Guest Spot: Rocky Mountain Redux

After the fallout from my trip to Salt Lake City in June, I decided to ask one of the people who'd responded to write an entry about USA v Costa Rica at the Gold Cup last Saturday.

Brian "Bean" Mace is a local radio and podcast host from Salt Lake City. He covers college sports for LawlessRepublic.com.

The US men's national team returned to Salt Lake City for the second time in just under four weeks. As all US soccer fans are aware, the Salt Lake City crowd had their issues in the World Cup qualifier with Honduras. Many elements played a factor in the success of the Salt Lake City crowd during the World Cup qualifier, but today we are going to talk about the issues during the Gold Cup.

Once again, this wasn't the ideal crowd in Salt Lake; there wasn't quite the same amount of passion that Salt Lake fans give towards Real Salt Lake during MLS play but the crowd was a lot better than the World Cup qualifier. The fans seemed to come together a little bit better, albeit there were a lot less American Outlaws members at this match. There were still issues between AO and another SG, but we will get into that in a bit.

So where to start with the Salt Lake City crowd? Why does the crowd in the supporters section find it so hard to come together in support of their nation? Well, the problem in SLC is very deep rooted in several disagreements over the years within AO SLC. The main reason I can gather is due to a debate over the official AO bar for the SLC chapter and some members feeling disrespected by AO leadership.

The former official bar, the Republican, was a decent option for the SLC AO members, but some of the members wanted to see a change to more upscale bar: a bar with better service, with better televisions, and a more inviting atmosphere. A meeting was held where options were discussed and it got real messy. AO SLC leadership skewed information from the meeting to make changes to the chapter. Long story short: AO national got involved and AO SLC moved their official bar to the Bourbon House. This upset many of the "anti-establishment" crowd within the SLC chapter because the Republican was their hangout and they felt betrayed by AO leadership. This split led to the creation of a local United States supporters group known as RCB 'Merica. This group includes many of the RSL supporter group members of Salt City United as well as RCB.

Now before I get into this, let me just mention that yes I am a member of the American Outlaws, but I do have friends who are part of RCB 'Merica. I'm not trying to slander anyone's name here; I'm just sharing my views.

AO Salt Lake City is in a much better spot now with the Bourbon House then they were with the Republican. The bar is better, the service is better and a lot more people come out to watch the games. I enjoy going to the Republican to hang out with some friends and even to watch a soccer match, but the TVs in the bar are horrible as well as the sound. If I'm going to watch a USMNT match I want to be able to see it on the best screen possible and be able to hear the match when needed.

So now back to last Saturday's Gold Cup match: the crowd was great at the start of the match; throughout the rainstorm everyone was making plenty of noise. AO and RCBM were working together very well on chants throughout most of the game until late in the second half when the noise from the crowd seemed to dissipate a bit. Members of each group were trying to get the fans around them to join back up together make some noise, but it wasn't working. The AO section (10) had a lot of casual fans who aren't members of the group, as did the RCBM section (9). I say this because the one thing that upset me the most during the match was when a RCBM member came to the AO section and began to yell at people watching the game, saying they needed to be louder and join in her chants specifically. The main person she ended up confronting was a casual fan there with his family; he isn't a AO member nor was anyone with him. After the match RCBM members claimed, in person and on social media, that this man threatened her and that AO needed to control their members. Like I said this man has zero to do with AO and the entire situation could have been avoided if she just stayed in her own section. You have to remember AO SLC is a small group; I don't know the exact number of members, but there really are only about 15 to 20 of us who care and actually show up to matches. Not everyone in a section is a AO member so it's unfair to blame a group for the actions of a random fan.

But the problem isn't exclusive to RCBM; many AO SLC members have their issues as well: constant complaining and unwillingness to work with RCBM. The chants from section 9 were reciprocated by the front of section 10, but died as they moved further up the section. It shouldn't matter who starts a chant; you should participate or move to another part of the stadium. I'm not saying you have to be great friends with one another, but why can't we come together for 90 minutes and support our country? People on both sides need to stop taking to social media to bitch about the other group. Quit acting like spoiled children. It shouldn't be this hard, Salt Lake.

So how do we solve this issue between AO and RCBM? To me it's simple: agree to put aside your differences and come together for a match to support the same team. You're there for the same reason; why not act like it? In my opinion, having two split United States supporters groups makes Salt Lake City look stupid; but due to hard headedness on each side, the groups are most likely never going to come together. Salt Lake should use this to our advantage, if AO and RCBM could just work together, SLC would have some of the best US support in the nation. We've all seen it with RSL; outside of Seattle and Portland, RSL has some of the absolute best support in all of MLS.

Hopefully this division doesn't hurt SLC in the future. I believe the groups will work better together in the future and the USMNT will remain unbeaten in Salt Lake City.