In defence of the fans...

There's been a lot of press surrounding the All-Star game, most of it positive. The one negative aspect, the whole "booing the US national anthem" issue, will be address in this post and you will see we did NOT boo the US national anthem per se.

What a great night! Even though the city was covered in black clouds, we headed for the Go train with positive attitudes (and raincoats). Ryan and I picked up dinner at McDonalds and then met Carrie and Attila on the platform at Clarkson Station.

Some six-foot-plus fan in a bucket hat who was already well into celebrating, offered Attila a traveller from his Loblaws bag full of them. Carrie, Ryan and I declined. The smell of rum was so strong it was obvious there was barely any Coke in there. Toby would have been proud! So this guy, Kevin, chattered away to Attila, trying to figure out where he was from by his accent, wanting to know where our seats were, how much they cost etc...nothing really unusual except that he did it from a different part of the train by eavesdropping on our conversation and then adding comments or questions.

We were confident that it wouldn't rain in spite of the forecast. On the north side of the train it was sunny blue sky in contrast to the black, black clouds filling the south windows. When we got out at Exhibition Stadium though, the north prevailed and by the time we met up with Jackie, grabbed some refreshments and got to our seats, the sky was clear blue. Getting into the stadium took longer than usual because they were frisking every fan as we came through the gate. We also got a game bonus - the lanyard and ticket holder in my last post.

So, to the booing...

There were only two flags on the field with the players, Great Britain and America. Fans stood quietly for GSTQ but you could hear some grumbling as people craned to see where they were hiding the Canadian flag. As they rolled into the Star Spangled banner, some people were booing, others were shushing them . The guy in front of us was yelling, "No class, you people have no class!". Eventually most just busted out with O Canada. We were prepared to give organizers the benefit of the doubt but when they started announcing the subs, the stadium again broke into O Canada. The announcer made a couple of false starts and then finally gave up and waited for the end. So now, suddenly, they announce that Capt. something-something from the Queen's Own Rifles was going to sing O Canada. A Mountie escort came out with the Canadian flag and...well, here's the official press release on what happened from Canadian Press;

Canadian anthem delayed at MLS all-star game in Toronto
TORONTO — In a case of bad planning, organizers of the Major League Soccer all-star game led many fans to believe that the Canadian anthem was not going to be played on Tuesday at BMO Field.
Instead of bringing the Canadian flag onto the field along with the American flag and the English flag (for the visitors from West Ham United), organizers waited until several minutes after the other two anthems were played to showcase the Maple Leaf, leading to an ugly scene as fans belted out O Canada and booed while the Star Spangled Banner was being played.
When the Canadian anthem finally was performed, the crowd responded with loud cheers and joined in for a loud rendition of O Canada.

So, we weren't booing the US anthem so much as we were booing MLS organizers for appearing to ignore the host country. See? We actually ended up singing the Canadian national anthem 3 times.

Onto the main event...David Beckham.

No really, this isn't just a girl thing - for the first few minutes, there was no doubt everyone was looking for number 23. When he was introduced, the cheers outweighed the jeers but the boos were definitely heard.

As play started it was unclear who was the home favourite. In fact, there were more people cheering for West Ham in the first 10 minutes than for the All-Stars ( who I naiively considered the home team). West Ham scored and everyone cheered and a minute later the All-Stars scored and the cheering was even louder. After that the majority decided the All-Stars were the team to back.

There's not much else I can say. The game was amazing. The players didn't let us down once and everyone cheered like mad when Jim Brennan stepped onto the field with less than a quarter to go! Beckham played the full 90 minutes. The crowd was announced at 20,844 fans, a new BMO Field record! They introduced Bitchy, the Harris Hawk that is tethered at the top of the stadium to keep the seagulls away. There were celebrity fans such as Rachel McAdams and Drew Carey - okay they're b-list celebrities but for Toronto that's just good enough.

The All-Stars won 3-2, Cuauhtemoc Blanco was named MVP. It was the game we all hoped it would be! So, is it official yet? Can Toronto call itself a true soccer town now? Does booing our neighbour's national anthem make us bad to the bone or do we have to wait for hooligan violence to establish ourselves in the footie world?

All I know is, I sure feel like a true soccer fan.