Sons Of Ben Hit Back At GQ Article

Last week we ran a piece on the horrendous portrayal of Philadelphia Union’s Sons Of Ben and football supporter culture in North America in general by GQ magazine in the UK.

The GQ article has been met with anger from football supporters over here, with writer Andrew Hankinson pilloried by many. Now, I’m sure that the article doesn’t really interest that many people in blighty, so for it to become one of their top read pieces says a lot about the publicity it’s raised in North America and the feelings it has generated.

All of this is just what GQ would have wanted of course, so I’m sure that they are rubbing their hands at all the attention. No such thing as bad publicity and all that, although I’m sure the Sons Of Ben would dispute that old cliche.

Although not impressed by the original article, I have been pleased that GQ has allowed Sons Of Ben member Brody Chacha a right of reply, albeit one reprinted from Match Fit USA.

This of course, only addresses those readers who saw the article online, not those reading it in print.

It was a well crafted response and Brody comes across very well when allowed to be quoted directly, showing himself, his friends and the Sons Of Ben in a way better light, especially when it addresses him being labelled a “nameless skinhead and hooligan”.

Hankinson had Brody’s name from the start, he says, and just chose not to use it. Chacha’s version of how events played out and of quotes given also put a different light on what was happening.

Hankinson still disputes some of the criticism being levelled at him and was also given the opportunity to address this and still claims that “the story is accurate”.

What this story has shown supporters groups throughout North America is to be wary of the press and especially those journalists from the UK. If they want to do a story on you, then a boring old piece about “this is what we like to do on matchdays” is never going to pull the punters in. No matter what they tell you, they will always look for another angle.

It’s hard. You want to grow the group, spread the message and build a proper football culture in North America. Articles like this GQ one can kill that if idiots take it seriously, but I think the bond shown by fans all across the US and Canada has shown that we already have some great foundations, guys and girls in MLS. We have a good thing here and no-one’s going to take that away now. Not journalists, not Garber. The tide of change is in full flow.

Articles like this are good though and that’s when we come back to the whole “no bad publicity” angle. It gets people talking about us and raises some uncomfortable issues around how we behave, what we chant and swearing. We’re not always going to like the answers we hear back but that’s then the ideal opportunity to put our cases across reasonably.

Some journalists will never get football culture. Some will just want to try and paint us all as hooligans Some are really sound though. If you find one. Keep hold of them. They’re like Willie Wonka’s golden tickets and don’t let any fat German kid take that away from you.

Biggest Threat To Football Supporters Culture In North America? Lazy Journalism

One of the hardest things about being a football supporter in North America, is constantly having to explain to friends and workmates that no, you’re not a football hooligan that is going around trashing cities and beating up opposition supporters.

Of course, it’s not just uneducated people close to you that have this perception of us. A lot of the media do too. The ones that look down on football because it’s not American. These are the guys who will quickly laud the NFL’s Green Bay Packers as ‘world champions’, in a sport where only one country takes part. The ones who will happily extol the virtue of a sport like baseball, whilst knocking football for the lack of excitement and scoring.

I’m a fan of baseball. I’m a fan of most North American sports. I have season tickets to the BC Lions, as well as the Caps. All of them can have their great games and their terrible games. Just like football. And you don’t watch a team like East Fife in Scotland for over 25 years without knowing a thing or too about bad football and unexciting games!

All of them can also have a section of assholes who cause trouble, fight and get thrown out or arrested. It’s just that many of those incidents don’t even merit a passing mention in the North American media outlets. If it happens at a football match though, then it’s big news. You can almost see some journalists rubbing their hands when something happens.

These journos are never going to get it. They’re not going to want to get it. And in a city like Vancouver, where a lot of the media will be worried about losing column inches and airtime to newbies covering the new hot ticket in town, they will take every chance they can to diss football, the Whitecaps, the Southsiders and football fans in general.

There will be trouble at some games. There’s been some mild trouble at some of the Whitecaps-Toronto matches the last two years with drunken, big mouth TFC dicks being taken down a peg or two when they’ve overstepped the mark. Times the attendance by four and of course isolated incidents will break out and not all of it football related. Just like at every Lions or Canucks game I’ve been to where alcohol more than hooliganism plays a big part.

What we have to watch though is that we don’t let the press have a field day about football hooliganism coming to the city along with MLS.

We need the Vancouver public to understand fan culture and what it brings to the game and to the atmosphere. Seeing it first hand or on TV will do this, but we also need the media to help spread this message as well.

So we have it tough with journalists in our own back yard. When a journalist from a respected UK publication comes along and wants to write about you though, you think great. Someone from a country that lives and breathes football wants to do a piece on what it’s like to be a football supporter here.

That’s what happened to the Philadelphia Union fans last year with GQ Magazine.

Check this awful piece out for the kind of writing that sets football, football supporters groups and fan culture back several steps in Canada and the US. Thankfully most people here will never read it.

You only have to look at the first picture and the connotations of the “America football factory” headline to know where this particular article is going and what Andrew Hankinson has up his sleeve.

The opening shots are talking about four skinhead fans and as soon as you read the line “They quieten when two big black men get on”, you’re at first rolling around the floor with tears running down your face before becoming angry that someone is about to do a hatchet job on something that you’re trying hard to help build. As soon as you get a few more lines down, the skinheads point out they’re against racism, so no need for the mention of the black guys at all then.

It may not be about me or the Southsiders or Vancouver fans, but we’re a band of brothers here in many regards. A pop at North American supporters culture is a pop at all of us and great ammo for all the critics, including those at many of the clubs around the league – which possibly includes our own.

For all the sensational playing up of the hard lads act that you find inside, the main feeling you’re left with is what a bunch of numpties the Philadelphia Union fans are.

Now that’s me, a hardcore football fan, that’s thinking that after reading the article. What’s a fan who isn’t in a supporters group or someone with just a general interest in the game going to take from it? We all get tarred by the same stick with shit like this.

I’ve never met a Union fan, but I’m pretty certain that from other supporters groups I’ve had dealings with, this isn’t reflective of a group like The Sons Of Ben. They don’t come off in a good light though, with their ‘leaders’ missing a Union game to go watch the baseball. Wtf?! One guy maybe. But three. Ok then.

Someone else who doesn’t come across well from the piece is Don Garbage. “There are two things I worry about. One is that we’re going to have a terrorist attack in an MLS stadium. The second is that we’re going to have a riot in a stadium” exudes Commissioner Don as he goes on about how worried he is about swearing and “lunatic fringes” in supporters groups. I didn’t even know he knew about me!

This man is in charge of running the League FFS. What hope can we have.

The article is sensationalism at it’s worst. We’re great at that in the UK. It’s nice to be away from it to be perfectly frank. It’s not only lazy but both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure. I’m not even sure that some of the stuff I was roaring in laughter at was meant to be funny. The writer hasn’t covered himself in much glory here (there was some interesting stuff in the middle). He comes across as pathetic as the Union fans he is portraying.

It’s one piece though. Nothing to get too worked up about in the grand scheme of things I know, but it does serve a warning as to what we may find ourselves subjected to by some in the Vancouver media and we need to be on our guard.

If fans shouting “asshole” can create such a storm with press and MLS bigwigs, fuck knows what they’re going to make of us come March.

The one thing that is certain though is that some in the media won’t be ready for it.