The world calls soccer the beautiful game.
The crisp, clean passing between streaking teammates, the hard shots on goal, and the exciting saves that follow add an aesthetic splendor to the sport for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.
“It’s a working-class sport,” said analyst Nick Webster, co-host of Fox Soccer Channel’s Fox Football Fone-In. “And the working class are the masses.”
In Brooklyn, where more than 200,000 immigrants hail from European countries, fans of the game find creative ways to get their soccer fix. Local bars match up with foreign time schedules and morph into the familiar soccer pubs scattered across Europe. And on the field of play, garbage cans become corner flags and field goals act as soccer goal posts.
Webster, a former player in his native England, said that soccer is ingrained in Britain’s youth at a very early age. “As soon as you can walk, if your father is a football fan, you have a ball at your feet,” he said. “I have a little 2-year-old right now, and as soon as he started walking, there was a ball.”
For those who miss their country of origin, gathering in the midst of this amalgam of American neighborhoods and European culture becomes more than simple recreation – it’s a way to hold onto a little piece of home.
London Calling
On the boarder of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, the Chip Shop, an English-themed bar and grill on Atlantic Avenue, has become a sanctuary for soccer fans in an area brimming with European expatriates.
With walls covered in soccer regalia like team scarves and player photos, and framed posters of The Beatles, The Who and The Sex Pistols, the pub looks like a snap shot of British pop culture past.
The food instantly pulls you into the middle of West London – waitresses serve Sheppard’s pie, beans on toast and the bar’s franchise dish – good old fashioned fish and chips. The Chip Shop also boasts “New York City’s largest section of draught English, Scottish and Irish stouts, lagers and ales,” which, for many soccer fans, makes the experience much more enjoyable.
“It’s not one of these huge soccer bars where you can’t even get up to get a drink sometimes,” said Kiernan O’Hare, 27, of Cobble Hill. “It’s not for one particular team, which is kind of nice, too. So you can go and feel like if you’re rooting for the other team, you’re not going to get beat up. And the beers are good, too.”
Soccer also holds a unique place in history for many countries abroad, often representing the social and political milieu of their homeland.
Eastern European stalwarts Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade played a match that degraded into rioting and helped propel the bloody Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. And when Senegal triumphed over France in the 2002 World Cup, many in the West African country marked the victory as a symbol of triumph over their colonial oppressors.
“It’s very tribal,” Webster said. “You’re given a team at a very early age and you stick with them through thick and thin. And I think that’s really the appeal of it. The passion, the history, the pageantry.”
The United States still struggles with embracing the game while countries around the globe view soccer almost as a religion.
Fans never lack for excitement on match day. “It’s one of those times where you get a mile from the ground,” Webster said. “And all of a sudden your hair on the back of your neck stands at attention because there is a real crackle in the air.”
Fields of Dreams
Many of Downtown Brooklyn’s immigrants flock to the various patches of grass scattered around the neighborhood in order to get their soccer fix in a more cardio-friendly manner – by playing the sport with friends.
“If you grow up anywhere else, it’s the sport you play,” said Karti Subramaian, 24, a Brooklynite of English-Indian descent. “It’s the way people live.”
Inspired by a recent weekend’s docket of Spanish league matches at the Chip Shop, Subramaian and four of his friends took to Van Vorhees Park and did their best impression of Barcelona’s Thierry Henry and Real Madrid’s Raul Gonzalez.
Subramaian said that a real understanding of the beautiful game comes through on-field experience, something that he encouraged all Americans not familiar with soccer to try.
“Go out and kick a ball around,” Subramaian said. “Watch people who are good. It’s just beautiful to watch people with good touch and good skill and those who understand the game. Because soccer is one of those sports that’s just so simple.”
