—by Travis Hefner
A version of this editorial originally appeared in the East Coast Platoon Facebook group and is reprinted here with permission.
We are fucking proud. We are proud of the work we do. We are proud of the efforts people put into this club. We are proud of our standing as truly the best supporters the world has ever seen.
Due to this pride, this *deserved* fucking pride, our ire is great and vindictive when what we are proud of does not get to happen.
We are all proud of our fearless ECP leader, Scott Brown. He busts his ass for us to have amazing times at our away days, including communicating for weeks i
f not months beforehand with our opponent's front office. He, along with members of the tifo crew in Portland, put together that tifo display that you may have heard about on social media. This was not a last minute decision by Scott; numerous emails were sent back and forth between Scott and New England reps. But, they were indecisive. They were lazy. They never approved it or disapproved it, merely continued to deflect and string along until the last minute (quite literally in one case).
Despite weeks of this back and forth, the tifo display we all saw wasn't officially axed until mere *hours* before the game. Hard work? Going through proper channels? Within MLS guidelines? Eh, go fuck yourself still, says the New England Revolution.
What angers me further is our new ECP banner also being banned from the stadium with no prior warning. Again the hard work of Scott Brown gets stolen because of...uh...reasons? The truly ridiculous thing about this being that two years ago, a larger banner was *allowed* in by these same fucking people. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to New England away; all I know is at the end I'm always pissed off.
As for you lot? The pride I spoke of? It fucking grew. Whether it be average folk like myself yelling about it on Twitter, or Timbers Army themselves back home stating "Next season we'll do a banner that simply says 'You lost MLS Cup five f*****g times,'" my heart grew for the support of supporters. As another banned Scott Brown creation said, "Keep on pushing."
And to New England? Scott Brown has to be diplomatic. He does, after all, have to deal with this circus constantly as our away day rep. Unfortunately, I don't have such constraints. Also unfortunately, I'm an asshole. So, let me put it succinctly for these clowns in New England.
Y'all's front office is a fucking disgrace.
Travis is a proud ECP member who lives in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached on Twitter at @sonofcrunch.
