#F5FF
EDITION 4:
HUNT PARK ROVERS
USERNAME: SHORTERPEARSON
SUPPORTS: COLUMBUS CREW
CONFERENCE: 6-1-1
PREFERRED FORMATIONS: 4-4-2 / 4-5-1
TEAM PREVIEW:
Edition 4 kicks off with a look at a team "across the pond" with American side Hunt Park Rovers up next in the spotlight. First off we do apologise for running a day late, but we do hope it's been worth the wait, as manager Shorterpearson has given us a fantastic story about the origin of his team name. Due to the season only just begining there's isn't too much to write about, but Hunt Park Rovers have made a great start, unbeaten in 3 with 7pts out of a possible 9. They were involved in an ill-tempered clash at Frembley last night, trailing 2-0 in the 68th minute to 9 men Fremington before staging a late comeback to take a share of the spoils. Once again we thank Shorterpearson for the interview and hope everyone will enjoy. Edition 5 will be back on Friday next week, where we will be again turning our attention away from the UK with a look at Spanish outfit HH Beticos.
MANAGER INSIGHT:
1. How many years have you spent playing SL?
I legitimately don't remember?
I think Sunday League had a hook up with some website a LONG time ago (I feel like I remember playing when I was in graduate school...so 1999? 2000?) and I set up a team there, and let that lapse after a couple of years.
I found the server again sometime ten years ago or so (I was definitely playing before the consolidation to Smokey), set up this team, and I've been keeping it somewhat consistent ever since.
2. Whats behind the team name HUNT PARK ROVERS?
Okay, this is serious. Sit down for a moment. I'm gonna take my time.
I was in graduate school in 1995 when The Powers That Be In American Soccer decreed that Major League Soccer was starting, and there needed to be teams in places. Through a series of events that can only be described as befitting the United States of America (a grocery chain promoting season tickets for a team that didn't exist yet is relevant), the first of those teams to be announced was in Columbus, Ohio, with a badge - ahem, "logo" - that best resembled the Village People.
That team played in Ohio Stadium for three years. It was convenient in that Ohio Stadium was only a couple thousand feet away from my lab building. It was wretched in that the stadium had to feature the narrowest pitch in the history of professional football. It was our beloved Postage Stamp, useful for Route One and no more elegant strategy.
The "operator" (for all Major League Soccer owners are not owners of their team, but co-owners of the league, and are assigned teams to operate) of Columbus Crew was the American sports entrepreneur Lamar Hunt, and he went through any number of efforts to cooperate with public bodies to get a stadium built that wasn't sharing with a collegiate gridiron team. But when he couldn't get any of those efforts to work, because of lack of public support or skeptical civic leaders or what-have-you, he simply shrugged his shoulders and put aside $20 million or so of his own money and said "we can build something simple here", and Columbus Crew Stadium came into existence on the edge of the Ohio State Fairgrounds. It later got a corporate sponsor, and it's now MAPFRE Stadium.
But for those of us who were there from the start, it was "Hunt Park", and it still is "Hunt Park". Because we know who wanted it there, and who put up his own money to get it there, for a city that wasn't his own but that he came to love.
I had season tickets for the Columbus Crew one and only one season - that first season in "Hunt Park", which also turned out to be my final year in Columbus.
I'm an academic in a time where academic work is incredibly precarious. I've lived throughout both the Midwest AND Southeastern United States throughout my adult life. When I thought about traditional English nicknames for clubs at the point I was restarting, "Rovers" seemed most appropriate for what life has given me - not that I'm bitter or ungrateful, but I have found a whole lot of my country in my life, and the word fits.
But, at least where the beautiful game is concerned, I know where home is, and it's that Erector Set of a stadium north of downtown Columbus, Ohio.
There has been a wild amount of news over the past year and change about the threats of the operator who took over Columbus Crew SC after Lamar Hunt's death to take the team and move it franchise-style to Austin, Texas, with quiet acknowledgement and acquiescence from the other Major League Soccer owner/operators. I commend to you the work of Morgan Hughes and his compatriots on the Save The Crew team who have worked overtime to demonstrate that a top-flight team has a future in Columbus, and that as messed up as American soccer is, there is still a legitimate history in "an altogether less fashionable part of the United States" that deserves to be respected.
We are awaiting the I's to be dotted and the T's to be crossed, but it very much looks like a pair of families are going to buy into Major League Soccer and take over the operating rights for Columbus. What comes with that, we believe, will be a new stadium, a public/private partnership. It almost has to; the current operator (who will get his stupid team in Austin, because Major League Soccer is stupid) let MAPFRE stadium, that precious home, fall into all kinds of disrepair. So right now that name I use for my team is not merely an ode to home, but a very small and very silent protest, that something as trivial as a stadium can exist for the right reasons, and should continue to exist for the right reasons.
3. Have you any other teams on SL?
I barely keep up with one team. Those of you who play multiple teams on here, and keep seven matches a day going for each of them...I honestly don't know how you do it.
I know I used the name "Hundred Acre Wood FC" for a team on a different SL server, a long time ago.
4. Biggest achievement on SL?
I think I stayed in 6-1-1 for three or four seasons in a row once?
5. One thing you would change about SL?
I honestly don't know. I have cracked about being a Stereotypical Dumb Yank(tm) in the past, and the Yankee population over here isn't substantial, so I'm not going to propose wild and crazy ideas and be another American trying to change what a lot of folk hold pretty dear.
Frankly, I'm just here to hang out and have fun, and I'm happy that a whole lot of y'all have sustained this old thing long beyond the point that it's fashionable. Long may it continue.
