Originally Posted by
ExiledRed
I really disdain that post by Oldtimer, and no disrespect here but this is why........
-----Drunk post warning. I never post in here, sober-----
Look, We were arrogant because we had to be. Many of us had been to hundreds of actual football games in Europe supporting our home teams and saw this as an opportunity to build something close to what we'd left behind. The immigrant community in Ontario and I'll include myself in that demographic had long been overlooked by the media. Soccer was ignored despite the fact that there was indeed a massive market. We were supposed to cast aside our game and go watch hockey, be canadian and all that, which is a bit much if you ask me. We had footy/soccer/futbol in our blood and we craved a real team. It was incredible to meet them all, Canadian fans with lineage in far off lands, fellow brits of every club, Italians, Portuguese, Croatians, Turks, Dutch, people from fucking everywhere and not just 'people' but hard ass supporters who'd been to hard ass games and knew exactly how to support a team. It was amazing, Some of us had even been to the same games for opposing teams in the eighties and nineties and we were coming together to combine everything we knew and make something special . Yes we were arrogant. We were not the USL supporting, acne faced fanboys that people thought we were and we had to let them know that. We needed to be respected. It really wasn't a time to be humble. We knew that we had to be the loudmouthed, cocksure jerk at the party because the alternative was standing against the wall watching some other loudmouth, cocksure jerk get the girl.
The MLS was shit. It wasn't the league we wanted our new club to play in. There were games being played on gridiron in empty stadiums. The skill level was appalling, games were dire to watch and the atmosphere was non existent. We already knew we were going to be the best fans in the MLS because we only had to do what we'd been doing already, back home, and it would be ten times more interesting than whatever was going on on the strangely marked plastic carpets beneath us. Christ, we only had to clap our hands every time a player did something good and we'd have been the best fans in the league. We didnt need to wait until opening day to know this, so sure, we were arrogant.
Which brings me onto the next thing. The startling lack of ambition seen from a sizeable group of home-grown supporters (not the majority by any means) and also from FO. They got the city to build a Soccer Specific Stadium with the caveat that it would be rented it out in advance of the season, for everything but soccer. Our soccer specific stadium hosted dog shows, frisbee league, rock concerts, axe throwing, fucking robot wars..I dont know, but the point is they weren't taking it seriously. The excessive use meant that we had ridiculously bad fieldturf shoved on us and while a bunch of people with no ambition thought that was going to be just fine. They called us arrogant because we expected a professional surface and we believed our team was going to be huge, and in order to be huge it had to attract huge players, and huge players don't play on fucking field-turf if they have a choice (and usually they do). So yes, we were arrogant then too.
Everyone thought we were arrogant about how successful we were going to be and we didn't care, because we knew that come opening day we would show them what it's all about. And on opening day, 2007 we did exactly that. We lost 1-0 in what might have been one of the dullest games yet while at the same time completely raised the bar in North American soccer supportership. We put an MLS game on TV that sounded like an actual European football game. We were the spectacle. We were validating soccer in Toronto, in Canada, in MLS. We opened a lot of sleepy eyes and turned a lot of fucking heads that day and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for one thing. Arrogance. You see, Despite the fact that our team was falling all over the pitch and hadnt scored a goal in four games, we were waving our scarves and singing out loud and stomping on that tin bucket that BMO was. We were arrogant, loud, boisterous and we were the best fans in the league and no team in MLS could match us.
At this point I want to shout out to the road warriors,who were laying the foundation even prior to opening day. No fans travelled the great distances in MLS, but Toronto fans would arrogantly come all the way from fucking Canada in to your American stadium and arrogantly out shout your popcorn munching fans and get all the camera attention despite the fact that yes, our team was stinking up the gridiron, plastic pitch. Well done you guys, you were and are an example to the league and I am a lesser fan for never having travelled to the states with you.
Game after game we sucked. but it didnt matter. Our arrogance got us through and slowly but surely our arrogance pulled MLS out of the mediocre mentality it was cursed with. If in the last ten years another team has come along and done what we did but better, that is because back in 2007 we were showing them all that it could be done.
If we had been an american team, we would have immediately been the money team. We would have had a grass field, an exclusive stadium and two designated players in 2008. Instead we had Tom Anselmi explaining to us on tv that we didnt need a designated player because wed already sold all the tickets.
We did not deserve the mediocrity that followed. That wasnt karma. That was just mismanagement and shit and I wont have the blame for those bleak years blamed on the arrogance of supporters who would not accept that mediocrity. Those supporters froze the prices of the tickets. those supporters got us a grass surface, and eventually decent designated players. At each time they were chastised for their arrogance and if that arrogance waned, it might be because of age and exhaustion or it might be that we raised the league to our level and our arrogance doesn't seem so prominent any more.
Oh yeah, the Argos fans called us arrogant too, but they couldn't fill a cinema.
Our growth was slow and incremental, but we would have folded in year five and the Argos would be the main tenant at BMO were it not for our arrogance. so yeah, you're welcome.
Real arrogance in my mind would be telling experienced supporters that they know nothing about football because they couldn't buy into Aaron Winter's genius master plan.
Arrogance was naming my son Tor, after Toronto, and telling him its because he's going to be a winner. Hahahaha.
See you on the tenth boys and girls. I'm proud of you all. Bring your arrogance and let's do this thing!
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