The Eddies are about to begin their third full NASL season with a new GM, a new head coach and a lot on the line. The team's long-term future in the city will likely hinge on whether it has a soccer-specific stadium to call home in the years ahead -- and that will be largely contingent on whether the team can pack the house this year.
The FC Edmonton Supporters Group will have a big role to play in those efforts, and so in Part 1 of this interview with Greg Baker and Tobi Oliva of the FCESG, we spoke about the team's off-field troubles in the past two years, whether regular sellouts are realistic in 2013, and what the group has been doing to help it come to fruition.
In Part 2, Greg and Tobi tell us about the challenges of building a supporters culture in Edmonton, how deeply entrenched the team is within the civic consciousness (or not) and the importance of organic growth.
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GB: (One thing) which is a little bit tough as a supporters group is trying to find how we fit within the bigger fanbase. As you can imagine, with supporters, a lot of them just want to drink beer and swear. I've been to BMO Field, and when you've got that whole end there, where everyone's chanting, swearing, whatever they're doing, it just sounds like fun. But when you've got four guys swearing on one side of the field, there's no doubt who's swearing, and exactly what they said.
There's been a lot of debate on the supporters side about how we can do that. We've been having some discussion, maybe we need our own section. But I was there at the beginning and we had our own section: It was four guys, and we looked like the cheer squad. No one knew they could come to that section and join us. We were actively promoting them to come and join us. We just looked like four fat guys in the corner that, for some reason, were screaming their heads off.
There are a lot of kids there, we had some complaints brought back to us through the club, or sometimes to us directly -- somebody's mom saying something to us. We've been really struggling with how to deal with that, how to keep that hardcore passion like and sort of temper that a little bit. It's not the glamorous side of the supporters' section, but I think it's important.
How important do you think it is, in helping to promote the team, that FC Edmonton does field a number of young, promising and local players?
GB: We started to feel we had some high-profile local players, guys like Shaun Saiko and a few others, ones that were sort of "local boy makes good" stories, but for whatever reason, which we are still not clear on, they didn't click well with the coaching staff. Matt Lam was let go, and there was some issue with Saiko being asked not to attend a game. These are little signals that something isn't right there, and a lot of people -- especially in the supporters -- turned on the coaches quite quickly. The fact that we were losing hand over fist wasn't really helping. But that was a big sticking point for us.
We take a lot of pride in being everybody's second-favourite team (in Canada). We like that. I'd like to see that continue. ... I think one thing that I'd like to see, we kinda jump on it, mostly on Twitter -- don't forget there's an FC Edmonton. We've got the Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver MLS teams. But if we can get buy-in from the other supporters as well -- as in, hey, don't forget about these guys -- even commenting about how the season's going out in the open, not hidden away in the fan forums, that would help us, to shed some light, and it also adds legitimacy a little bit.
One thing that's really struck me is that a lot of people are really surprised about the level of play in the NASL. They were interviewing some lady on the street about whether or not the team needs a new stadium, and she's like, "oh, I don't know why, they used to play on mud fields." This is a pro team we're talking about! It's not a low level either, it's the second division here. These guys are good.
Speaking of the "man on the street" sentiment... do you think the protracted debate in Edmonton about a new NHL arena might make it more difficult to get public buy-in into the idea of a new stadium for FCE?
GB: Absolutely. All the FCESG members have been jumping all over the Edmonton Journal comments sections and pointing out that we're talking a very small amount of money compared to what the Katz Group is talking about for the Oilers. We're somewhere around 5% of that. People just have this idea like, "What? Another one? Oh my God! What's this world coming to? Why the hell for a soccer team, of all things?"
One thing that really bothers me is ... it's kind of a cart before the horse issue with a lot of people, "prove yourself and then you can get this soccer stadium if you deserve it". I'm saying, you wouldn't stand for hockey players playing a game -- even if it was AHL-level hockey -- being played on a curling rink or a speed-skating oval. No hardcore fan would stand for that. You couldn't get people to support that. But yet, y'know, we'll play on a field that's made for football but has 47 other different lines for everything from field hockey to lacrosse to soccer, and if they're good enough, they'll get a following. People who are real soccer fans take one look at that and think, "my God, I can't watch this." So that's a real tough thing to sell.
TO: Hockey is king in Edmonton, so trying to break down that perception of soccer being a sport for pansies, you get that a lot, and we deal with comments like that. But all in a day's work for the FC Edmonton Supporters Group.
Even in the MLS cities, where they've had some success, it always is a tough sell in terms of gaining that widespread acceptance of the team's place within the city's sporting consciousness. Do you guys feel there is progress being made, in terms of the team being legitimately accepted -- not at the same level, but in the same conversation as, say, the Oilers and the Eskimos?
GB: Tobi said hockey is king, but I'd say hockey is king and the entire royal family. The Eskimos are there, for sure. There is a sweet spot between the end of hockey season and when the Eskimos' season starts up that I think is key. I can't say FCE is right up there yet. If you look at the sports page even in the summer, you've got 17 articles about whatever contract negotiations the Oilers are in, something about the Eskimos, and then if you're lucky, you get a little tiny thing at the bottom.
