A funny thing happened amidst all the media bluster and outraged fans and podcasts and so on. People forgot how this all kicked off.

Steve Shaw, a longtime supporter and leader in the community, wanted to make this a community once again. Everybody meets up at the tunnel, everybody gets into the right frame of mind, and we head to our sections to go at it as we do.

A smoke bomb got lit, and everyone drumming and dancing in the tunnel was alright with it. Why? Because this is how it's been. This is tradition.
Nobody saw the hammer coming. It's not the person that people are flipping out about - it's the hammer itself. It's the methodology. Let's talk about that awhile.

Steve wants to bring back something that's been lost over the last four or five years - the sense of family. And that's not just amongst the groups, mind you. That's between supporters and management. Since the clearinghouse a few years back, the tone has changed entirely. We lost relationships in that purge. We lost friends. And the people who came to replace them don't talk to people the way it used to be. And the attempts at outreach, honestly, ring hollow. Roundtable discussions clearly aren't productive if well-known members of the community can get treated in the way they have this week.

You know why my heart's broken for Steve? Because in an attempt to make things better, things became worse than ever.

Let's talk about tradition. Smoke is part of that. Smoke has been used not just in our team's promotional material, but all around the league. Legal smoke, at that - smoke devoid of potassium sulfate, which is banned in this city. When the purge happened, suddenly that tradition was lost. But not just the smoke - the days of Will Chang walking the lots, chatting with whoever walked by, is lost. I've never met Thohir and Levien. I couldn't point them out in a lineup. The days of Christian Gomez jumping into the stands to beat a drum with the community when he was injured is lost. The days where this was treated not just as a moneymaking enterprise, but as a proper family, have been lost. And at the same time, those very people that you punish are part of the moneymaking. We've seen it all over the league - flares in Salt Lake being used to promote the playoffs on television, smoke on street corners and stadium ends, artwork created by hand at no cost for your own people. The images are put on cups and flyers and programs, even as it's treated as a nuisance.

I've had multiple conversations with longtimers, oldtimers, even recent people talking about how It Isn't How It Used To Be. I mean, even the word Tradition has been stripped from the shirt, from the hallways, from the mission. That doesn't mean all change is bad. That means we went from members of a family to cells in a spreadsheet. That's how it feels, and that's how measures like this week's come off.

The measures come off as a control issue. For nearly two decades, the front office defended us from the league. They stuck up for us, because we were family. We were accepted not as some idealized version of an American supporter that exists in some executive's head, but as we are. The tradition was acceptance - the immigrants, the white collars, the blue collars. Black, white and brown. The labor organizers and the street punks. The kid I met just last week who's here from China. They're here for the sport at large, but they're here for the home this creates.

Actions like the ones taken this week are tone-deaf. They divide instead of unite. Instead of the acceptance of the past practices, the message being sent was simple: conform, or be cast away. That's not the DC United I recognize, and that's certainly not a DC United that will attract more people to this community. And, frankly, it's not a DC United that I would ever want to be a part of.

So, how are we going to fix this?

The gathering of the tribes isn't just for Barra or Eagles or Ultras. It's for you and I. Come out and see us sometime - not as representatives of a corporation in suits, but as the real live people you are. Meet us where we are. Come out and see us. Ask about our jobs, our kids, our husbands and wives. Help us prepare food once in awhile. When we're doing our own charitable events, come out and paint. When you want to do a moment of silence for Johan Cruyff, make sure people actually know that's going to happen - it can't just be one social media post or one email. Pick up the phone and say hello.
Bring back the traditions of old. Have the players come back into the crowds with us if they're scratched from the lineup. Come into the crowds yourselves. The reason any relationship goes wrong, from a friendship to a marriage to parenting, is when we stop communicating. This will not get better unless, instead of impersonal form letters with official letterhead, you start talking to us on street level. Put old arguments aside and embrace the new life coming. Because it's coming. It won't just be a shiny new stadium that'll solve all your problems. It'll be relationships. It'll be knowing us all - not just Steve, or Oscar, or Jimi, but everyone. Meet the new people.

I'll tell you a story about the kid from China I mentioned earlier. He's in town on international studies. Drives up here from Washington College. He actually formed the first supporter group in the Chinese Super League, believe it or not. And during that dire, lifeless 3-0 loss against Dallas, while everyone else was staring into the middle distance, Samuel Wang was jumping up and down like it would perform CPR on our team. He was losing his mind and having the time of his life. We traded scarves, because this sport is about making friends. It's up on my wall now. In Samuel Wang's first week, he became part of the family, and he watched management turn on a member of the community.

Can you explain to Samuel Wang what you're going to do to make it right? Can you meet him on the level of the working class, human to human, and show him that the form letter isn't who you are? Can you show him that you're better than this?

Not just Samuel, not even specifically Samuel, of course. Any new person. Any old-timer. Can you embrace us for who we are? Because we embrace you, good times and bad. We stayed in 2013, when it all went wrong. On a personal note, I drove all the way from DC to Salt Lake to see if the improbable was possible that year. And sure enough, we won the US Open Cup that week. And I saw America as a result of that. The photos of that trip, complete with the Cup in hand, are on the wall in my house. This objectively silly diversion of ours means the world to me. And it breaks all our hearts to see all that good will pour down the drain.

Work with us as human beings, and we'll grow old with you. Continue down this path, and you run the risk of going down the road the Diplomats and the NASL traveled. And it would break our hearts even more.

Meet us at the tunnel. Walk with us. Feel it the way we do. And then, maybe, we can look back at the time where the worst choice this staff ever made led to the second golden age of DC United.

My guess is that they don't want these practices fucking up the new stadium. But really I'm in agreement with you. Management doesn't like any practices that don't result in $$$.

Lol...this always cracks me up. American "Ultras".

I mean, the very fact they used "approved" smoke when it was "allowed" is faggy enough. Not to mention they actually "obey" the ban.


Faggots wouldn't last 2 minutes at a real football match in Europe.

Their only true recourse is to have all 20 or so of their fan club light off smoke bombs at the next game. Force the team to kick them all out.

What they won't do Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Their only true recourse is to have all 20 or so
> of their fan club light off smoke bombs at the
> next game. Force the team to kick them all out.


They don't have the balls.