In With The Ultras- Earnie, Me, and Toronto FC

This week marks the quarter-way point of my Year Abroad in Toronto. I'm halfway to Christmas! Speaking to a lot of students, both international and Canadian, it seems this week in particular has been quite hard, and I'm no different. Exams and assignments have been thick and fast, a few things have caused me to miss home, and this coming Wednesday would have been my Dad's birthday. Thankfully, a pick-me-up arrived, and, as so often is the case with me, it arrived in the form of The Beautiful Game. 

Ever since I found out I was coming to Toronto for my Year Abroad, I've taken an interest in Toronto Football Club. I've kept abreast of their fortunes via Twitter and Internet forums, and it's largely been a depressing picture. Formed in 2006, the club simply hasn't kicked on in the way that a sports-mad city like Toronto should have, and they are yet to make the Major League Soccer end of season play-offs. It's been a familiar story of underachievement, endless personnel reshuffles, and behind-the-scenes mismanagement, which has led to various journalists bemoaning that the club is 'cursed', and should start again from scratch.

Shit team, off-the-field problems, massive city but very little success? Christ, I thought I came to Toronto to get away from the Blues!

In an odd but enjoyable twist, Toronto signed Steven Caldwell from Birmingham in May, who has been a rare shining light in yet another poor season. He joins Robert Earnshaw and Bobby Convey on the list of 'players you might have heard of', under the stewardship of Head Coach Ryan Nelsen.

Having been extremely busy, we'd come to the final day of the regular season (with Toronto well out of the play-off picture) and I realised I still hadn't been to a game. No matter, I thought, I'll just wait til the Spring and go to a cheaper pre-season game. Caldwell will probably have buggered off then and I won't have to have Vietnam-style flashbacks of his performances at the start of last season.

Then, however, a Twitter competition sprang up to win a pair of tickets to the game. I've got a ludicrously good track record when it comes to Twitter competitions- I seem to have some sort of hold over social media accounts whereby I'm automatically picked to win whatever's on show. In the last eight months, I've won tickets to the Cheltenham Gold Cup, VIP Blues tickets, and now, thanks to my shameless declaration that 'I've come from Birmingham, UK, and I need to tell Captain Caldwell that I love him', I can add Toronto FC tickets to that particular roster!

Toronto Ultras- listen out for me at the end.

Taking along my English mate from Warwick (who has been twice the beneficiary of my good fortune), we turned up to the stadium in the downtown area of Toronto, and made our way to the pick-up place. I was asked what my name was to pick up the tickets (naturally, I said @EdBlues, my Twitter moniker), and five minutes later, after a quick flurry of activity, I was presented with two tickets, and a signed Toronto FC shirt! Completely unexpected, but something which is in keeping with a lot of the culture of 'soccer' in North America- the fans are treated with the utmost respect, and not as a cash cow.

Impossible not to get involved in this chant, even if it does originate from Crystal Palace.

We ignored what was on our tickets and sat amongst the Ultras. The die-hard fans. I've been highly cynical of these choreographed 'singing sections' in the past, but this was brilliant. Home-made flags, pyrotechnics, a guy with a megaphone leading all the chants, and, best of all, free beer handed out amongst the die-hard fans by some wealthy benefactor. Considering English football fans aren't even trusted to take a beer into the stands, it was quite a diversion from the over-priced watery piss that they're known to serve at Blues and label as lager. It led me to question whether a choreographed singing section would ever take off at Blues- our current incarnation, Forza Blues, is a figure of fun, and at the last home game I attended, seemed to have about 30 members who didn't make a noise all game. So why did it work today? Alcohol, a very good performance in an entertaining match, and persistence.

Interestingly, there was quite a revolutionary atmosphere ongoing during the game. It must be bloody hard to create an identity for a club that has started from nothing in the mid-noughties, but I was mightily impressed by the support for TFC. A lot of Forza's woes have been put down to apathy and anger towards the owners- here, with a banner saying 'Something is Rotten in Our Club', it appears that Toronto has had enough of under-achievement, and is using that anger to engender something of a fervour. So it appears it can work...

To say a little about the game itself- Toronto was to act as the 'spoiler' in Montreal's play-off party. A Montreal win, and the Quebecers would be guaranteed a play-off place. Lose or draw, and they would be forced to sweat on results elsewhere over the weekend. I had very little hope- whenever you mention that you follow Toronto FC out here, people laugh wearily and look pityingly at you. Again, it's a similar reaction I get to when I say I'm a Blues supporter.


I've often thought of the MLS as the place that once-good players come to die, so to speak. It's one last pay-cheque, and as such, I expected there to be quality on show, but played almost at an exhibition pace. To an extent, I was entirely correct, but I was pleasantly surprised by Toronto's showing. They knocked it about well, worked the channels, but, as was often the case, the pace had evidently gone from some players' legs. 'HMS' Caldwell never really had a great deal to begin with- I think I saw him go backwards at one point. Having said that, I don't want to denigrate him too much, he was brilliant in the Hughton season, and he never gave less than one hundred per cent. It was clear that he and Robert Earnshaw, once of West Bromwich Albion, had played at a higher level, simply by their positioning and reading of the game. With Earnshaw scoring the only goal and Caldwell helping to keep a clean sheet, it was pretty much a perfect game for the British contingent in amongst the Canadians, both on the pitch and in the stands.

'Braveheart', as the Reds fans have Christened him, hit the bar with a header and also had a shot cleared off the line. I think it's probably for the best that he didn't score, or else I might have combusted, and this blog would never have been.

So, once again, football comes to the rescue. Someone said this week, and they were completely right, that 'when the Year Abroad is great, it's absolutely amazing- but when it's hard, it's so, so hard'.

Thankfully, a few days that started off in the doldrums ended on an amazing high.

Thanks to Toronto FC and Purolator for sorting me with the tickets and giving my mate and I a great day. Purolator is Canada's leading integrated freight and parcel solutions provider- celebrating 50 years of delivering Canada!