Match Report :PRIDE: it’s also for straights?
That’s right folks we are out and about! Two match reports in one week! It’s sports season!
Unlike Elena, I (Katrina) do not have Serious Hockey Friends willing to buy tickets to the Rangers-Tampa Bay game, nor do I care to be witness to ANYTHING involving the city of Tampa (my opinions about which are well-documented), but I am motivated to spend 20 dollars to go NY/NJ Gotham game to see some quality soccer! Is it a trek out to Harrison NJ? Kind of!! Do I enjoy spending time in the Armpit of America?? No! But we do it for the love of the GAME!!
PREGAME SHENANIGANS
First of all, they really gotta make it easier to get to this place. IN THEORY all we had to do was take the C train and connect to the PATH but for the life of us, we could not find these PATH trains at Fulton. We (me and Fiancé) wandered around aimlessly because there were 0 signs before I finally asked the MTA booth man “the easiest way to get to the PATH trains”, who informed me in the most NY accent ever that I needed to go ‘AWLLLLLL THE WAY UP AND TAKE A LEFT WALK 5 BLOCKS” and when I, puzzled, asked if there was a way to get there from WITHIN the station, received a withering look and a “Oh i thawt you said the EASIEST way. You wanna go the HARD way?? Go AWLLLLLL The way DOWN and..” at which point I was like yeah ok got it. Smh. New Jersey, I don’t want to be in you, and you’re not really incentivizing me with this epic hero’s journey!
Finally we arrive at Red Bull Arena (Booooo Red Bull we hate you max verstappen) and we quickly discover approximately none (0) of the employees know what they are doing, causing much confusion at the check-in. Once we manage to get in, we decide to hit up the beer garden because a) we are early (of course we are early, have you met us) and b) it’s a beautiful night! However I guess no one else knew about this biergarten because… no one was in there. No matter! We’ve drunk alone before and we will do it again!
FIRST HALF
Time to make our way to our (excellent) (20 dollar) seats! We’re in the 6th row surrounded by adorable youth teams, inspiring, the future of sport, etc etc. also did I mention it is PRIDE NIGHT! As a straight, engaged, cis couple we may be straying out of our lane! People are staring at our lack of rainbow attire - I try to communicate via my general demeanor that we are allies ok!! It is also at this point we discover several interesting things : 1) the NY/NJ Gotham team has a non binary player, very cool 2) our national team fav Ali Krieger will be in the starting lineup (her wife Ashlynn Harris is normally the NY/NJ goalie but was out on injury leave )3) there are like a whole lotta pride flag variations including THIS ONE FOR THE STRAIGHTS I AM DECEASED. The LGBTQIA+ community was really like, yeah, you guys can have your own…. too bad it SUCKS!! Fair tbh.
Absolutely SAVAGE burn!!!!
Ok time for National Anthem, in a very cool and ~ woke statement, we are invited to “turn our attention to the flag” but no mention of standing; several players kneel.The ultras (hard core Gotham fans) unroll 2 big banners about Stonewall and supporting Black Trans Women, you love to see it. And we’re off! Gotham is DOMINATING play (good for them, less good for our view of the game since they’re scoring at the opposite goal from us but!), very good possession, quite aggressive (a few collisions, concussion protocol, everyone ok) and then Midge Purce (national team member) scores!!! The crowd goes WILD! Midge is like yes give it to me louder!! At this point I decide to go for a pre-halftime pee break (won’t be the last) and pick up drink number 2, a summer shandy. The Washington Spirit (oh yes sorry forgot to mention, that’s who we are playing) decide maybe they should wake up and try to do something and make a run on goal in the last seconds of the first half, but the Gotham goalie makes an INCREDIBLE save and follows it up with a second from her back, bringing the half to a close
SECOND HALF
Unfortunately soccer doesn’t have a halftime show, but we manage to entertain ourselves (read: I went to pee again) before the second half starts. Just truly thrilling gameplay overall, these ladies are out playing the men and that’s for sure. Of course, this half, when Gotham would be scoring right in front of us, the Spirit decide they want to actually play some sportsball so they are back at the same end they were before. There’s a couple good runs on both sides but ultimately we finish the game with just 1 goal, a win for Gotham!
CONCLUSION
While this was super fun and a really great level of soccer (and I cannot say it enough, 20 dollars) we have decided NO MORE NIGHT GAMES FOR US afternoon games only since it did take us 1.5 hours to get home. Nevertheless, we persisted and topped off the night with a delish night cap from Shake Shack. Happy Pride !!
