Mark had earned a couple of free flights with South West Airlines earlier in the year and said we should use them for a Galaxy away game. After plenty of deliberating and changing our minds a couple of times, our final choice came down to Vancouver and Portland. The games were only a few days apart and it would be do-able if our friend in Seattle could accommodate us for a few days. We asked and naturally Fergal was only too happy to put us up and come to the games with us.
I've said it before, but Wedding Present fans tend to be among some of the nicest people in the world.
Obviously this was great and exciting news and pretty much gave me something to look forward to for the past few months in my usually mundane life.
The trip finally came around, I literally felt like a kid waiting for Christmas. After a long and tedious journey we were met by Fergal at Seatac.
It was pretty late, but seeing Mark and I were famished, Fergal took us for a kebab and devoured it at his place and them washed down with several bottles of lager.
We got up pretty early the next morning, drove up to the Canadian border, stopping for a photo op after being interrogated by the border gestapo.
Thankfully I had remembered to bring my passport and green card with me this time and so avoided the 5 hour lecture and anal probe.
Fergal found our hotel without getting lost despite the handicap of having me as a co-pilot. The hotel was actually quite nice and managed by possibly the nicest and most helpful bloke in the world, it didn't hurt that his receptionist was as fit as a butcher's dog either.
After downing a few beers from our cooler (We always travel with one, just in case) we decided to get "oot" and "aboot" and have a bite to eat and while wandering around aimlessly we found ourselves outside a pub called Oscar's. We were stood there waiting to cross the road when some of the occupants had noticed our Galaxy shirts and pounded on the window in order to get our attention. They were Whitecaps fans and one of them came outside and invited us in.
"Will we be alright? Nobody will give us any shit?" I asked
"You'll be fine" he replied.
This guy turned out to be called Matt and he was right, nobody really paid us much attention and those that did either thanked us for coming in or just wished us luck (but not too much) for the game.
This place was the hang out of one of the Whitecaps supporters groups, the Southsiders, who were very gracious except for when they tried to sell me a t-shirt for $25.
WTF??? $25????
ACB shirts cost $10 and the Galaxian shirts were only five bucks.
We had a few pints and ate lunch, Mark and me had the fish and chips and Fergal had the veggie burger. The food was good, the beer was reasonably priced for Vancouver and our bar mates were very friendly.
We finally got to the stadium after a brief stop off at the hotel for another beer and found our seats. There was a total of about 25 to 30 Galaxy fans sat in our vicinity. Quite a few of them I recognized from home games, mainly Riot Squad, a couple of ACB, some "regular" Galaxy fans and Landon Donovan's sister.
The stadium filled to capacity and they announced that it was their record crowd for an MLS game. Quite strange that as already this season Mark and I have been in record crowds at Real Salt Lake and San Jose Earthquakes. Most sensible MLS fans would put this down to extra tickets being sold because of Beckham and Donovan, but I'd like to think it was the fact that they somehow knew the Simi Valley Galaxians (Me and Mark) were coming.
Anyway the game kicked off and for the first 20 or so minutes it was all one way traffic with the Whitecaps in control. Luckily they didn't have much in the way of forwards and squandered a few chances and slowly the Galaxy gained the upper hand forcing ex-G's keeper Joe Cannon into making a couple of great saves to stop us being 2-0 up at half time.
Juan Pablo Angel was as shit as ever, I don't like to bad mouth Galaxy players these days, but he really is fucking garbage.
After we went 1-0 up thanks to a world class finish by Landon, Arena finally saw sense and brought Cristman on for JPA. Cristman is a bit of a lumbering, built like a brick shithouse type, but he was instantly involved, mixing things up and making life awkward for the Whitecaps back four.
We were soon awarded a pk when a Vancouver defender handled the ball under hardly any pressure, Landon tucked it away to put us 2-0 up.
We put the points in the bag when Landon raced onto a through ball and drilled a low pass to Franklin on the back post for the third. Cue dozens and dozens of Canadians heading for the exits. In the last minute Cristman was rewarded for his hard work when Cannon and his defenders couldn't clear the ball and he headed in a looping effort.
We took a bit of abuse from the natives and one dick asked Mark why he supported the Galaxy if he was English.
"Because I live in Los Angeles you twat" replied Mark.
"Well you should move here, to British Columbia, you'd like it better"
Jesus fucking wept!!!!!
Yeah, you can keep Vancouver and your $9 pints my friend.
We were held back and given an escort out of the stadium, where upon we were informed by the locals that the Galaxy sucked, we sucked and our shirt sponsors Herbal Life sucked.
Canadian wit in its highest form, eh!!!!
The next day we got up, packed our gear, loaded up the car and strolled back to the stadium in order to watch the reserve match.
