No More Portland Boys

The Timbers Army board announced today that the Portland Boys chant will not be featured or initiated by the Timbers Army, effective immediately. It’s no hard to understand why the chant was eliminated even if you disagree. The specific line I will miss from this chant is not the controversial one, but the one that gave me juvenile glee in hearing on national TV. Can you hear the TA sing (“Portland Boys?”) I DON’T HEAR A FUCKING THING!

Screen printed poster on display at Fanladen, originally a No Pity Original. (I think)
Screen printed poster on display at Fanladen, originally a No Pity Original. (I think)

If I have a home game still on the DVR, I’ll see if I can find and capture that part of the chant for the sake of (rude) history.

The Timbers Army march in the Pride Parade

pride-parade

I just barely managed to catch a picture  of the Timbers Army marching in the 2016 Pride parade. As usual, the TA made us proud.  Catch  a little video after the jump. UPDATE: Timbers Army posted a link to some photos by Ray Terrill.

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DV8 Donates

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The most gracious man in the MLS has donated the ball he used to score the MLS Cup record setting 27 second goal to the Timbers Army. The images above are from the video and picture in the Timbers Army post that broke the news. Is it possible to retire a jersey number while the player is still playing? Let’s do it!  Have you seen the fan-created patch that commemorated the event? Catch the patch and a replay of the goal after the jump.

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“I’ll Go With You” and Some Notes on Inclusion

I didn’t grow up in a sports house. Sure, we would watch the big games and I had a workable understanding of the more popular American sports, but we didn’t have any obsessions or even alliances to teams. As a kid, I didn’t have even much interest in sports and that culture seemed very clique-ish to me; it felt exclusionary. It’s hard to get very invested in something that is designed to keep certain people out. I don’t think that’s the intent of many sports cultures, but it’s often the result.

I do some speaking on social media and digital culture as part of my day job and I often cite the Portland Timbers—and by extension, the Timbers Army—as examples of community engagement. My standard line is, “Soccer is their product, but community is their brand.” And that’s not a throw-away comment, the community built up around the team is what makes it special. But what is community without inclusion?

With all the news in the last couple weeks regarding restrictive (sorry, I mean BULLSHIT) laws governing the use of public bathrooms, I was delighted, but not surprised, to see a statement from this community I have become so enamored of. It’s a simple, but powerful statement.

I’ll Go With You

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