Columbus Fans Want to Start a Little Something with Seattle Soccer Moms

Okay, so, yes, it has been a while since I came around to give you my expert thoughts on the unfolding MLS offseason. My big “grading the SuperDraft” post never got published because Brian said it was unoriginal even though I gave every team a B- and the exact same writeup text. Then I was going to travel around bringing you harsh words of truth from inside some of the training camps, but you kind of need a car to move around in these United States. Other than that, what was I supposed to write about? The AC Milan league season?

Mainly I’ve just been plowing through the Ives archives every day (holla, mafiosi) and trying to keep up with the supporter message boards. That’s how I am able to bring you the caramel-covered scoop (okay, even if I wasn’t the first person to notice) that the Columbus “ultras” are stirring up a war with Seattle Sounders fans, setting all sorts of insanity in motion. Check it out (this is an email sent to the Crew blog “Crewture,” which is actually a name someone thought up for a blog):

I and a few friends of mine are of the opinion that Seattle Sounders FC sucks for a lot of reasons.

Not so much the Sigi thing, but the fact that you have these weak supporters out there in Seattle who couldn’t support their club in USL, but then you get a comedian, a Microsoft trillionaire and a producer together to buy them a club and now they are going to fill half an NFL stadium with latte sipping soccer moms to watch an underwear model in a neon kit run around on plastic grass to the tune of Gary Glitter played by a f’in marching band.

Seattle has no soul and it’s not what ultras culture in North America should be about . . . in our opinion.

Right on, dude. Powerful rebuttal to the idea that North American ultras culture should be about having no soul. They’ll think twice before they promulgate that reasoning a second time. I also love how the hostility has nothing to do with the fact that the Crew’s title-winning head coach left Columbus for Seattle at the end of the season, and everything to do with the music of Gary Glitter. Obvious.

Anyway, this guy has designed a scarf which is intended to express the unflinching enmity and lack of quarter which the THIS IS HOW WE DO THINGS IN COLUMBUS set intends to show toward the latte-sipping soccer moms of the Puget Sound region. Watch out, soccer moms. I mean, this is a fan base that is prepared to go toe-to-toe with a group of hardened West Ham traveling supporters, as long as they have them outnumbered 100-1 in their own stadium concourse. They will have no trouble unloading steel beams of pain on mothers who bring their young children to a soccer game.

“ACES” stands for “any club except Seattle.” This then prompts a thoughtful reply from the dude who wrote the Crewture post, who goes by the name “Crewfighter,” because at this level of rawness it’s all about compound words:

not totally feeling the “Any club except Seattle.” As I hate about every club except the Crew; especially DC, Chicago, and TFC…. Seattle sucks just about as much as all other MLS clubs, so mise well spread the contempt.

Stay adamant.

[BRIAN IS MAKING ME NOTE THIS: Crewfighter claims in the comments section below that the guy who designed the scarves is a Timbers fan. So this is all probably meaningless. Whatever.]