Jimjamesak
Since we are near the end of the MLS regular season a lot of talk has been revolving around who will win the Supporters Shield and the Domestic Treble. Now I know what the SS is and how it's awarded and all that but what I don't know is the history behind it (with the exception of the Miami supporters and Bigsoccer's 10 most wanted list), and I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't know it either. So would anyone care to explain? In a polite manner, if your gonna bring up single table or any crap like that then go away.
AndyMead
Sam [Sam Pierron, a KC supporter] first presented the Shield to the LA Galaxy supporters at the Rose Bowl in the pouring rain in the summer of 1999. Since then the holding supporters, with one exception, have presented the Shield to the at the Supporters Summit prior to MLS Cup to the new winners. In 2002, Sam Pierron did the presentation as none of the Miami Fusion supporters made the trip - in fact, they spent much of the summer debating whether to hold the Shield hostage, destroy it, send it to Argentina, etc....
Mad_Bishop
from an interview with sam that I think sums up quite a bit of the history
"JH: What was the motive behind coming up with the Supporter’s Shield?
SP: Well, as you know the Supporter’s Shield is the award given to the regular season champion, which is determined by the team who has the most points at the end of the season (i.e., winning and drawing the most games).
It wasn’t my idea. It was the brainchild of a Tampa fan, who wanted to call it the Scudetto, in honor of the regular season champion of Italy. And he had a sculptor friend come up with a design. But then he needed to raise money to have it made. I was selected as the chairman of a committee to raise money and discuss various issues with the trophy.
This was in early 1997, before the Supporters’ Summit was started. This was a product of communications between the supporter’s clubs. In the discussions over the name of the trophy and the format of the trophy, [the Tampa fan] got mad and because most people didn’t want to name it the same thing he did and didn’t like Scudetto. They thought that we should give it an American name for an American League.
At the time MLS had the shootout and there was much debate whether we should use shootout points in the standings. There was big yelling and screaming match [the Tampa fan] quit, and the project went on the back burner. About a year later, somebody brought it up again, and I just decided, “screw committee work. I’m going to get this done; I’m going to raise the money. I’ll find someone to design it and build it, and we’re going to get this done.”
So there had been some money raised by some of the clubs, and I figures out how much that was. I then sent out a notice asking for more donors. I got a pretty strong response, so I was able to have a target in mind. I was talking to Phil Schoen who was then the ESPN major league soccer announcer got a hold of me, and told me that he wanted to donate. At this point I probably had $600 in the account, and I didn’t know how much more I was going to get. So I visit Phil at his hotel the next time he was in KC, broadcasting a game. He writes me a check for five hundred bucks. And that single handedly changed the scope of things.
When you go overnight form $600 to $1100, and you know you’re going to get more donations, this changes everything. It kicked the project into another gear. That year was the year of the first Supporter’s Summit, which as you know, is a gathering of all the Supporters Clubs to discuss issues and then have a good time. That year I brought with me a sketch that I that I had made in conjunction with a KU metal works student, for the Supporters Shield. I picked her by going to an arts festival in Olathe, just wandered around looking for sculptures that I liked. And I liked hers. And I also figured that “hey she’s in Lawrence, it’ll be easy to communicate. Two, it’ll be cheaper because she’s a student and she’ll do it for very little. And also, she was very cute. This is the way history happens I suppose.
So I went to the Supporters Summit with the sketch and my plans for the way the trophy would be presented, and for the way it would be earned. I said “look, we’re going to award it based on however MLS determines the regular season champions, because that’s the way that the teams are playing by. In the meantime, we’ll try to change the rules to the way that we want them.” And that was one of the big themes of that first Supporter’s Summit. The Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner [of the MLS] came out, and we told them in one voice “Look, we don’t wan the shootout. We want the game to be played like it is in the rest of the world. With draws; we want the clock to move the right way. AND we want to present THIS trophy to the regular season champion. To give them something tangible to shoot for, so they know that those 32 season games weren’t meaningless, or a prelude to the playoffs. The presentation was, if I may say so, a rousing success. At that point the other supporter’s clubs just started handing me checks. I ended up raising about $3000, which paid for the Shield and some attendant plaques that were about $2200. This leaves us a nice little nest egg to work from, to fix problems and to make a new nameplate every year. And then maybe to build a bigger and better Supporter’s Shield in some years.
At the time I made the presentation to the league, I suggested that the winner of the Supporter’s Shield get one of the continental qualification spots in the Americas and in the Caribbean tournament play. Now that’s happened. At that time the supporters were all stating very strongly that they wanted the end of the shootout. The next year, they took out the shootout. I think maybe the moral to that story, and maybe something to tie everything together is that one of the chief goals of the Mystics and every other supporters club in the United States is working together towards common goals, and I think we’re really proving that collective action can really work. We’re kind of a little laboratory, taken out of oh-so-serious things like labor negotiations or environmental policy. We’re kind of like a collective action playground. We make up a small minority of any given population at a MLS game, but we do make up a larger population of those who are there every day and every game. Come rain or shine. I like to think that we’ve done a lot to make the soccer experience in America look something more like what we want it to look like. Even if we haven’t always succeeded at least we’re giving a good fight and giving a base for it to grow in the future."
Brewster
The Supporters Shield came out of the first Supporters Summit in Pasadena, prior to the 1998 MLS Cup.
The Supporters Summit was the idea of Mike Breton(President of the Ultras Galacticos Supporters Club from LA and myself as well as the president of the Empires Supporters Club from NY. The idea came from the 1997 party DC had before the 97 Cup final. We thought that if we could get all the Supporters Clubs together in one place at one time that we could somehow influence the MLS.
Before the meeting all presidents of all MLS clubs present, except TB, met for breakfast at a local restaurant to refine and prioritize a list of issues, concerns and suggestions to be presented to MLS leadership, who where going to attend the Summit. The attendees were Doug Logan, Sunil Galati,the GM of Miami and Kevin Payne from DC., as well as representatives from Addidas, Nike and the local press.(Pasadena Star News).
At the breakfast, a selection of Supprters President were elected to raise the various issues with our guests. they also agreed on a mission statement and goals for the Supporters alliance. There were also a newsletter workshop.
The meeting took place at the Ramada Inn in Pasadena. the only thing that I remember was the idea of the shield for best record and Doug Logan contributed $100.00 toward it in cash.
That is preety much what I remember of the Summit on the Sat. before the final on Sunday. After the Summit we all went into Old Town Pasadena(very trendy) and had a party with dinner, drinks and silent auction for charity, with all clubs contributing items for the auction.
So I hope this answers your question. It's been six years, but I kept the program from the summit so everything should be accurate.
No comments:
Post a Comment