aside though and focus on the current season ahead, kicking some Division 2 butt and returning another Championship to Vancouver. Then we can start taking our new opponents apart.

Whitecaps Face A Mountain To Climb In Terms Of Widespread Media Recognition

2010-03-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the Whitecaps and the Vancouver media, I think it's fairly safe to say that we shouldn't expect to see any major changes in the coverage we're getting any time soon - especially in the printed medium.

With pages being devoted to any Canucks player who happens to get a splinter in his finger, the Caps face a hard task to change the way that local journalists view the team and the sport, even when MLS comes around next year.

With the Canucks dominating the back pages most of the year round and the BC Lions taking most of the summer coverage, there is little room for much else. Pages donated to boring stats and boxscores (surely that's what the internet is made for) and surprisingly, to me at least as a non Canadian, the masses of print given over to the local university teams are baffling and of no interest to me and I say that as a huge sports fan.

I want to read actual stories that interest me, as do so many others. You know, real journalism. I know football and football fans are in a minority in the city, but soon the Caps will be attracting more fans to games than the Canucks. No wonder the daily printed pay papers are dying a slow death the world over, we've forgotten what their purpose should be.

If anyone wants to know the kind of crap we as football fans in Vancouver have to put up with, check out Wednesday's "Back of the Net" blog by the Province's Marc Weber.

This piece of lazy journalism really surprised me, as Weber is one of the main friends of football in the city and a journalist I usually enjoy reading. His blog post is based on THIS original article from the Seattle PI website. It's an article which at no time mentions the hooligan word.

Why would that be? Well perhaps that's because it was a one off incident and one that we don't know the whole story to. This can be backed up by the fact that last year a staggering 629,135 paying punters went to Qwest Field to watch the Sounders and there was not one arrest. Not one (see this Article on Prost Amerika for more details). That's an amazing statistic and one which the football loathing journos will of course ignore if they can get a chance to paint all football fans as thugs.

Our Southsiders President's comment on Weber's blog is spot on. The Vancouver media would like nothing more than to crucify the Caps, the fans and football. I mean, how dare a team challenge the Canucks' dominance in hockeytown? Any small, isolated incident of violence or thuggery linked to football will be blown out of all proportions. It's pathetic, it really is.

It's something we all know and it's something that we as a fans group have no real control over when there's 20,000+ people coming to games next year. There's going to be some arseholes. Look at some of the drunken dicks that get thrown out of every single Lions game I've ever attended (and I'm a season ticket holder with them so it's not just the odd game). I don't read reports of that after every home game.

So stories like this one don't really surprise me, just annoy me. What I'm most surprised by though is that it's come from the pen of a journalist like Marc Weber. It's really disappointing to see him stoop to such journalistic standards. I guess we should start getting used to it.

More Chances To See Caps Squad Take Shape

2010-03-10T23:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you that can't wait until the season begins and need that live action fix now, the Whitecaps announced some more pre-season fixtures this week and there's a couple of chances for us to get our vocal chords in fine working order for the season ahead.

I don't know about anyone else, but Saturday killed my throat. I hate that early season fatigue!

The game's are all pretty much low key and kick off this coming Saturday at noon, with an inter squad match on field 5 up at the Burnaby Lakes Sports Complex. The following Saturday (20th) sees a trip to the island to take on the UVic Vikes in Victoria and I'm sure a few of us (the lucky ones that aren't working like me!) will fancy a trip over the water.

The Province had mentioned last week that a game in the States was in the works against Portland and so it has come to pass. Friday 26th will see us take on the Timbers at the Sounders old home of the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila in Washington. That's a strange one, but not so much as the 10.30am kick off that's put the kibosh on my plans of heading down south for that one!

The last game that has currently been announced is on March 31st against the UBC Thunderbirds at Thunderbird Park. No time has been announced for this one, but hopefully it will be an evening game, or at least late afternoon, to give more of us the chance to head out to this one.

