Forward!

In keeping with our family’s Movable Feast Tradition, we wrapped up most of Father’s Day last night in the bleachers of a small stadium in Madison.

Lauren said she would take me to see Forward Madison, the local US League 1 soccer team, which was a lovely thing to do. Kim paid for her own ticket to join us, and we were happy to have her along. Oliver wished us well, as he had just returned from several weeks of wrangling middle schoolers and high schoolers at various Mother Ship Campus events and was mostly interested in sitting very still in a quiet space for a while, which was understandable.

Forward Madison is an interesting club. Their colors are blue and pink, their mascot is a flamingo (a call-back to one of the great student pranks in UW Madison history), and in true Madison style they go out of their way to annoy the American right wing whenever possible, which only makes me want to support them even more.

It’s a very small stadium, located on a busy street just north of the Capitol. There’s exactly enough room for a soccer pitch, seating along three sides, concessions at both ends, and a cow. Because it is Wisconsin, and there is always a cow.

We got there early so we could have a leisurely dinner, there being many options to choose from and an assortment of tables where you could eat without having to balance your food on your lap. And then we made our way over to our seats, which were not far from the midfield line.

There was a pretty good crowd for a USL1 game. It’s nice to see the team supported like that. They were playing something called a Jaegermeister Cup game, which – in the grand soccer tradition of putting multiple schedules on top of one another – is a separate series of games from the regular season ones. The opposing side, Lexington, was above Forward Madison in the Jaegermeister Cup standings but below them in the regular season standings, so it was a fairly evenly matched game if rather chippy at times.

The lower tier leagues are always a lot of fun. We have a minor league baseball team in the next town over from us and I enjoy their games more than the major league ones I’ve been to, for example. In the lower tiers you can get right up to the action – only one ball ended up being kicked over the wall and into the street last night, but it was returned fairly quickly once someone caught up to it – and there’s a fairly informal atmosphere where the fans are allowed to enjoy themselves in a way that seems frowned upon in the big leagues.

For example, every time the opposing side got a free kick from any range where it would have been reasonable to try for goal the fans all started making this little WHOOOP WHOOP noise, which I suppose could be the Call Of The Flamingo except that I don’t really know what flamingoes sound like. Nor, I suspect, do they. It did seem to throw the opponents off a bit, so there’s that. Also, the stadium folks quarantine the fanatic home fans – “The Flock,” as they seem to be called – off into the bleachers at one end of the pitch and let them bang on their drums and blow their trumpets and chant all game long the way you find in most soccer stadiums around the world. It’s festive.

At halftime Lauren and I wandered around the stadium a bit, checking out the cow (and the two pigs in the neighboring stall) and the souvenir stands. We wandered over to visit The Flock and view some of the signage. There was a tracker for the last time Forward Madison was awarded a penalty kick (31 days and counting), but my favorite was the Pink Panther sign.

Madison sits in the 608 area code, if you’re wondering about the Roman numerals at the bottom.

In the end the home team won 1-0 on a booming second half goal that crossed from the top right corner of the penalty box to hit the netting on the inside left of the goal, and really what more can you ask than a mild summer evening with your family and a home win.

Forward!