Sports Rubbish » MLS

West Ham United and Columbus Crew Fans Riot During Friendly

Jonathan Sacks — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:31:00 +0000

Videos from yesterday’s fight between West Ham United and Columbus Crew fans have finally made their way to Youtube. In the first video, a West Ham fan gets put into a chokehold by a security guard as other fans push and yell around them. Cool.

Below, fans fight in the stands. The number of people battling was indeed greatly exaggerated, but that’s okay. Rome wasn’t destroyed by rioting in a day. American soccer fans will get better with time.

Just be sure to call me when we get to motor scooter tossing. Then I’ll know we’ve made it.

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West Ham United and Columbus Crew Fans Riot During Friendly

Jonathan Sacks — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:42:00 +0000

It turns out that the Danica Patrick-Milka Duno fight was just the undercard on this weekend’s Ohio brawl calendar. West Ham United visited the Columbus Crew in what can be billed as a classic unfriendly friendly.

During halftime of the match, West Ham & Columbus fans fought in the stands after several West Ham supporters entered a section packed with the most diehard Crew fans. So far no video has surfaced, but according to police, 100 Crew fans battled 30 United fans. Knowing West Ham fans, the Crew fans should have ran away as fast as they could when they faced those numbers, but they stayed and defended their turf.

Inspired by the film Green Street Hooligans, which is based on West Ham United’s notorious Inter City Firm, a group of Columbus Crew fans have called themselves the Hudson Street Hooligans. There is no way that this could have provoked West Ham fans to want to show them who the real tough guys are, not at all. According to one West Ham fan, “We just went over for some tea and crumpets and (the Crew fans) got mad.”

Yes, the large, shirtless, tattooed gentleman looks just like the tea and crumpets type, if by tea you mean beating the crap out of people and by crumpets you mean beating the crap out of them again.

Security and police eventually separated the two groups, but not before several arrests were made and pepper spray was used. A police helicopter was also called in. What this would have accomplished is unclear, but it probably looked cool and provided a nice soundtrack overhead as fans fought each other.

MLS is going to have to start thinking about separating fans, just like they do in most other soccer leagues around the world. It’s clear that fans are becoming more vocal in their support of their teams, which is great for the league, but with this, they have also caused more trouble. Look no further than the racism incident in Columbus earlier this season as proof of this. It doesn’t matter who was at fault in this case, the two sides clearly should not have been able to mix.

With West Ham traveling to Toronto this week for the MLS All-Star Game, the league needs to make sure that a similar incident doesn’t happen in Canada. The last thing they need is to get David Beckham killed in a soccer riot.

Following the match, West Ham manager Alan Curbishley said, “It was a terrific game for us. We needed that sort of a workout. We took the MLS game because we wanted to come to America. We wanted to show people what we’re about.”

And West Ham United is clearly about rioting. On the list of unwanted gifts from Europe, this ranks somewhere between Ace of Base and smallpox.

West Ham, Crew fans brawl in stands [Columbus Dispatch]
Crew-West Ham United friendly marred by brawl between fans [USA Today]

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David Beckham Gets a Posh Naked Lady Tattoo

Jonathan Sacks — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Tattoos of a pretty naked lady are always classy. David Beckham doesn’t just have any old naked lady inked on his body though.

No, the Los Angeles Galaxy and England midfielder recently got a 6-inch arm tattoo of his wife, Posh Spice, reclining naked.

While some might say, “Awww, David Beckham is honoring his wife and wants to be reminded of her always!,” notice one thing.

With the direction the tattoo is facing, it will always be upside down to him (unless he can contort himself in odd ways I don’t want to imagine). His new $5000 tattoo is purely for the enjoyment of others.

Now that’s classy.

Not to be outdone, Posh apparently got a stupid tattoo of her own. At least those two deserve each other.

Now Victoria Beckham reveals HER new tattoo…on the inside of her wrist (Daily Mail)

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Video: MLS Exhibitionist Matches Are Coming to a Venue Near You

Jonathan Sacks — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:25:00 +0000

We promise we will never pass up the opportunity to share a streaker video with you.

At last night’s exhibition match between the L.A. Galaxy and Vancouver Whitecaps, this guy decided to welcome Major League Soccer to British Columbia by showing off his pasty, naked body. He was so enthusiastic that he had problems taking his pants off. We’ve all been there at some point.

Hope he didn’t bend it like Beckham when he dove on the ground at the end.