If you're planning on heading along to any of the games, let's get some carpooling going and get as many people out as we can. Head over to the FORUM and let us know.

Sounders Visit Whets Appetite For Atmosphere In MLS

2010-03-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

Vancouver fans got a taste of things to come yesterday, when the Seattle Sounders paid a visit to Swangard for a pre-season friendly in front of a crowd of 3,895.

I'm not a huge fan of friendlies, I'll be honest. Never have been. Whether it be pre-season or a big glamour match, they mostly tend to leave me a little flat. Pre-season tours and even the odd away game friendly are more fun. Had a blast at many of those following East Fife over the years. Still meaningless, but at least more enjoyable.

The healthy turnout from Seattle that made the cross border journey north on Saturday will attest to that. The ECS and others provided a noisy travelling army a couple of hundred strong and it was hard not to stand there and think how good the atmosphere at the Caps games against the Sounders and Portland Timbers will be come MLS time next year.

It was great to have an atmosphere at the game from both sets of fans. There was a lot of banter heading from our way to theirs and probably from them to us. I'm not sure it was fully picked up on due to the fact that we have no shed to help our sound funnel out and the Sounders fans were far away in Section F. It would have been a lot more fun to have them in either section A or some bleachers to the east. Verbal jousting is what the game needs here.

What might not be something to look forward to next season is the actual football on the pitch! I haven't particularly enjoyed watching MLS games up to this point. That might be because I have no real interest in who is playing and couldn't care less who wins (although anyone beating Toronto FC is always a little fun to watch - minus the truly awful CBC commentators of course) or it might just be the fact that I've spent my entire football watching life up until now watch football outside the top tier and I've developed a "small" league fan mentality. Who can say?!

Hopefully yesterday's game wasn't that useful an insight into what we might see from next season as the action was dull and at times non existant.

We can't really have expected too much more. The season build up is still going for both sides and when a game has as many substitutions going on as we had yesterday, then it's hard for any flow to pick up in the game and it's more really a case of the fans being able to give the new guys the once over, which it did.

My initial thoughts from the game is that we seem to have a stronger defence this season and one with more depth. I liked Greg Janicki. I feel than having him and Wesley Charles at the back will see us taking no prisoners. Hopefully without losing any players in the process! Both seem rocks and the type of tough tackling, no nonsense guys that I personally love to have in my team's backline.

I have early concerns as to where the goals are going to come from this season. Naturally our strikers are not going to be fully sharp yet, but that killer instinct was clearly lacking yesterday, as were the decisive balls through to them.

We also seemed slower than Seattle or perhaps it's just that the pace is the MLS is faster than USL/NASL, so it's a learning curve for our guys.

Still, a 0-0 scoreline is respectable. We seldom seemed troubled and we seldom troubled them. Standard pre-season fare, but at least it gave us some live football to watch again.

There'll be a few more friendlies to come, so let's get out there and get our vocal chords full warmed up for the season opener in five weeks.

Mon the Caps.

Sounders Set To Be Sent Homewards To Think Again

2010-03-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

Ah, there's nothing like a local derby to get the heart thumping. It's even better when it actually means something, but we'll have to wait until next year for that and make do with a pre season friendly for now.

The visit of our Cascadia rivals Seattle Sounders on Saturday sees the Whitecaps first match on home soil since the Championship first leg tie against Montreal in October.

Five long months without live football to watch is a killer. The Olympics filled some of that void, but it's still too long.

Seattle fans clearly feel the same way and at least 150 of them are expected to make the cross border journey this weekend for the precursor to our soon to be electric MLS rivalry.

Despite the crappy 4pm kick off time meaning I'll miss around the first 20 minutes, I can't wait, and as part of the pre match build up the Southsiders took part in a podcast with the excellent Prost Amerika website which you can listen to HERE.

Warning: It's very Scottish!

It's 27 minutes of banter about everything from the Caps to the MLS to gold medal hockey games and of course the smelly people of Cowdenbeath.

