New South Stand. New Supporters?

Future V sector member in training.

Future V sector member in training.

If you’re a Toronto FC season ticket holder, you might well have got an interesting email yesterday, talking about the chance of getting into some of the hundreds of new seats they’re adding to the bottom of sections 114 and 116, ‘surrounding yourselves with some of the loudest and most passionate supporters in MLS’. Tee, and might I add, hee. Here’s the full email, for some reason they forgot to add a giant ‘comments valid from 2007-2009 only’ asterisk.

“When you choose to be in the Supporters Section, you’re choosing to surround yourself with some of the loudest and most passionate supporters in MLS.

The energy and excitement generated from these sections has an impact during the match and creates an intimidating atmosphere for opposing teams. Fans in these sections are permitted to stand during play, use pre-approved flags, banners, drums and Club approved smoke.

In 2015, we will be adding a few hundred seats to the front of Sections 114 and 116 with the expansion of BMO Field. In keeping with our Supporters Section vision, we have been working closely with our Supporter Clubs to relocate their members closer together.

If you are not a member and are interested in joining one of our Supporter Clubs,
click here to submit your response.

If this is not the experience that you are looking for, you may relocate to a more appropriate section. More details on our Season Seat Holder relocation will be available to you in February.

With a major upgrade to BMO Field currently underway along with a heightened south end atmosphere, we are very much looking forward to the start of the 2015 season and a new level of football experience.

Toronto FC
//All For One”

So much fun to be made. the obviously anachronistic description of the south end, the ‘heightened south end atmosphere’ and ‘ a new level of football experience’ that are somehow magically going to appear, and especially that sentence in the middle of the thing. ‘If you are not a member and are interested in joining one of our Supporter Clubs, click here to submit your response.’

That brings up some intriguing possibilities, is this merely a public service announcement, pointing people towards the various SG’s to make their own minds up with no obligations? If so, why not just put a link to them? Is the club setting up their own supporter’s ‘club’ (not group, as most of the existing one’s call themselves?)? Or will anyone who clicks the link be directed to an existing supporters group?  Or their email passed along to a supporters group who’ll contact them with membership info? If so, do they get to choose?  Or is this just another example of the further cosying of the relationship between the club and the Red Patch Boys? Given other groups don’t really have any kind of formal member status, I’d guess that’s what’s happening, but who really knows. (Your intrepid Vocal Minority reporting team has submitted their response, when they find out what happens, we’ll be sure to make fun of it somewhere). Either way, the fact the club is sending out unsolicited emails to promote the idea of joining a ‘supporter club’

Bu anyway, to the important question you’d expect from the Vocal Minority. What should this new or improved ‘supporter club’ be named? Feel free to leave your own options in the comments section, but we’ll start with the following crowd sourced options;

The Redder, Patchier Boys
The Maroon Badge Lads
Tribal Rhythm Continent
V-Sector (h/t celebrity VMP stalker Red Wine Roz). Obvious hand gesture demonstrated by that obliviously rude disney princess above
The South End Elite
The Inebriatter (Inebriattiest?)
Sons of Bitchy

Either way, if you like to know what time it is based on what song you’re singing, and like your supporters groups nice and official, sign up now for a new level of football experience!

Or, what the hell, just wander over to the top of 117 (there was a lot of room last year, we’re anticipating the same for 2015), stand near us and be a part of the new or improved Vocal Minority (Vocal Majority I guess) Good puns, crap songs, sarcasm, cynicism and grumpiness and an instinctive ‘fuck you Spurs’ reaction to any Tottenham ads all welcomed.

Author: Duncan Fletcher

Blogging journeyman formerly of Cruel Geography and Waking the Red, also briefly with Sportsnet and every now and then with the Guardian. As a supporter of Darlington, TFC, England and Canada, football's been unfair and poking fun at Duncan for decades now, so it's only fair he does the same right back at it. Follow him on twitter @duncandfletcher

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12 Comments

  1. The SGs should control their sections. The last thing we need are more South End tourists to complain about the approved standing during play, using of pre-approved flags, banners, drums and use of Club approved smoke – complaining which happens every game.

