TFC FO need to get their shit together. They call it a team signing event, so it sounds good to people like me who don't want to wait hours before or after games for signatures. You get there and they have all the players broken up into 6 groups, you have to choose which one to START with, of course DP''s are split up. Then just before the event starts they cover up Altidores name and he is a no show wtf? Then we are brought passed the gate and they tell us that the rules have changed and you can only go to the ONE group of players you choose when you came. So instead of getting the whole team signature you are only allowed 4 players and if you want to get more you have to go back outside line up again and try to get more before the 1 hr time limit runs out. What a joke.
I understand players can't be there all day but why so poorly organized? For the players and fans sake put some thought into it. Maybe thats why Bradley was a real douche bag and wouldn't look people in the eye or even acknowledge them. Dissapointing. But the kids liked the free candy
This sounds just like the Jays team signing event. It was a bit of a surprise to me (the Jays event) as I was expecting to get many more than the two I managed. Having gone through it once though, I wonder how else they could do it. The players would have to be there for hours in order to sign something for all of the attendees and their +1s.
It wasn't THAT bad... it was poorly organized, but aside from that, if you got there at 1, you were able to get everybody. I did.
As for Bradley: I don't know why you thought he was being a Dbag... I introduced myself, shook his hand and we had a brief chat about the state of the union. He was humble and honest - more than I expected, to be honest.
I asked if we were only allowed one wristband at first and everyone at the table said, if there is time then you can return and switch to the other colours.
Since I saw the line for Bradley's group. I figured to try the other colours first and then try to come back to Bradley's.
Worked well, got the other 5 groups done in about 40 minutes. But then since the line for Bradley was so long the worked cut off the line (which I understood, as some people were in line he entire time I was visiting the rest of the players).
**Also asked about Jozy. Apparently we showed up sick as a dog and was sent home by Vanney to rest and not infect the rest of the team.
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Found Bradley to be nice, was signing autographs after the 2pm cut off as well. The only ones I was really able to chat with were Oso, Morgan and Irwin but I had unique items for them to sign so that started little conversations.
I arrived just before 1:00. There was already a huge line. I picked the orange wrist ban for Bradley's table at first but saw that almost everyone had the orange ban so I went back and changed it to yellow and started at the back of the line again. I managed to get signatures and go back to the start and get new bans for all the tables/colours except the "Bradley" table before they started closing the lines. Just before they had the players leave I went over to the "Bradley" table and managed to sneek in and get Cheyrou, Delgado and Chapman. By that point they were already ushering Bradley away. I did see him stop and sign a couple things for kids as he was exiting.
So overall a good experience for me as I got signatures from all players except for Bradley and Cooper.
I think the idea for the organization was fine. You got to get signatures from four or five players and then started at the back of the line again. In theory this should have given everyone a good chance to see as many players as possible. Unfortunately with Altidore and Giovinco absent it created a huge demand for Bradley. There were people who stood in line to see Bradley for the entire hour and never made it to the front. They should have cut off the Bradley/orange bans long before they did to redirect the fans from standing in that line. I also think they invited too many people. It was a crazy lot of people for a one hour event.
That is why when anyone has asked me about getting TFC autographs, I always say go the northwest corner of the stadium about 3 hours before kickoff and over the next hour or so you will see pretty much everyone walk in. Pretty much everyone stops, signs autographs, take photos etc. Pre-game is actually pretty quiet. I went down this past weekend needing just a photo signed by Armando Cooper. You still will have time after to head up for a drink or two at Joe's before the game starts. I find events like this to be very much cadle calls, just simply not my style.
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I'm not sure it was nearly as poorly set up as people are making it out to be, the main issue was only 1 DP showed up and everyone went after 1 colour wrist band becasue of that. If you went with any other colour from the start you could easily run through the other 4 stations in 10 min and get back in line to hit orange but if you went orange right away it made it much more difficult to get any other autographs.
The same number of people with 3 DP's at different tables (which were set up alphabetically) would have made things much easier. I started with a yellow wrist band but when i walked in Oso had nobody in front of him so i snuck in and got his autograph even though it was a different colour.