Even if you look at the Edmonton Journal website, soccer is underneath, like, professional mixed martial arts. And even when they do report stuff, most of the stuff is about whatever Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal is doing. So I don't know if we're at that level yet.
But you're cautiously optimistic about continuing to make inroads in 2013?
GB: For me, I think one of the most encouraging signs by the club -- I don't know if they completely understand this, but I think we've seen some movement toward understanding who their fanbase really is. Early on, we had lots of discussion under the first general manager, Mel Kowalchuk, who was a local sports and business guy, who's been involved mostly with baseball. There was a real idea that this would be sold like triple-A baseball: Bring your kids out, we'll have fireworks at the park.
They don't really have an understanding of the soccer mom thing going on. There's tons of soccer players, but none of the parents are really fans, they're just doing it because their kids are -- and if it comes down to an FC Edmonton game versus my kid's soccer tournament in Calgary, they're gone. There's no continuity between that. What you need is the market of the 18-to-35-year-old males who've got nothing better to do in the summer. The ones who, for whatever reason, don't like CFL football. Those are the ones you have to target, and you have to bring them in.
The soccer mom culture in Edmonton is not going to be the solid foundation that it seemed that they started with. That's a very supporters(-centric) view on this, but like I said, I was there the very first day they announced it. I walked up to Tom Fath and said, "I'm here, I'm part of the Voyageurs, a long-time Voyageur. What's your plan to engage the soccer culture?" If you're looking at, three years ago, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, they've really built their success -- especially Toronto, early on -- on that soccer supporters thing. "What's your plan to engage that?" He just had this blank look on his face.
Now we're seeing engagement with us. We kinda feel like it's a little bit of a deal with the devil, because everybody talks to us, some who are involved with the Southsiders, who say, "Don't get too close with the club, because you've got to keep your distance." But we're not really there yet. We're very much hoping to help them in any way that we can.
With the team getting more attention -- and your group in particular -- has there been thought given to a different name for the group?
Both: (laughs)
TO: Definitely.
GB: Here's the thing. We were pretty consciously not naming ourselves early on. Even now, we don't really have a home. With the Vancouver guys, it's the south side, it's an organic name that they've come up with. The Red Patch Boys and U-Sector in Toronto, it's much more organic. We felt like, we didn't have a team, we didn't have a place to call our own -- the Foote Soldiers was bandied about, but now we don't even play at Foote Field anymore, so it wouldn't make sense.
We've been thinking about it, but nothing has really stood out yet. We do have an affinity for rabbits. Some people like it more than others. I like it quite a bit, because there's an honest-to-God story about it, and some mythology we've built up around it. Our very first season, in our home opener, right after Toronto smoked us in the very first game played in Edmonton for real. Toronto walked in and killed us in Commonwealth. Then the week after, we had our home opener for the NASL season and Montreal walked in and smoked us 5-1 or 5-0 or something.
TO: 5-0.
GB: It was terrible, because we had people say "OK, I'll give this thing a kick at the can" and you walk in and, "oh, this is not worth my time, this field is crap, and we got beat so sad." We got better, we went on the road and won some games. But the next time Montreal came to play us, this rabbit -- there's these rabbits all over the city, these little grey-brown nondescript rabbits -- he wouldn't leave the field. It was Astroturf, I don't know what he was eating.
But he parked himself right out in front of the Montreal goal, the defenders were trying to chase him off, he kept coming back. We won the game 1-0 over Montreal. So he became this de facto rally rabbit for FC Edmonton supporters. We started cheering "bring out the rabbit!" and all this.
For us it was a good luck charm, we got our payback against Montreal, the next up-and-coming MLS team. ... The club sort of caught onto it as well. They've been using it a little bit. To me, this is something that's been organically grown, which is cool, it's the way I like it. It's not some corporate focus group-sponsored mascot that's been parachuted in on top of us.
So maybe a rabbit mascot is the way to go to draw people to Clarke Stadium?
GB: Well, to be honest, I like it... it's got a story with it.
TO: It's better than what we have right now.
GB: A big soccer ball with legs. It's the official mascot.
TO: That's pretty much it.
That sounds kind of terrifying.
TO: It kind of is.
GB: It's also blue, so the whole "blue balls" thing... it's a popular chant.
If you'll accept an outsider's opinion, "blue balls" should not find a way into the new name of your group, in any way, shape or form.
GB: Another thing... we gave it a lot of thought, and Edmonton is actually quite a hard city to come up with one thing that describes it, right? The oil thing's been done to death. We've got this really eclectic history. I've done a lot of research on the city's history, looking for something to latch onto, and it's not easy.
TO: It's full of contradictions.
GB: The nickname a lot of people use for the team, the Eddies, was actually started by the supporters group. We started that. Whether people like it or don't like it, think it's clever or not clever, it depends on who you ask. But to me, at least it's something that was organically started.
Somebody asked me at a game one time, "what the heck does FC stand for?" "Football Club." "We don't have a real name?" "What name do you need?" So it's an uphill battle with the name.
Greg and Tobi are part of the FC Edmonton Supporters Group, whose website will be launching soon. They also tweet on behalf of the group (@FCESG), and have started the #FCEd5k campaign, in an effort to help sell out the team's home games at Clarke Stadium this season.