THE KICKOFF

We have a brand-new professional soccer team with a brand-new, purpose-built stadium. Citypark is the home of St. Louis City (I know, not real creative), with 22,500 seats and specially built for what the world calls football. The team won its first game on the road with the home opener scheduled for Saturday. This plaza won't be empty then.

I don't know much about soccer. I've watched some Word Cup games on TV and was rooting for Argentina. Buenos Aires is the only place I've been to professional soccer matches and that's pretty exciting, even if you are not a connoisseur.         

So Much For That

As anyone who follows sports in this country knows, the National Football League just allowed the St. Louis Rams football team to move to Los Angeles (from whence they came here 23 years ago). The request came from the Rams' billionaire owner, Stan Kronke, a man who had the good business sense to marry into the Walmart fortune. He had some very nasty things to say about our city, including complaints about attendance for a team that has had eight straight losing seasons. Suffice it to say that he is despised in these parts.

Good riddance. Regular readers know that I don't like American football - so deliberately violent, so callous about wrecking players' brains from repeated concussions and then throwing them out with the trash. It hurts St. Louis' pride to lose a major league sports team but I'd rather see my taxes go to schools and infrastructure than to a new zillion dollar sports stadium . 

The second picture shows a trailer near the stadium. Extreme discounts are available. The bottom shot is the 67,000 seat domed stadium where the Rams played. It's actually a physical part of the convention center. Maybe we can fill it with more monster truck shows or international soccer friendlies. (I still can't decide if soccer is an exciting sport or a college physics demonstration of Brownian motion.)

For man-and-woman in the street reaction click here. If you would like to read a cogent analysis of the greed and arrogance of NFL owners check this out.

I do believe this qualifies as the occasional rant.                  

Action Shots

I don't know much about soccer, or football if you prefer. I've only been to two professional matches. Both of them were in Buenos Aires, one with the north side team, River Plate, and their south side rivals, Boca Juniors. (That Boca game was a wild experience.) So, if I had any soccer sentiments they might be Argentine.

Unfortunately, Argentina's great star, Lionel Messi, didn't play. They said he had a leg injury. Maybe he was adverse to playing on a cold Midwestern night before tens of thousands of screaming Bosnian fans. Who knows. It was a great game nonetheless, with intense play and many scoring opportunities by both sides. As you can see in the third picture, the Bosnians were pretty tough.

On the same subject, congratulations to J.M. and condolences to Steffe on Portugal's victory over Sweden in Stockholm this week. Portugal moves on to the World Cup.

Oh, by the way, Argentina won 2 - nil. That's soccer talk for 2 to nothing. Baseball starts again in just over four months.               

Hardcore Bosnians On Tour

I like Bosnians. Our firm has a number of Bosnian clients and nicer, harder working people you may never meet. My business banker is Bosnian. (Hi, Edin!) But the country's soccer fans are pretty intense - not that it's unusual for the sport.

There were thousands of them wrapped in the flag, literally and figuratively, at the game Monday. I'd never seen the flag before and it's pretty cool, an original design. A group of them were out in the bleachers (top photo) behind a somewhat intimidating banner. When the game was almost over several of them lit traffic flares, astonishing conduct at an American sporting event. I was surprised the police didn't rush them but the flares went out soon enough.         

Argentina vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina

This wasn't on my schedule.

We are starting to get international soccer matches in STL. Last spring Chelsea played Manchester City. The summer brought a game between Real Madrid and Milan Inter. Last night it was the national teams of Argentina and Bosnia-Herzegovina at Busch Stadium.

I walked over after work to take some pictures - lots of crazy people like in the video in my previous post. A local woman approached me on the street. She and her husband were stuck with two extra prime tickets, which she offered at a steep discount. Only one of me but she wanted some payback. I waffled, then bought a ticket for 60% off face value.

Glad I did. What a match. St. Louis has a big Bosnian population and there are many more around the US. The ratio of Bosnian to Argentine fans was maybe 50 to 1.

Gotta get to work. More of this to come.         

Lions I Understand but . . .

Sports teams all have mascots these days. When I was a kid and a big Yankees baseball fan, teams just went out and played the game. Now there are all these goofy figures, like the idiotic Fredbird (the redbird - a cardinal - get it?) for our baseball team. 

All the English Premier League teams have one. Chelsea's is a lion, simple and easy to understand. The old heraldry device of a rampant lion is part of their crest. But Manchester City has . . . what? Wikipedia provides the following explanation:
  

Like all clubs in the Premier League, Manchester City have a mascot, two in this case. Both are anthropomorphic aliens, called Moonchester and Moonbeam. The name is a play on words with Moon- named after the club's unofficial anthem, "Blue Moon" and -chester being the last part of Manchester, where the club was formed and is based. Both aliens come from the planet 'Blue Moon'.        

I'd find it hard to develop an emotional attachment to these things.      

Soccer Hooligans In St. Louis!

The Chelsea - Manchester City match took place last night at Busch Stadium. I went to the pre-game rally and watched it on television. (Manchester came back from a 3 - nil deficit to win 4 - 3 in the final minutes. Like how deftly I used the word nil?) Chelsea supporters vastly outnumbered those for Man City on the street. I understood some fraction of what I saw on TV, better, at least, than if I had been watching cricket.

A few more of these characters to come.      

Homecoming Football

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I tried to shoot the Marysville High School football game last Friday. Not much success - I have never photographed this sport and I haven't been to a football game in at least 25 years. The top CDP football shooter, Olivier, has the field to himself.

Still, it was fun. The school crowned a homecoming king and queen. His majesty looks a little ill at ease. The bottom picture looks like the aftermath of an anthrax attack on the marching band.

Marysville, Kansas, Fifty Years On

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Out on the prairie in Marysville, Kansas, there is a celebration this weekend for the high school class of 1962. I shot the homecoming parade and pep rally in the afternoon. In the evening the better part of the town turned out for a program in the city park. Then everyone went across the street for the big homecoming football game.

More than a third of Carolyn's class showed up, which is pretty good after five decades. The home town heroes were getting creamed 28 - 0 at half time so all us geezers repaired to the Wagon Wheel Cafe to knock down a few drinks and talk about old times. The spouses talked about, well, whatever. I took pictures.

Lots more to come.