It’s been 5 years since I made a post. If you’re wondering what happened, read on.
Man, what a strange time it was to be Timbers fan. In the past 5 years we saw the stadium expansion finished. In 2019 I started a project called the Portland Vanity Soccer Podcast with 2 other friends that became 3. I spent a lot of my extra Timbers energy on the podcast, I enjoyed it immensely until it didn’t, and eventually left after 4 years. 2019 is also the year our front office and MLS in general bungled the whole Iron Front symbol ban, although they eventually did right the ship in that respect. 2022 brought a head various failures by Merritt Paulson, Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub. trying to cover up sexual and domestic abuse scandals involving former Thorns coach Paul Riley and former Timbers player Andy Polo. It seems like we’ve been a bit cursed since the new stadium expansion project began. Schedules an results were bit good, but all that would get back to normal once the expansion opened, right? Oh yeah.. Covid.
Again, what a weird time to be a Timbers fan it has been for the past 5 or 6 years. The season ticket wait list used to be 13,000 deep, and now there is no waiting list whatsoever. We sure didn’t add 13k new seats to the stadium. I sometimes sit next to a gentlemen in the stands who has been going to games with a posse since the NASL days. He sits by himself these days because his friend group couldn’t stomach giving money to our ownership anymore. The magic is no longer real.
The last game related post I made was in July of 2019. It was after we must have whipped Seattle in Seattle. Remember that stretch of years when they couldn’t beat us in Seattle? That was grand… In February of 2020 I surfaced again to dutifully note the passing of Timber’s Ring of Honor player Jimmy Conway. And then nothing until now. I just didn’t have the time, energy, or desire to update a site that barely gets any traffic.
Why come back?
Even Merritt Paulson has started showing his face on the pitch again, despite the boos of past years.
I considered not renewing the domain name a few times, but I did. I had been reposting NASL Timbers items from a couple of NAS soccer groups that maddeningly never provide the source of the images. Whenever pressed it’s always an excuse about member submitted content. Come on. Someone is scanning those old photos… I somewhat regularly have people approach me in the stands to let me know they really appreciate seeing the old NASL days, both from people who were around back then and newer fans. One of the aggravating things about Facebook is the way those old posts disappear in the quicksand of daily noise and advertising. Good luck finding anything more than a few months old.
If only someone had a web site where that could be documented… Oh wait, I have one.
I think the primary focus of this site from now on will be to document old and new Timbers ephemera. Somehow my season tracking plugin no longer shows accurate archived results despite not changing any of the code. The tipoff was the fact that the 2016 showed us finishing above the playoff line. I may work on it for the 2026 season, but who knows what weirdness the new schedule will bring. The one-off half season in early 2027 will surely make it difficult. My enthusiasm has returned, so we’ll see what happens.
This web site is a work in progress. I’m changing the them on the fly and it’s going to be wonky on and off. Junior web devs, don’t do it like I am….