For those of you wanting to read the article that's mentioned towards the end of the interview around awaydays in the MLS, you can read it HERE.

Roll on Saturday.

Vancouver Gets Back To Some Sense Of Normality - Unfortunately

2010-03-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

They were a long time coming and in the end the 21st Winter Olympic Games seemed to be over in a flash of the eye.

Personally speaking, February 2010 has been the best month of my life. I have so many memories to take from the Olympics and they will be with me till my dying days. It was a great experience and I hope to continue it on just that little longer come the Paralympics next week.

I hope the paralympics are also a huge success. Those guys deserve not to just be the after party. The tickets are very affordable and I'm going to quite a few things at that and I can't wait for that to begin now!

Vancouver was transformed and for the better. All the doom merchants have slid away back to their corners, wondering what to complain about next. Our beautiful city was showcased to the world and the city has changed for the better and hopefully for the long term as a result. Yes there will be debt left after it all, yes there will still be the homeless and other problems that existed before, but we shouldn't dwell on the negatives. I'm glad we hosted the world.

As a non Canadian I was proud to have my friends back in my old home see what my new home was like. I know they were impressed.

So what has all this got to do with football I can sense you wondering. Why is this in our Southsiders blog?

The Canadian sporting culture, and to a certain extent the culture of the country as a whole, has often puzzled me. I know we are a proud nation. I know we are a sports mad nation. So why did we not show this to the full extent before these games? What was it that brought out this outpouring of noise, passion and fervant support? Where was it all this time?

It is ok to make a lot of noise at sporting events. It is ok to generate an electric atmosphere. These just add to your enjoyment. Sitting on your hands and resting your vocal chords detracts from the gametime experience. There is nothing wrong with wanting your team and your country to be the best in the world and to beat all comers. Hatred of rivals adds to the rivalry.

We all know that and now a lot more people across this great city and this great country know that as well.

Hopefully for those Vancouverites in attendance, the Olympics will let them see what atmosphere sporting events in the city can generate. The singing, the chanting, the cheering, the passion. That, to me, is what sport is all about. That's what sport invokes in people and around the world, football is the sport that does this best.

There's not many places you can go these days and yell your head off for a couple of hours and be surrounded by like minded people. Football gives you that. It's not sterile, screen generated atmospheres telling you when to make some noise. That noise comes naturally to us.

Hockey and throwball don't have the same fan reactions. You can see that in the crowd chants. They're basic, they're repetitive and predictable, they lack the terracing humour. Even with all the outpouring and chanting that the Olympics brought, there seemed to be a lack of variety in what to chant. The throngs wanted to let themselves go, but at times seemed like they just needed a little helping hand. They needed us in there to get things kicking off big time really.

But baby steps. The Vancouver public have now found out the joy of cheering. The fun of chanting. The passion of roaring on your team to success and beating everyone in your way. They have a taste for what football fans around the world have long known the joys of.

It's what we have in the Southside and hopefully the Olympics will have given people a desire for more. More noise. More fervour. More passion. More fun.

If it has, then there's only one place in the city for them to come to. They won't get that kind of buzz a the Canucks or the Lions.

Vancouver. The Whitecaps and the Southsiders await you. Your enthusiastic passion does have a long term home in the city long after the Olympics.

Welcome to the Southside. Welcome to your new home.

The Sound Of Seattle Comes A Calling

2010-02-10T23:32:00.001-08:00

Vancouver Whitecaps announced an exciting pre season friendly today, with Cascadia rivals Seattle Sounders coming to Swangard on Saturday 6th March.

Hopefully the result will be a little better than last season's closed door defeat down at Qwest Field. Either way, it's a match we're all looking forward to already.

For most, it will be the first chance to see the squad that Teitur has assembled for the season ahead and it will also give the Southside a good match to warm up our vocal chords in. No weird games in sporting complexes in the middle of nowhere to start us off this year!

