Jason Davis says most of what needs to be said about Andrew Hankinson’s crypto-snide piece on the Sons of Ben for British GQ. Hankinson’s piece somehow manages to sensationalize American supporter culture as out-of-control and scary (“There is no visible police presence today on the railway platforms…. Nothing to protect a vulnerable-looking couple in New York Red Bulls tops from a vicious assault”) while also mocking American supporter culture for being restrained and peaceful (“studenty,” “tame,” “laughable,” “hard to take seriously”). American fan groups are inauthentic, Hankinson implies, for acting like English hooligans (i.e., jumping up and down and being obnoxious), but then they’re also inauthentic for not acting like English hooligans (i.e., knifing Dutch schoolteachers at the World Cup). Had the scary-looking Philly fans actually assaulted that vulnerable Red Bulls couple at the start of the piece—rather than, you know, not interacting with them at all—they would have been totally authentic, but also totally inauthentic, because copying England is terrible, unless you do it violently, in which case you’re serious, but also terrible, because violence is terrible, but also serious. Also: drunk people, but especially drunk members of the Sons of Ben Philadelphia Union supporters’ group, are ridiculous.
Well, whatever. Being a freelance writer sucks, and Hankinson obviously did what he could to add color to what sounds like a horribly uneventful trip. (At one point, two young male sports fans in their 20s shockingly eat cheeseburgers after dark.) And yes, as Jason acknowledges, American supporter groups do draw liberally from English fan motifs, and sometimes that looks awkward. At the same time, though? No one did more to bring MLS to Philadelphia than the Sons of Ben. They were going to away games before they had a team. Maybe their scarves aren’t the scarves of John Wayne, but they’ve lived up to their end of this business. Show a little respect.
More generally: We can, and should, talk about the increasing convergence of English and American sports culture, institutional Europhilia in MLS, why young men like footwear that makes them look dangerous, and what a really indigenous American soccer culture would look like. But mocking individual people for being influenced by cultures outside their own neighborhood is just mocking the tide. I mean, sure, back when the Beatles were singlehandedly inventing rock and roll, out of whole cloth, based on nothing more than English music-hall songs and a long tradition of Liverpudlian hair-grease circulars, it was possible to maintain a certain purity. But now? The world is a blur, and there are Super Bowl parties in London, and not even 50 Cent knows to what extent he’s been influenced by Rio Ferdinand’s Tom Ford obsession. Why, even British GQ isn’t the bastion of indigenous English culture that it was back in 1988, when it was founded by an American media conglomerate, as a spinoff of an American magazine. Or is cultural cross-pollination only worth taking seriously when it starts at the Condé Nast Building?
Union fans depicted in the article deny that even some of the essentially mundane events Hankinson depicts actually happened, although Hankinson insists that they did.
Cf. soccer culture in Italy, Holland, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, France, and Germany, all of which erupted spontaneously and with no English influence whatsoever.
Read More: American Notes, MLS, Philadelphia Union
by Brian Phillips · February 8, 2011
I love that: There’s nothing to protect these people from a vicious assault! . . . that never happens or even threatens to happen, so never mind.
“Hankinson’s piece somehow manages to sensationalize American supporter culture as out-of-control and scary (“There is no visible police presence today on the railway platforms…. Nothing to protect a vulnerable-looking couple in New York Red Bulls tops from a vicious assault”) while also mocking American supporter culture for being restrained and peaceful (“studenty,” “tame,” “laughable,” “hard to take seriously”).”
It’s a hilariously bad piece (which compels me to link to this pair of articles Steven Wells — also a British sportswriter, unfortunately now deceased — wrote on the Sons of Ben), and I’m sorry I read it, but I think that the first bit you quote is also meant to mock American supporter culture for being restrained and peaceful — the point being that there is no visible police presence because there is no need for one because there’s nothing vicious about the Philly fans. (Not that this detracts from the overall accuracy of your point.)
Or, I could be completely wrong, as the author’s comments here indicate.
But those articles by Wells are still much better than his piece.
As a limey, this stuff (aka Hankinson/British GQ) is embarrassing. Really, really embarrassing.
I should have pointed this out in the post, but I hope it goes without saying that English supporter groups, who collectively wrote “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at the Flatiron Pub near Anfield in 1959, have never been influenced by anyone else, ever.
As a fellow card-carrying limey it is cringeworthy, but the piece wasn’t meant to make British GQers laugh, rather ‘guffaw’ between bites of cucumber sandwiches. Tapping into the English sense of superiority over football is easier than spending half a season with a MLS supporters group.
What stuck with me from the original piece was that these lads undertook a two day, 1,000 mile roadtrip, just to see 90 minutes of domestic soccer. I tip my bowler hat to them.
@Brian Phillips I meant the GQ thing is embarrassing, not the (correct) stateside response by you/Jason. If that was unclear
@Kofte Agreed. Anyone who goes to that length to support their team has more right to call themselves a true football fan than most ‘tame’, ‘laughable’ and ‘hard to take seriously’ armchair supporters in England.
While the piece is mostly forgettable, there’s a certain truth to the fact that American fans sometimes over do-it, just to seem authentic. For all their talk about wanting to cultivate the sport and get new fans, most of the MLS supporter groups I’ve interacted with are surprisingly unwelcoming towards the new fan. I don’t know howo many times I’ve seen the Riot Squad try to intimidate newbies into leaving the supporter section.