We found seats behind the galaxy bench and were greeted by the Galaxy reserve coaching staff and players, goalkeeping coach Ian Feuer upon seeing our 'Simi Valley Galaxian' banner came over and asked if we were really from Simi Valley. We told him we were and he informed us that he lived in nearby Agoura Hills and chatted to us for a while, which was really nice of him.
Bruce Arena and Dave Sarachan sat directly behind us a few rows back, we didn't bother them as they were there in a working capacity.
Straight from the kick off with Chris Birchall as captain, the Galaxy reserves kind of dominated their Canadian opponents. We were 2-0 up midway through the second half and should have added a couple more, then Paolo Cardoza played a couple of one twos and was chopped down in the 18 yard box. The referee waved play on and of course the Whitecaps took the ball down the field and instantly pulled one back.
This gave them a bit of a lift and they really started pushing for another which came 10 minutes before the end.
The game ended 2-2 which was probably a bit disappointing from the Galaxy stand point, but it was a decent game anyway, played before about 50 spectators in the same stadium that had 27,000 watching less than 24 hours before.
I was going to ask Bruce Arena for a picture after the game but he had snook off round the back, which I thought was a bit piss poor to be honest. You think he'd have the good grace to at least walk by the 3 Galaxy fans in attendance and at least say "Hi" or just nod in our direction.
Oh well, I got a picture with assistant coach Dave Sarachan, then we chatted with Chris Birchall and took a few snaps with him. He was actually cool as fuck and pretty candid when we asked him about a certain team mate of his. We gave him a bit of stick about his mate Robbie Williams (As you do) and with that we headed back to the car and set off on our drive back to the USA to get the fuck out of The People's Republic of Canadia.
The journey wasn't really up to much, we stopped and did some shopping and then nearly died crossing the bridge out of Vancouver.
Seriously, we nearly died when some Frank Black look-alike driving an 18 wheeler truck decided to change lanes right into the side of poor Fergal's Audi, thankfully we survived. We were very shaken up and Fergal's car despite suffering $7000 worth of damage was drive-able so we made it home without much of a delay.
Anything could have happened, we could have died, the tires could have all blown out, the airbags could have all gone off. Either one of those would have made our drive home virtually impossible, especially the former.
Like I said, this fucker was the double of Frank Black of the Pixies and spent the entire time giggling like a schoolgirl while exchanging insurance information with Fergal. I know some people tend do giggle or laugh when they are nervous but this inbred Canadian redneck was a little too much for me and I had to walk away a couple of times for fear of throttling the cunt.
In my opinion he was probably stoned, I don't want to sound bitter but hopefully his bosses fired him as the next lot could be a family of five with small kids who might not get lucky and walk away without a scratch.
"Sorry guys, that was totally my fault ha,ha, ha...... are you all ha, ha, ha... okay??? You're up here to watch soccer?? Ha, ha, ha...... I stopped watching when Vinnie Jones retired ha, ha, ha..... I wanna live in Los Angeles, ha, ha, ha..... I am the son of a mother fucker, ha, ha, ha.... Have a safe journey back to California, PMSL"
WANKER!!!
In between our footy trips our stay in Seattle was fairly low key. We visited the kebab house again as it was ace. Visited the local dive bar (The Reservoir Bar) where we stayed for 10 hours, went for a wander in downtown Seattle and I also made my 'famous' veggie pasties in Fergal's non-meat eating honour.
The day of the Portland game, we booked into the hotel and Fergal and I went for a wander around town while Mark rested due to an upset stomach (Blame the beer, not the pasties). I haven't been to Portland to explore for over 15 years and I must say it really has changed for the better. It was a bit of a dump before, but now it is a thriving city with bars and restaurants everywhere and interesting little shops on every street. We checked out the Dr Marten store and then did a lap of the Timbers stadium.
When we returned for the game I was even more impressed, the streets were full of their fans, it was a sea of green and white. Just like in Vancouver, the home fans were very friendly and welcoming. The stadium was rocking and while our seats were nosebleeds, it still was a decent view.
We were joined at the game by my old friend and ex-Casuals FC legend Andy Rolland and his girlfriend Stacy, unfortunately some miserable bastards moved them from next to us so they could sit in "their" seats. (Wankers!!!!)
The less said about the game the better. Juan Pablo Angel was horrible again, we were 2-0 when he was subbed, too little, too late. We had a couple of good chances early in the second half and for a brief time you thought "We might just make a go of it" of course it never happened and to their credit Portland never let us settle on the ball and were well deserving of the 3-0 final score.
Obviously I was upset about the manner we lost that game, but the Portland Timbers, their fans, stadium and fantastic surrounding area are a very welcome addition to the MLS.
To cut a long story short, we went back to the hotel, had a couple of pizzas, a few more beers, then to bed and back up at 5am. We drove back to Seattle and after a couple of flights via Sacramento and Burbank finally got back in Simi Valley exhausted at 5pm.
It was a great week and my thanks go out to Fergal and Mark for making it happen and all the lovely people we met along the way.
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