Tom Dunmore on American and English Soccer

Note: This is the fifth part of my American Soccer Road Trip, which will involve me traveling across the country, finding stories that exemplify the diversity that exists in American soccer. Check back soon for further updates.

Tom Dunmore got to go to his first match the way young children get most things they desire – by pestering their parents until they give in. Dunmore had long wanted to see his team, Brighton Hove and Albion, play, and when his mother finally bought him tickets to a match, it turned out to be, he says, the most exciting game of his life.

The tickets Dunmore’s mother had bought were the cheapest available and didn’t provide much of a view, especially for young Tom. Fortunately, the stewards took him, and many other kids, down close to the field, where they could see the match.

Brighton fans at their previous stadium, the Goldstone Ground (photo: View Images)

Late in the match, when Dean Wilkins hit a 25-yard free kick to win it for Brighton, Dunmore and all the other youngsters in the stadium had the best view in the entire stadium. The place went crazy, Dunmore recalls, and prompted a massive pitch invasion. Because the children were right next to the field, they had to be first onto the pitch, and Dunmore recalls fondly being in awe of the experience of rushing the field. (Meanwhile, back on the terraces, his mother was worrying about her child, but Dunmore says, “it didn’t cross my mind that she’d be worried.”)

This early fascination with the pitch invasion has continued to the present day, and provided the inspiration and name for Tom’s informative and entertaining blog on football fan culture. Pitch invasions, Dunmore says, tell so much about the sport of soccer. They have been used as mechanisms of protest (Brighton fans invaded the pitch in 1996 to protest their Goldstone ground being sold) and lack of security in stadiums has often led to forced pitch invasions. Today, of course, they are relatively rare, which Dunmore sees as symbolic of a Premier League that has completely sanitized.

Reading fans invade the pitch in 2006 (photo: ComEnts)

Tom Dunmore came to the US several years ago for graduate school and has remained here ever since. During the past year, he has become a fan of his new local team, the Chicago Fire, and has been documenting his experience for The Offside blog. I passed through Chicago recently as part of my American Soccer Road Trip and spoke with Dunmore about similarities and differences between English and American soccer.

Dunmore told me that when he first came to the US, he barely knew MLS existed. Like many English expats, he continued to follow soccer from his homeland, which he found surprisingly easy to do on TV and through the Internet. He went to a few Fire games the next year, but didn’t really begin to follow the league until the last year or so. Dunmore says that he began to follow the Fire because he missed having a local team to support.

One of Dunmore’s initial impressions of American soccer was that many more families attended games. Though he had attended his first match with his mom, it wasn’t common when he grew up for families to go to games together in England, but in the US much of the marketing was clearly aimed at this demographic. Dunmore notes the many gimmicks he’s seen geared toward families, including silly halftime entertainment and shooting t-shirts into the crowd (something which, he notes, does seem to excite some fans more than the match itself). The Fire’s attempts to sponsor Faith and Family Night and Retro Night (a total of six fans, he says, got the message to turn out in 70s and 80s clothes) are embarrassing to actual fans, Dunmore says. He was slightly disgusted by it all, but “[tried] not to pay attention to whatever the hell they’re doing.”

Apparently, cheerleaders like Columbus’s Crewzers attract families (photo: About.com)

It’s a much more sanitized stadium-going experience than Dunmore was used to. As a kid in Brighton, he says, “going to the bathroom was a dangerous expedition.” Dunmore is surprised that they can sell beer in American stadiums, but acknowledges that the lack of a hooligan problem in the US makes this possible.

Lest you think Dunmore is a soccer – pardon me, football – snob, he has nothing but good things to say about the hardcore Chicago fans, known as a group by the area where they sit, Section 8. Dunmore particularly likes the multicultural nature of the fans, and the way they blend their styles of support. He cites the mish-mash of English chants, songs in Spanish, and Italian-inspired tifo. The Section 8 fans, Dunmore says, are incredibly dedicated, and he cites the example of the 200 or so who drove 1,110 miles (and crossed an international border) for a match against Toronto FC.

Fans in Chicago’s Section 8 (photo: Big Soccer)

Dunmore has also been impressed by Americans’ knowledge of world soccer. The number of American soccer fans may be relatively limited, but those who do follow the game know a lot about it. Dunmore says that many English fans are very knowledgeable about their own country’s many divisions, but know little about leagues around the world. American fans he’s met, aided by the extensive television coverage on channels like Fox Soccer Channel, GolTV, and Setanta, watch games from all over the world, and are familiar with a wider variety of leagues and players.

Dunmore thinks that American soccer can teach lessons to the game’s inventors. He loves the fact that fans are allowed to stand at American stadiums, something he says is “missing from the top two divisions in England” (all-seater stadiums were put into place in the wake up the Hillsborough disaster, and the English have been loathe to reconsider the policy of outlawing terracing despite its safe use today in countries such as Germany). Dunmore also appreciates the reasonable ticket prices at Fire games. In some ways, Dunmore tells me, MLS reminds him of lower league English games he attended as a child some 20 years ago.

Dunmore sees potential in MLS and hopes it continues to make strides forward. He applauds the Fire’s signing of Cuauhtemoc Blanco and notes that it has attracted many Mexican fans to games who hadn’t come before (the neighborhood where he lives is 90% Hispanic, yet interest until recently in MLS was minimal there). He tells me that “hopefully when [Hispanic fans] come out, they will become MLS fans, not just Blanco or Club America fans.”

Cuauhtemoc Blanco is popular with Mexican fans, and with himself as well (photo: Milenio / Brian Kersey / AP)

The possibility of increasing the numbers of Hispanic fans at Fire games excites Dunmore, not least because they will help to improve the stadium atmosphere. And ultimately, he says, the atmosphere is what draws him to the stadium. He suspects a better atmosphere will bring in other fans, even those less interested in soccer, as well. Dunmore notes that American college football and basketball are so popular in part because of the fantastic atmosphere fans in the stadiums create. He hopes MLS will market less to soccer moms and their families, and more to fans already knowledgeable about the sport, who are more likely to improve the atmosphere for all fans.

Throughout Dunmore’s life, he’s always been more passionate about supporting his local teams than the larger, more prestigious clubs. There’s something about a live game, he says, that can’t be matched on TV. “It’s fine if people want to support Manchester United or Chelsea, but they should also support local teams, “ he tells me. “If the world was composed of Manchester United or Chelsea, they could play each other to death, but it wouldn’t be interesting.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 8:34 am and is filed under American Soccer Road Trip, North America, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.