The last time Vancouver fans saw the Caps take on the Sounders in any match was back in 2008. Too long when you have a fierce rivalry to maintain and build upon.

Back then of course it was in the Sounders USL days and a season in which we saw the Whitecaps become USL Champions once again.

Looking back, it's amazing to see how far Seattle have come since they joined the MLS. Their crowds have been an amazing runaway success story, that still shows no sign of stopping.

A cap of 22,000 season tickets initially has now crept up to 32,000 for their forthcoming second season and all this after recording a MLS record breaking average home crowd of 30,943 in 2009.

Tremendous stuff and there's even talk that their attendances will be at least 37,000 for this year and possibly more.

You could ask where were all these people when the Sounders were playing in USL. Same with Toronto of course with the Lynx and undoubtedly the same for ourselves in Vancouver as well.

It is a shame that the general North American public only care about a league that has "major" stupidly stuck in the title. A shame and sad, but it's their loss. They miss out on the intimacy of it all that we enjoy just now. As many of you will soon find out for possibly the first time in your football watching lives. The bigger crowds mean a bigger buzz, atmosphere and noise but it's not as special as what we enjoy and create just now.

I certainly wouldn't knock the fans of Seattle that do come out now. They've been a credit to their team, their city and the MLS. The Sounders have created a buzz in Seattle that is truly sweeping across the city.

When I was down to see my beloved 49ers play the Seahawks a few weeks ago I was amazed at how many people were walking around the city wearing Sounders gear. There were also several conversations about the Sounders taking place at the stadium and the guy beside me was Sounders season ticket holder and described them as "his main team to watch" in Seattle.

As a newcomer to Vancouver, I still have slight fears that the crowds of yesteryear, and the original NASL, may not return as we think come 2011. If we can create anything like they have done in Seattle though, then it's going to be electric.

The Caps match against the Sounders next month may be meaningless in the grand scheme of things but it's a reminder of what's just around the corner.

At $15 a ticket, get yours from the Caps office now and let's get our singing started early this year.

Whitecaps Season Takes Shape At Last

2010-02-08T23:56:00.000-08:00

The fixtures for the 2010 season finally came out for the Vancouver Whitecaps today. In their last season in the "lower level" of the USL/NASL, it's the usual ragtag batch of fixtures, with some highpoints, some low points and some scratching your head at points ahead.

One of the big complaints from fans about the USL (and one of the reasons many were happy to see the NASL breakaway league formed) was their ridiculous fixture scheduling. Despite this being the Caps final season with a senior team USL connection, it wouldn't be the same if we weren't left unhappy about the fixtures laid out for the season ahead.

The Caps thirty fixture season kicks off at home to new boys NSC Minnesota Stars on April 11th and winds up with what is sure to be an explosive encounter against Portland Timbers on October 2nd.

Vancouver's home games will see them have ten weekend fixtures, split evenly between Saturday and Sunday matches, two games on a Wednesday, two on a Thursday and just one Friday night match.

The latter is particularly disappointing, as the Friday night matches in recent seasons have had some of the best atmospheres and I know were a particular favourite choice for myself.

Kick off times have yet to be confirmed, but hopefully we won't have too many kid friendly and atmosphere sapping afternoon Sunday kick offs.

Looking at Vancouver's fixtures as a whole, a lot of the horrendous aspects of previous USL campaigns have gone. There are no more back to back or two games in three days scenarios that blighted the fixture lists of the past and for that not only the fans, but the players, will be truly happy. There are a few two games in four days situations but that's no different to leagues elsewhere in the world.

Some other disappointing aspects of the fixtures are no home games for a month between June 9th and July 8th, failing to cash in on the football buzz that will hit the city during the World Cup. Five away games fill that void instead.