It’s ridiculous, and completely due to the fact that most supporter groups just want to seem as hard as their Italian/German/Whoever Brethren.
@Maxi Isn’t that true of any cultural phenomenon though? Those early-adopters of a movement are always trying to lord their seniority over those new to the scene. See: any Lower East Side and/or Williamsburg club on a Saturday night.
Just to flip this around a little, the one thing that shines through Hankinson’s article is the confusion English football fans feel when confronted with American soccer fans. I don’t want to absolve Hankinson of his condescending sins, but imagine you’re an American visiting Manchester and you meet an English kid who’s obsessed with baseball. You’d be half amused, half bemused when hearing this kid pronounce Albert Pujols in his little Manc accent. That’s sort of how I imagine Hankinson felt.
@daryl That’s a fair point, but I think the explanation would have carried more weight a few years ago than it does today. If England had a baseball league on the level of MLS, and a roster of national talent that had proved it could compete with an American all-star team, and the kid in Manchester was invested in all that…well, I’m sure a lot of MLB fans would still find it weird when he got up for the seventh-inning stretch, but I’m not sure they’d have much excuse.
@Brian Phillips I agree it’s not a perfect analogy (maybe not even a good one) but I’d argue that to a certain section of insular English fans, the Premier League is like MLB, while MLS may as well be the British Baseball Federation (which I found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Baseball_Federation) for all they know or care.
I can see it from their perspective. If the Premier League takes up the majority of your attention, and then any spare attention goes to La Liga, Serie A etcetera, then it’s a big ask to expect UK fans/writers to have a good understanding of what’s happening here in the US. So instead they have to fall back on old stereotypes, in which American soccer fans are essentially novelties.
Oops, stray bracket found its way into the BBF link in above comment. Correct url is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Baseball_Federation
(I’m not a BBF employed spammer, honest!)
@daryl “…it’s a big ask to expect UK fans/writers to have a good understanding of what’s happening here in the US.”
Fans, maybe. Writers, no, not when they’ve accepted a job to come here and report on what’s happening. Hankinson took that job and then wrote a piece that deliberately played up to his audience’s uninformed prejudices. Even if you can see what motivated him to do it, it’s not exactly a noble or justifiable act.
On the other hand, the British Baseball Federation looks amazing.
@Brian Phillips “Even if you can see what motivated him to do it, it’s not exactly a noble or justifiable act.”
Absolutely, and I definitely don’t want to wind up mounting some sort of defence of Hankinson.
It strikes me that’s what’s really needed is an American voice explaining US soccer culture to a UK audience. I thought Jason Davis did a great job in his response article, and guys like Sean Wheelock on the BBC World Football Phone-In are getting the message across too. Slowly but surely I suppose. Maybe by the time every single Premier League team has an American central midfielder (Holden, Bradley, Dempsey, Jones etc, we’re getting there) then there’ll be a bit more awareness over there of what’s happening over here.
@daryl And maybe it’ll help when every MLS team has a former Premier League star on the roster!
>American fan groups are inauthentic
Cmon… the Philadelphia fans had already made a name for themselves online BEFORE THE TEAM EVEN DRAFTED THE PLAYERS!!
People were talking about their passion and commitment to a team that hadnt played a game or even had players….
So yes, it seemed forced and inauthentic.
But hey, it worked so now the Cosmos is taking this up a notch and creating buzz and brand awereness behind a team that doesnt exist, is not within years of even joining the MLS, in a market where the existing big budgeted team is having lukewarm success.
The MLS has done a great job bringing in three teams (including 2012) that have pro soccer tradition going back going back 3-4 decades, so its understandable that rebranding an old name like Cosmos (it seems like false advertising since the original spend more than anyone and helped bring an end to NASL and the new one would not be. Its like touring with the guy from the Cure and calling yourself The Doors) also feels inauthentic too.
He needs to come visit Section 8 in Chicago or Barra Brava, ACF/Riot Squad or El Batallon in Houston. Doing a piece on a 1st year MLS team in Philly is not a good way to learn what makes MLS fans tick.
Man, I really hope that’s the real Tim “Oaf” Lovejoy
I think he’s just bitter we did better at the World Cup than them
I prefer Elvis, actually.
Wow…there’s a British version of GQ also???
I do find the Sons of Ben slightly laughable, but that’s mostly down to my English arrogance and the images of Gentle Ben that their name always conjures up.
As for how the English view the MLS, I’m no cultural commentator, but having watched a bit of MLS on ESPN (see, there are no boundaries any more), a big reason why I’ve never gotten into it is the commentators. As much as we might moan about hearing about “that night in Istanbul” and so on, watching US football coverage is like falling into a weird netherworld where everything that happens is the same, except that everything has a different name, all the cultural touchstones have changed, the level of importance of certain events has shifted, the tone is different, a clubs WDL record now seems more important than the number of points they have, and even the importance of stats has mushroomed beyond all comprehension.
It’s unsettling, and it makes me miss Motty.
Follow the ease at which one goes to the game and you will see that the railway station at Lime Street in L2 is no different than the drive from Pittsburgh to Phili on a snowy Saturday morning—In fact, the latter may require more respect to than the other, if difficulty, hardship and persistence is what is given privilege?