This really happened: An important pro football game drew 65,000 fans — and nobody arranged for the metal detectors!
And the cops with wands didn’t show, nor the people to enforce the “clear bag” policy. Nor the bomb dogs, nor about 95 percent of those many hundreds of same-shirted daily security employees.
They just put three or four people at each gate to rip tickets. And then they just started letting everybody in, if you can believe that. And they didn’t need ushers, because even though these tickets were high-end pricey in the city’s entertainment market, there weren’t any special sections where only a few could go. None of the sections had even a number designation.
And no row or seat numbers on the tickets. Because it was all just general admission, for goodness sakes.
And so a good 40,000 or so of the fans got there really early, knowing that those arriving less than two hours before the 8:30 p.m. kickoff would find space only in the higher and less centered rows of the massive concrete bowl.
There was nothing doing on the field pregame — no cheerleaders or Frisbee dogs or check presentations or even recorded music. But there was music in the stands, at least, during the dark and chilly hours folks had to wait for the game. A huge bunch of fans, 5,000 or more, was going nonstop with some serious drumming and chanting, and areas outside this core had sprinklings of fans joining in. The beat and sound reverberated festively into the upper deck.
But fans couldn’t buy a beer, even at $10 or $15 a cup, just to pass the time and/or get properly torqued. Alcohol was not permitted in the stadium.
And even if getting drunk wasn’t all that important, there was precious little other beverage or food for sale. The immediate gate entry areas had high-school type stands — no cash registers — where you could buy a burger or sausage sandwich and get a Coke or Sprite from a glass bottle, poured into a paper cup with no ice.
The upper concourse on the south side had one stand manned by a weary looking lady, offering candy bars, popcorn and gum. But even though the points of concession sales were microscopic in relation to the throng, they weren’t crowded at all. The fans just didn’t seem to care about concessions. They stayed pretty packed in the stands and mostly contented themselves with the only two items sold by roving vendors — bright-yellow bags of Lay’s regular potato chips, and cellophane sacks of caramel popcorn.
The stadium did have one video board, but it was so small that most of the locations offered a poor view at best of its images. The sound system was terrible, barely audible from the upper stands.
When it came time for the national anthem, it was performed not by a band or a featured singer, but rendered instead on a tinny recording. But no one failed to pay attention. Every soul, seemingly, considered it a joy and a privilege to sing the anthem with spirit and reverence, even though there was no giant flag, no military personnel to be lionized and certainly no military flyover. It was all just clearly for ebullient national pride, with no tie to any other symbolism.
And when the game finally began, everybody was really excited, but nobody got mad or aggressive. No one with kids — and there were plenty — had to complain about uncouth rowdies.
There was quiet and evident concern when the favored home team fell behind early, but soon the fans resumed cheering and chanting and dancing, and there was joy for all when the home team came back to win.
After the game there were fireworks, lots of fireworks, and some of them not really all that high in the sky. Some embers seemed to be falling on the crowd. But no one acted concerned.
And the victorious home team stayed on the field for a good 20 minutes or more, hugging each other, assembling for team photos and saluting the fans.
And then the crowd good-naturedly filed out, with no one trampling the smaller folks in a desperate dash for the urinals. Out they went into the night, seemingly in 10,000 different ways, as this inner-city venue did not offer any discernible parking lots. Cars, almost all of them tiny, were parked everywhere, and there were lots and lots of busses.
And that’s the way it was at the pro football game I recently attended. It wasn’t the NFL, as gentle readers have discerned, but it was indeed a big pro futbol game. It was the World Cup qualifier match between Bolivia and Uruguay, played two weeks ago in the 87-year-old Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay, a metro area just under the size of Greater Cincinnati.The result clinched a Russia 2018 berth for the Uruguayan team.
And the entire scene was so amazingly unlike any big game this American has ever attended, I must twist a French phrase to Spanish and say, larga vida a la diferencia! It was primitive in so many ways but captivating and refreshing in so many more others, particularly in the lack of oppressive “security.” Indeed there were huge moats separating most of the stands from the field — a striking visual — because South American soccer has had its share of bad crowd incidents. But in this crowd there was only wholesome excitement.
Admittedly this was not a big rivalry game, as visiting Bolivia came with a poor record and few supporters. But the lack of rampant testosterone was striking in comparison with NFL crowds, and maybe that has something to do with booze being banned and the country’s legal marijuana being OK to bring in.
Soccer fans here are disappointed that Team USA recently failed to qualify for Russia 2018 and that FC Cincinnati got bounced from its league playoffs. But it’s nothing that could match what Montevideo would have felt had its team stumbled against the Bolivians and missed the World Cup. When my wife asked an English-speaking fan in our row if Uruguay had any other sports it was passionate about — something in the Olympics, perhaps — his reply was, “No, not really. Here, everything is futbol.”
That will never be the case in the U.S., but sure as we know, soccer is catching on big-time in Cincinnati. So keep on pushing, FC Cincinnati, because based on what I just experienced, the joy of “the beautiful game” in our town may have many rungs still to climb.
CONTACT JACK BRENNAN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Oct 25 – Nov 1, 2017.
