Fortgate-"Stunned Silence"

We've been waiting to write about this past Sunday's protest by New England Revolution supporters in order to properly gather our thoughts and take a better look at it a few days out.  As for how the overall protest went, well it went better than many of us had expected.   Members of the Midnight Riders, Rebellion, Rev Army and unaffiliated supporters  marched in about 45 minutes prior to kickoff singing and chanting the whole way in.  Once in The Fort everyone remained standing and singing, waving flags etc. while the players took the field for warm ups.  Several Revs players went out of their way to acknowledge this including Lekic, Reis and Soares.  Unconfirmed reports tell us that Reis and Soares were wearing black wristbands as a sign of support.

As soon as the whistle blew silence fell over the stadium with the exception of some screaming girls (The Sons of Ben.... I keeeeeeed I keeeeeed).  When the 16th minute was over and we started our song and walkout the SoB's in attendance sat down and were silent to show support for our protest.  We can't thank them enough and it was a real show of class, especially from a group that we do not have the best history with.  In addition many people seated around the stadium stood up and clapped in support of us when the walkout began, that meant a lot to the supporters who decided to take part.

While there was a noticeable presence of Foxborough PD and TeamOps upon our entering of the stadium, when we arrived at the top of The Fort during the walkout there were none to be found.  Kudos to them for realizing that we are adults and we act like adults, their presence would have increased tension, but for possibly the first time ever they got something right.  The only issue with TeamOps was with one supervisor at the gate we walked out at, she made a few snarky and snide remarks as we walked through the gate.  After the walkout supporters continued to tailgate in the lots with little to no interaction from security.  Evan Dabby, MLS Senior Director of Operations, spoke with supporters in the lots; not much was said other than MLS supports growing supporters relations with the teams.

The question now is where do we go from here?  Discussions between the team and the SG's are continuing over treatment of the supporters in the future and ways to improve relations with TeamOps and Foxborough PD and the front office.  In the handling of all of this, despite the mistreatment of a supporter by a FPD officer, FPD have probably done the best job of handling this and reaching out to the supporters. 2 officers even purchased "Support The Fort" t-shirts this Sunday and commented how the fans deserve better.

What this all comes down to is that it is a shot across the bow of the Revolution's FO, a leveling of the playing field perhaps.  Sunday's protest showed that we too in fact have power and know how to use it when need be.  We can only hope that this puts pressure on the team to open up more and be more transparent and that it makes MLS step up and start putting pressure on the team as well.  This protest was publicly pushed as a reaction to the events that occurred at the Chicago Fire game and it appears that movement is being made on those issues.  However this protest took on a lot more issues for a lot of people many of which we touched upon here.  Some people say that the protest should be ongoing, and that we should do it every game, others think it was too much.  What this says to me is that we did exactly the right thing and executed it the right way.  I for one at this time am not ready to advocate for repeated protests.

Just as the team should not have expected an overnight change of YSA we cannot expect them to change overnight, but we can and should expect to see some changes by the end of the season and certainly visible/major changes by the time pre-season starts.  The other side of this of course is that they have had 16 years to get this right and they haven't done it yet, there is not much sand left in the hour glass.  The organization needs a major culture shift, whether it's an influx of cash, hiring new and additional staff, cleaning house, re-writing of the book on how things are done or some combination of the above, something needs to happen soon.  To steal from the corporate world the team needs to become a "best practices" franchise, not a worst practices franchise.  Here on out it is time to put pressure on the team to fix not only the issues with supporters but all around, there is not much that the team is doing right or has going for it.  You name it, it needs to be fixed.

Hopefully this is the end of Fortgate.

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One final note despite our issues with the ownership of the team, we would like to extend our condolences to the Kraft family after the passing of Myra Kraft today.  Myra Kraft was a well liked figure in the New England area and did a lot of good and charitable work for the people in this region.  Her presence will be missed.

All photos by Evan Whitney, Evan has previously written for us here.  If you would like a Support The Fort t-shirt please click here.