The Southsiders had been hoping for a weekend trip over the water to Victoria on May 8th to see the Caps PDL side take on the Highlanders. Those plans have unfortunately been scuppered by the senior side taking on Crystal Palace Baltimore at home that night instead. With the USL having fingers in both League's pies, you'd think they might take such matters into account in an attempt to grow the game and the rivalry between the two sides (Vancouver will most likely be keeping a PDL side even after they join the MLS).

When talking about potential crowd pullers though, the fact that only one Caps match will clash with the BC Lions should help get the punters in. The one match that does clash is the season closer against Portland, which should result in a full house anyway.

The Portland games are the ones I was most looking forward to seeing on the calendar. With it being the only realistic away trips possible in the season, a Thursday night game and the Saturday before the July 4th festivities in the States, with all the traffic and border problems that that entails, was not quite what was hoped for, but I'm sure the Southsiders will be well represented on both occasions no matter what. I know I can't wait to get back to the red hot atmosphere of PGE Park.

The end of season contest between the Caps and Timbers at Swangard, with the Cascadia Cup possibly at stake, is a cracking way to end the regular season and set up the three weeks of play off football thereafter.

Despite all the moans, at least it's exciting that the fixtures are out now and as someone pointed out, at least we have a season to watch now after all the wrangling.

No matter all the good and bad points of it all, the only thing that matters is that kick off is only 62 days away and I for one can't wait for it all to get underway.

C'mon the Caps!

Are We Having Fong Yet? Not Really, No

2010-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

Being an arty bunch, the Southsiders hit the theatre last night. Vancouver's Vogue Theatre to be precise, to see local comedian Gary Fong and friends.

It's not every night that we'll get the chance to go to a premiere airing of a video featuring our group, so off we went.

Anyone who was in the Southside on September 18th last year, for the Caps game against Cleveland, will remember the arrival that evening of a strange character called Gary Fong.

Gary spoke to various members of the Southside that night, recorded and took part in some chants and had spoken to the players and Bob Lenarduzzi beforehand for a video that got it's first airing last night.

Fong is a comedy character created by Ken Kirby. A Chinese realtor, eager for the sale and promoting renting, buying and reasing, sorry, leasing. It's not exactly what would be my first choice of creation for comedy gold. Having endured a two hour show of him last night, it turns out that in fact it is far from being comedy bronze, never mind gold.

Let's just say it was a long night!

The Caps were well represented, with Bob Lenarduzzi and a number of the players attending, along with a group of us Southsiders.

The Whitecaps video aired in the first half of the show and was fantastic. If anyone has checked out Fong's footage on the net, his strengths clearly lie in the recorded skits and spoof interviews and infomercials, with the stand up comedy aspect of his act very poor and pretty unfunny. That pretty much sums up the night's proceedings.

The Caps video featured a chat with Bobby L which ends with Fong getting him to sign some blown up pictures of an ad he did in the 70's, with Bobby's head and chest hair very prominent! There's some chat with the players then footage of Gary in the Southside, starting on the outskirts, slowly working his way into the throng and ending with us singing that he carries a packet of sweets and has a cheeky smile.

The vid went down well with the audience and what came across is how well Bob Lenarduzzi is thought of in the city. We even serenaded Gary with a reprise of the song at the end of the segment, which brought laughs from him (and the audience) as he stuck his head around the backscreen to see what was going on.

All great publicity for the Caps and showed the passion and a little of the atmosphere in the Southside as well, for those unfamiliar.

We really should have called it a day at the break though. It was the worst second half performance I've seen since Carole Anne Chenard in the USL Championship game at Swangard last year.

A lot of the blame for that lay with Fong's sidekick. In drag as Gary's long suffering secretary Ethel, the guy was amusing. In other characters and, worse, as himself, he was appallingly bad. His stint at the start of the second half was the most embarrassing I've seen in a long time, and as someone who's seen some pretty crap acts at the Edinburgh Fringe over the years, that's saying something. By the time a "you're so shit you're unbelievable" shout echoed out from the seats (I'm sorry, I really couldn't help it by that point!!), he couldn't even respond to the heckles and just bowed his head, lowered his mic and walked offstage.