    Should rename the so-called “supporters section” to “cheap ass seats where actual supporter type behavior is barely tolerated section.”

    Post a Reply
    • yep. but who’s going to give up their ‘cheapest seats in the house’ seats.
      Supporters should get together with the F/O and move. have equally cheap seats but a brand new section that is specifically for supporter stuff, throw them under the east stand roof and they’ll sound great. let the south end be for those who just want cheap seats and don’t care too much.

      Post a Reply
      • That’s far too logical. Unless you can wrap a natty promotional campaign around it…

        Post a Reply
      • I’ve been partial to converting the North End to an all-supporters section. The wider space between the rows perfect for semi-safe standing. From what I understand, the request was made by SGs and rejected. Maybe it can be revisited in light of the 125,000 new seats we are getting.

        Post a Reply
        • would be perfect, except that they’re knocking it down for the argos. whether anything temporary goes up there for tfc games or not, I guess we’ll see in 2016.

          Post a Reply
  2. “Sons of Bitchy” – it’s settled. 117 has a new supporters group! Can I get a flag and logo made up?

    Post a Reply
    • I waive any and all intellectual property rights to the phrase.

      make it happen.

      Post a Reply
  3. TFC are insisting on directing the supporter culture in TO. They are under the mistaken impression that the supporter groups need their direction.
    The supporter culture in Toronto is already fractured and dysfunctional.
    TFC have no idea how to run a team. I’m not sure where they got the idea they have the knowledge and experience to direct how the supporters operate.
    As for the south end its a joke. I agree it should be renamed the cheap ass section. The majority of ticket holder are there for the price and to stand up. They have no interest in being in a supporter section.
    I’m sure TFC will somehow mess up this new seat allocation. It seems they go out of their way to screw things up.

    Post a Reply
    • Just because some of us don’t want to be capoed, use smoke/flares and sing for the entire 90 minutes and sing songs at time cues, it doesn’t make us any less of a supporter. We just don’t subscribe to those things as being a supporter.

      I grew up on the terraces in Scotland where you follow the game and sing songs that suit the flow and direction of the game and anyone can start them. That, to me, is what supporters do. The games against Houston and, especially, Portland proved that there is still an appetite for engaged support. We’re just not interested in following what a few people think we should be doing because they saw it somewhere else

      Post a Reply
      • Thanks for mentioning that supporters do not need to be told when and what to sing. Plenty of times, during matches in the South stand, timely songs have been drowned out by megaphones and drums. MLSE actively supports this idea by building those damn stairs to nowhere for the capos to stand during the match.

        I remember a few years ago that certain sections, namely 112 and 113, had a binder with numbers in it to indicate what song to sing next . . . I just shook my head.

        Capos have a place, but unoriginal shite gets old really fast.

        Post a Reply
        • I’m not against capos if entire sections want to use them. It’s just not my thing. I don’t expect a lot of people find our stuff to be the greatest thing ever but I also don’t demand that they conform to my way of doing things either.

          That being said, I do think that if you want to be in a designated supporters section you should be ready to make noise when you feel it is time and it clearly states standing is permitted and flags can be used (just not for 90 minutes if you are going to block others for the whole game) so you shouldn’t be making an issue of that

          Post a Reply
          • I tend to agree wholeheartedly with this. There’s nothing wrong with banners/tifos/capos/flags and flares, but I don’t want to stand behind that. This is why we moved shop to the west corner.

            If TFC have their way, the south stand supporters become employees of sorts, and they can have discounted tickets as long as they project the exact image which they want to portray to the league/media/other fans.

            Supporter culture can and should take many forms in the same way there are many forms of it world wide (since that’s who’s being copied). I like standing, I like singing when I feel like it and as the game dictates and I don’t feel like making banners, or carrying them, or standing behind them, or putting them in the way of my neighbours behind me.

            Perhaps since MLSE likes designating things so much, why don’t they just designate 112/113 (or whatever) as banners and flags.

            And I didn’t buy tickets in the south end because they were cheap, I bought them because I could stand the entire game. Sitting and footie just feels… wrong to me.

            Post a Reply

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