HT: Towleroad via Deadspin

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Video: MLS – LA Galaxy vs. NY Red Bulls – Beckham Shines, but Other Guys You Haven’t Heard of Shine More

Jonathan Sacks — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:08:00 +0000

And this, my friends, is exactly what the Los Angeles Galaxy and MLS had in mind when they brought David Beckham to America. After a few weeks of “will-he-or-won’t-he” debates about David Beckham’s playing status, he appears to be working his way back to full fitness. Beckham started yesterday and played the full 90 minutes in an exciting match where 9 goals were scored.

However, while the story may have started with Beckham, it ended with the New York Red Bulls showcasing their best players as well. Beckham had 2 early assists on set pieces to set up Carlos Pavon, who must feel like he won the lottery to suddenly have one of the world’s top passers giving him the ball, but it was the hometown Red Bulls who stole the spotlight.

In front of 66,237 fans, who spent much of the match chanting and singing, Juan Pablo Angel and Jozy Altidore each scored 2 goals to win the match 5-4 for New York.

While the roar of the crowd for each goal showed either that fans were split 50/50 or were just there to see a good soccer match, there will undoubtedly be many people who were won over by the performances of Angel and Altidore, who are forming a partnership that could propel the Red Bulls to the league title.

This is precisely what MLS wants: come to see Beckham, come back to see your team in their next matches. Judging by the weak L.A. defense, there will be a lot of fans leaving stadiums happy after David Beckham comes to their town.

Source: (MLSnet.com)

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Off the Woodwork: The Opening Kickoff

Jonathan Sacks — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:59:00 +0000

Greetings! You are part of history. Why is that, you ask? You are getting to read the very first edition of Off the Woodwork, our new roundup of all things soccer.

Off the Woodwork won’t have any strict format or schedule (at least for now), but from time to time, I’ll be featuring videos of outstanding plays or bloopers each post, as well as any important or offbeat news stories out there. In addition to this, I will also recap some of the other top submissions, so as always you are encouraged to submit your own stories and videos to be featured on the site. As the European leagues get started in the next couple of weeks, there will plenty of action out there to follow.

This edition’s video features all of the goals scored in yesterday’s SuperLiga match between the Beckham-less Los Angeles Galaxy and FC Dallas. Leave yourself a few minutes to watch, as this match featured a whopping 11 goals! L.A. stormed out to a 4-0 lead just 18 minutes into the match, but Dallas came back with 4 goals in the final 12 minutes. L.A. hung on to win 6-5. It was not a particularly good day for the goalkeepers or defenders, but the finishing on the goals was outstanding. The best goal of the match was waved off because of a somewhat questionable offside call, but goal or not, Carlos Ruiz had an amazing bicycle kick into the back of the net. The MLS will be well on its way if they keep scoring highlight reel goals like these. If anyone ever says that soccer is boring and they hate that scoring is low, just point them in the direction of this video.

In other news, the United States National Team will be traveling to the cesspool otherwise known as Estadio Azteca in Mexico City for a friendly against Mexico on September 9th. The U.S. will not be expected to win this match, since they have never beaten Mexico there, so they will have nothing to lose by playing this one. Once they get that first win at Azteca though, Mexico had better be scared since they will then know that the United States can and will beat them anywhere. Hopefully, Bob Bradley will have his full roster of players available for the match, even though it will only be a friendly. The match will be broadcast on ESPN2.

Finally, European soccer leagues will get underway in the coming weeks. Here are some key start dates:

Scotland: August 4th
France: August 4th
Germany: August 10th
England: August 11th
Italy: August 26th
Spain: August 27th

That’s it for the inaugural edition of Off the Woodwork. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be on the lookout for your submissions for the next edition.

Sources: (LA Times, MLS Underground, US Soccer)

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Fake David Beckham makes crank calls to L.A. County offices

Jonathan Sacks — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:57:00 +0000

L.A. County officials knew something wasn’t quite right when they started getting phone calls from someone claiming to be David Beckham.

The caller spoke about potential charity work and also name-dropped celebrity friends. “David Beckham” mentioned the possibliity of underprivileged kids attending LA Galaxy practices. The workers were excited at first, but as they were avid fans of Beckham, they wanted to ensure that it was him so they grilled the caller. Their suspicions were right, and the caller was exposed as a fake.

Department of Children and Family Services spokeswoman Louise Grasmehr said, “It just smacked of bogusity.”

I’m pretty sure that isn’t a word, but good job by the officials for not falling for it.

Source: (Yahoo)

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