I really would have left at that point if it hadn't been for the fact I was in the middle of a row. It was worth staying till the end just for the funny show closer "Katz Danz" segment, but for those that didn't attend you didn't miss too much. That's over two hours of my life I'm not getting back!

We'll let you know when the video ends up on his website or on You Tube. Trust us, it's well worth seeing.

As for the rest of his show, I'd give that a miss or encourage Gary to ditch his friends. It's a shame. He seems to bizarrely have a strong following, just not the material to carry things off.

Nutrilite Canadian Championship Looks Set To Be The Best One Yet

2010-02-04T17:33:00.001-08:00

Vancouver Whitecaps fans finally had some confirmed fixtures to look forward to for this coming North American season.

Although the NASL/USL League fixtures are still overdue and eagerly awaited, a press conference this morning announced the fixtures for the 2010 Nutrilite Canadian Championship.

The coveted CONCACAF Champions League spot at stake, along with increased rivalries and the stink that surrounded last season's final game debacle, should set the scene for the 2010 version of the Voyageurs Cup to be the best and most competitive yet.

This year's Championship will take place over six consecutive Wednesday nights from late April to early June, with each of the games getting covered live by Rogers Sportsnet - a first for the tournament and a sure sign that it has really whet the appetite of the general Canadian football loving public.

I know that these are the games that I look forward to most each season. Even when the Whitecaps go MLS next year, the Voyageurs Cup games will still be the ones that hold the most appeal to me personally.

There's nothing like a Cup game to get the juices flowing and midweek, night-time games are all the more special. Looking back on my football watching life so far, many of my happiest memories have occurred in such surroundings and I hope many more yet to come.

The opening match of the tournament sees east coast rivals Toronto FC and Montreal Impact battle it out at TFC's BMO Field on April 28th.

Vancouver Whitecaps enter the fray on May 5th and our first two games of the competition will be on the home soil of Swangard Stadium, scene of last season's heroics which we all hope to see repeated.

The folding Frenchies of Montreal come a calling on the 5th, with TFC making the visit two week's later in what could, by that stage of the competition, be a pivotal match in deciding the final outcome.

The schedule has both good and bad points from a Vancouver fans point of view.

The chance to get our two home games in first, should hopefully see Swangard become a fortress, bringing us six points and a healthy halfway point. If that happens then the rest of the tournament is in our own hands and we play the final two games of the competition on May 26th at Montreal's Stade Saputo and June 2nd at BMO Field, Toronto.

We'll know what we have to do to get the job done and dusted and we won't have to suffer the danger of the Impact adding to their reputation of being Canada's shame by disrespecting their fans, the competition and Canadian football.

One disappointing aspect of the fixtures is that with the tournament now being in it's third year in this format, it was thought that Vancouver would host the final game, with Toronto and Montreal having had that honour in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Clearly not! As we mentioned above, this might actually work more in the Caps favour anyway.

The 2010 Voyaguers Cup will be Vancouver's last chance to take on Toronto FC as underdogs from a lower league set up. It's clearly a position the fans relish and the players rise to the occasion for. In the previous two years, the Caps record against TFC is played four, won two, drew one, lost one, being unbeaten at Swangard Stadium.

More of the same this year? Let's hope so. I'm counting down the days already!

Welcome To Our Blog

2010-02-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "We're Blue, We're White", the blog of the Vancouver Southsiders.

Vancouver Southsiders live and breathe football and we want to share our passion with you through this blog.

You may call it soccer. That's ok, but you're wrong. It's FOOTBALL.

We'll not only be blogging about our beloved Vancouver Whitecaps FC, but also football issues throughout Canada, North America and the rest of the world. We hope you find it an enjoyable read.

If you do, and you want to know more about the group and how to get involved, then check out the Southsiders forum at: http://forum.vancouversouthsiders.com/