Take Me Out to the Ball Game

There's a great Gatorade Commercial from a couple years ago that chronicles team USA's World Cup journey to the tune of "take me out to the ball game." I guess the idea was that soccer is finally arriving in America. Great thought - but I'm not sure America will ever embrace the beautiful game like they do here.

So yesterday I headed across town to Celtic Park to catch my first live European football match. I wanted to see if it lives up to its reputation of being as crazy as it's hyped to be. The boys of Celtic played Motherwell as a tribute to a player, Phil O'Donnell, who died of cardiac arrest on the pitch last December. The team also lost it's manager and former player, Tommy Burns, earlier this month.

Despite the losses, Celtic were this season's Scottish Premier League champions. In fact, they've been champions the past three years. In fact, only Celtic and their cross-town rivals the Rangers have been Scottish Premier League champions. Since 1998, there has been only one year where the two teams failed to occupy first and second. But more on this in my actual research project, because it goes to the heart of it, and probably isn't interesting for those who don't like football or economics.

I had to enter through the "neutral/visiting team" entrance, since that was the only ticket I could procure. But no worries there, I was surrounded by Celtic fans, and since it was a tribute match to great players, everybody was in friendly spirits. Security is tight at Scottish football matches. I had to enter through a turnstile that I could barely fit through (and I'm not sure some fat people could. Once in my section, it was very difficult to get to the next over. And the stadium was overrun by security guards, even for a tribute game. When I get pictures downloaded, I'll put them up, but at one point there was a ring of security guards spaced about 5 feet apart all the way around the field. Then there was one at the bottom, middle, and top of every section. I don't quite know what they were protecting against, but I don't think I wanted to be around.

My seat was very high up and there was a railing in front of my face, but that didn't bother me too much because it was cheap and I could still see everything. In the first half Celtic was scoring on my end of the pitch, which was quite exciting as they put up three of their goals that half.

The stadium is huge, holding more than 60,000 people. To put that in perspective, the RBC Center holds fewer than 19,000 for Hurricanes games. And every seat was full yesterday. I was embraced by a nice family next to me, who wanted to make sure I was a Celtic fan before I left. I'm not quite sure they're my favorite, but it was an interesting experience and I now have a soft spot in my heart for the Scottish Premier League champions.

But the game was incredible. Before a full house the Celtic boys won 5-1. But despite it being a blowout, the fans were into the game the whole time, singing rousing cheers to Phil and Tommy and the rest of the team. Everybody in the stands was decked out in green and white, the team's colors (with a little orange thrown in from the Irish flag). People draped huge flags from the upper levels and some were on their feet the whole time. The game ended with the teams taking a lap around the stadium with took about 10 minutes, and every second of it was filled with applause.

After the game, the team's current captain brought out their recently-won trophy, and the crowd went crazy again. After the game, the stadium emptied out into the streets. Since most fans come from the city, there wasn't much traffic, only a mass of people all walking down the same street. While it was only 4:30, many people went to pubs, which I thought was funny.

Though it was a wonderful experience, it made me wish I was here for the real season and possibly and "Old Firm" match with the Rangers, which is supposed to be the cream of the crop when it comes to crazy football fandom. Though for the sake of my health and safety, it was probably best I wasn't there.