CARY -- The World Cup may be the most-watched sporting event on Earth, but whatever impression that tournament left on the casual American sports fan in the Triangle has since vaporized in the summer heat.
Tackle football is almost here. Who needs that other kind?
A handful of Triangle diehards, it turns out, for whom football season stretches from March through September. In a local summer sports economy dominated by the Durham Bulls and Carolina Mudcats, these guys (and a gal here or there) spend their time and their money in Cary, home of the Carolina RailHawks.
They are members of Triangle Soccer Fanatics, an independent group that supports the team by gathering at one end of the field, waving flags, hanging banners, singing songs and banging drums. The fans, who sit behind one of the goals, dominate the sonic atmosphere.
"You feel like you're a part of it," said Jonathon Winger, 30, who lives in Raleigh, "like your presence makes a difference to the players."
What they lack in numbers - 17 showed up for last week's game against the Rochester Rhinos - they make up in volume. In the tradition of European soccer singalongs, group members pair their voices with the smacking of a booming bass drum to conjure little ditties of support, like this one, to the tune of "Yellow Submarine."
We all cheer for an orange football team!
Boom! Boom!
An orange football team.
Boom! Boom!
An orange football team.
They more or less go it alone. With an announced attendance of 2,305, that meant that at least 2,288 people were not joining in. On a hot, muggy, night, as the RailHawks dealt with their own problems on the field, the soccer fanatics didn't let the lack of crowd participation get to them.
Dave Warner, who is 38 and lives in Durham, kept banging away on that drum. It's a fairly new instrument and makes a huge sound.
Warner bought it after he broke the group's last one in a fit of anger after a particularly tough loss.
It's their team
In baseball terms, the RailHawks play in a Triple-A league. The team is one notch below Major League Soccer, much like the Durham Bulls are a step below the big leagues.
The Triangle may be home and offer choices between two minor league baseball teams and three universities that play big-time sports, but the RailHawks are the Triangle's only professional soccer squad.
"This is our local team," said Jason Krim, 33, who stretches the definition of local because he lives in Greenville. "How are you not going to support this team?"
From the team's point of view, the fanatics add an important bit of flavor to the game-day experience. It's not unusual for 30 or so to show up for weekend matches, when oil drums are pulled out and banged upon, to augment the bass drum.
"The players love it because they hear it," said team spokesman Marco Rosa. If a RailHawk scores in front of section 204, where the fanatics sit, it's not unusual for him to run by and give the fans high-fives.
"They are our core fans," Rosa said. "They do bring that soccer atmosphere to the stadium."
Although interest in soccer continues to grow in this country, many adults never played the sport growing up. An informal poll of the fanatics in attendance last week showed that most can point to a particular World Cup they watched on TV, or a soccer match they attended in Europe, that pushed them toward soccer fandom.
But in Europe, getting close to a superstar soccer player is as likely as bumping into Michael Jordan at Pepper's Pizza in Chapel Hill.
Krim, who has season tickets with three friends from Greenville, enjoys the fact that the RailHawks players are accessible. The fanatics like to grab post-game beers at a bar just down the road from the stadium. Players often stop by.
Some of the players even know some of the fans by name. The team runs a promotion before the season in which players deliver season tickets to those who order them.
Hanging with the fans
Although the fanatics skew overwhelmingly male, Jennifer Cushing, 24, attends games with her boyfriend. "Once I started dating him," she said with a laugh, "it became very clear that I had to have some interest."
Cushing, who lives in Chapel Hill, has even brought girlfriends along in the past. Proving the point many of the fans made about the players' accessibility, one of her friends met a player at the nearby bar and later ended up going on a date with him. It wasn't a love connection, but that's really not the point.
These players mingle with the fans.
After a disappointing 2-0 loss, the fanatics began to pick up and pack away their banners and vuvuzelas and the RailHawks walked dejectedly toward the locker room.
But goalkeeper Eric Reed jogged all the way from the other side of the field to say hello to the cheering section.
"There's no excuse for what we're doing to you guys this year," Reed said, as he ran along the edge of the stands, slapping the outstretched hands of fans who leaned over the railing.
And then Reed, who starred in college at UCLA, said a few words that sounded almost surreal being delivered by a professional athlete in America.
"Thanks for coming."
