Z and I have been following the Arsenal, an English football team for two seasons now. While I really dig it, it feels kind of funny to put a lot of energy into something so distant (we actually got satellite JUST to watch football!) I was really excited that when we moved here, we could totally follow a local, kickass soccer team... the New England Revolution.
I headed to Providence for various and sundry things on Friday, and was planning my return when Z mentioned that the Rev were playing the LA Galaxy. (The Galaxy are like the Yankees of men's pro soccer in the states... they've got Landon Donovan AND David Beckham.) He looked into actually heading over to the stadium, but since I'm still unemployed, and tickets are not THAT cheap we settled for watching the game in a bar.
In Seattle, we knew where to find soccer on tv. In Fremont, there was the George and Dragon, there's The Dray in Ballard, there's the Kangaroo and Kiwi on Aurora and downtown, there's the Owl and Thistle. When the African Cup happened we called each of them and every Ethiopian restaurant and bar in town and still couldn't watch ONE game, even the final. What I'm saying is, we have practice tracking down soccer bars. Since I was hanging out with the Gray family, Z did all the "legwork" (read: Googling) tracking down the best place to go. I got home, we left for the T, we got out right near Fenway, and headed to a very fancy bar.
"Are you sure they'll show it?"
"Yes. This is where the very devoted fans, the Midnight Riders, come when they can't get to the game. They'll show it."
I put a shirt on over my tank top for decency and we headed in. Every television showed college American football. We asked the bartender, she asked her manager, she told us no. The manager came to us and apologized... usually they do show the games, but tonight they had a private party starting in 20 minutes. He apologized a couple more times and told us he wasn't sure where we could go to see the game.
We headed out, and over to Boston Beer Works which had a plethora of tv's (also showing college ball). We asked, and they said that they could totally put some tv's on the Fox Soccer Network for us...also they were a microbrewery! Score! We sat down and put off the waiter until we were sure that they really had the game. There was the face of Donovan in high def! We ordered beers and food (our waiter just moved here from Portland, Or, so we exchanged secret handshakes and he told us about the floral Ipa "You really can't find that kind of Ipa here in Boston") and then "No Signal". The tv's would show about 1 or 2 minutes of game and then "No Signal" for about 30 seconds. "Watching" the game this way was worse than listening to a radio, worse than not watching at all. All the same, it was all we could look at... we'd watch a play develop, see the pass toward the center then "No Signal". We were crestfallen. We gulped down the beer and the food and bolted.
The Iphone oracle suggested we go to a place called McGinns. En route Z popped into a bar as we passed and they suggested we head to McGinns. Thus bolstered in our faith in the oracle, we walked around the block. McGinns looked like just the place... except that it was inexplicably dark. So inexplicably dark (no sign, no nothing) that we both just stared into the windows for awhile. It was frustrating. We didn't have anything else to do, though and it was early so we figured we'd wander around and maybe get lucky. I had given up any real hope, but I like wandering around, so off we went around the next block. We saw a place called "Porter". We both enjoy porter, so we headed over. We looked through the paned windows, and there over the bar was a television showing the game. Easy as that. There were a handful of people inside, including a broad, atheletic-looking guy with bristly silver hair, staring up at the screen.
It was fantastic. The game was exciting (we'd only missed the first half hour) and Z talked to the fan... he'd played professionally back in the day and was eager for soccer to "catch on" here in the states. He followed Portugal and they had a great chat.
Here's to finding our way in our big home! Cheers.
