It’s been two weeks now since our beloved TFC trip, but I knew I had to still make mention of it at some point on my site. 2500 fans from Toronto, driving 7 hours through the Ohio heartland. We left early Saturday (March 29). I woke up at 3:30am and by the time all 4 of us were rounded up, it was 5:30am. A little Red Bull and we were ready to go.
We made it to the Peace Bridge in good time. We stopped off at duty free first to grab some beers and as we pulled in we were welcomed by an electronic sign saying “Welcome TFC Fans!”. They even gave us a free tall boy with our ticket. We grabbed 2 cases and were on our way again, crossing the border with ease.
The drive down was quite uneventful other than the usual washroom/food breaks. Outskirt Buffalo still had more snow on the ground then we did and I never knew Ohio was so barren and big, it seemed never ending. Also, I never knew that there was such a market for guns, knives, swords, firecrackers, pepper spray and tasers…and karate supplies? Seriously, every 50 miles there was some store off the Interstate selling some or all of these, crazy!
We made Columbus around lunch time; kick-off was 4pm, so we decided to head to our hotel just on the outskirts first to dump off our things. Decided to stay at a Holiday Inn Express — so you knew something had to happen by the end of the trip. We started our pre-game ritual in the hotel parking lot while we waited for our cab. We stuffed as many beers as we could into plastic bags to bring with us to the stadium for our tailgate party. Luckily, we came prepared and had coolers with ice, keeping the beer chilled the whole ride down — perfect.
Columbus Crew stadium is on the Ohio State Fairgrounds, like the furthest part of it, in a remote open field with not much around it it seemed. Some of our 20 or so buses had already arrived and the festivities were already starting. We quickly jumped in as the parking lots became a sea of red TFC fans. We ran into some of our other friends from the supporter clubs and had a great time. I wish they openly allowed tailgating in Canada; it set the mood perfectly for the game.
Game time was fast approaching, and we were mentally and physically prepared for the game 
. We smuggled some beers, Red Bull and water into the stadium without much trouble, I wasn’t even searched, they were so focused on bags. Pretty much the whole section behind the one net was reserved completely for TFC, plus some small parts on the side. Sadly, the season/home opener for the Crew was only half attended by fans, with by far our area the most predominantly gathered, while most spots were quite sparse. We drowned out the choir that was singing O Canada and most of the time the PA announcer.
The game itself unfortunately didn’t have much to talk about. No team really played well, but some sloppy play by TFC and we lost 2-0. It seemed the atmosphere of having the largest away crowd in MLS history didn’t motivate the team enough to get a result. Oh well, as quoted from a soccer buddy of mine, “win or lose, we always booze” seemed to fit this trip well.
After the game, of course with all the drinking, there made for some interesting activities. After being sobered up by a medicore performance, me and the guys were watching from a few yards away, while a single drunk Columbus guy started mocking about 100 TFC fans with police right there.
Needless to say that didn’t last long until someone tossed a smoke bomb at the guy and the cops and that caused the cop to spray pepper spray in the air. With the wind it blew into our area and pretty much everyone started choking and tearing up, I didn’t even know what hit me as I never “experienced” pepper spray before. A few guys got hit pretty bad, but that was a sign for us to get out of there before anything else stupid happened.
Anyhow, we jumped into a cab and headed back to the hotel, where we tried to chill by the pool, literally, it was the coldest pool I have ever been at, we didn’t even bother and we went back to the room. After some re-fueling, we headed out on the town.
Everyone told us to check out the Arena District for some decent nightlife. Surprisingly Columbus did have a decent scene, with quite a few bars in the area. We spent the night bar hopping and drinking running into the various other TFC fans doing the same thing.
We ended up at Park Street Patio and Sugar, which had a live band on one side and a club playing top 40 on the other. By midnight the place was rammed – the drinks were strong and the crowd ready to have some fun.
By this point we were all pretty ripped and were just enjoying ourself on the dance floor when Martin spotted Welsh international Carl Robinson from TFC at the club with a beer in both hands! I went over to him in the middle of the dance floor and asked him in a drunken stupor what went wrong today…and in his Welsh accent he explained to me that they just couldn’t finish, in which I replied that I expected better next week, jokes. I patted him on the back and went back into dance mode. I couldn’t believe that after a game like that that TFC guys would be at the club, no wonder we lost! Even funnier, a little later on I ran into Andrea Lombardo and said hi, and Martin saw Andrew Boyens hanging out with 3 girls surrounding him. Too funny!
We took off from the club around 1:30am and headed back to the hotel. Just when we thought the excitement was over…the cabbie dropped the 4 of us off at the lobby and we went in to use the washroom quickly. We then crossed the street to go to the Waffle House for some food. At 2am this place in suburban Columbus was packed! We waited a bit as Martin decided to play some random song on the old jukebox in the corner.
We weren’t getting served so we deiced to try down the street. Not even a minute outside 2 cop cruisers come pulling into the parking lot and yell at us to stop and come over to them. They started interrogating us saying that they received a phone call saying that we were acting “mysteriously”.
After showing them our room key and explaining ourself they let us “off”. After being freaked out by that we just went back to the hotel. The front desk lady ends up telling us that she was the one who called the cops on us, go figure – Holiday Inn Express. 4am and I finally went to bed, over 24 hours since we started the trip.
The drive back was just as long as the drive there as most of the guys passed out in the back. I dropped off Martin last and shortly after I left he calls me and says that he made a picture in the Toronto Sun. He says he still gets random shout outs on the street downtown:
All and all, a fun and eventful trip, not so much because of the product on the field, but like always the fans and friends at the game made it an experience..and the beer always helps too . Columbus away — until next year.
