TOW recently talked with Bryan James, the President of “Sons of Ben“, the supporter’s group for the Philadelphia Union, entering MLS next year. Bryan shares his own story, and the curious tale of starting a supporter’s group without a team, and the journey to becoming the newest MLS club.

Story by Bryan James

I always remember having a soccer ball around the house, and remember watching World Cup and NASL games (Philadelphia Fury, below) at an early age. I liked baseball, football, and hockey too. I played Little League but I didn’t enjoy playing soccer as a kid. The local YMCA had us, at age 7, playing 11 v 11 on a full field. I would get back into playing the sport for intramural teams in college, but when NASL died, I focused on other sports except for one summer every four years.

I’m sure this killed my father, he grew up in England, worked for his local club, Birmingham City, and regularly attended matches at Wembley (Birmingham City vs Manchester City, below). But he happily supported my brother and me in baseball, basketball, and other sports.

I met Andy, Dave, and Ethan in the Philadelphia forum of BigSoccer.com several years ago and decided that the time had come to build something in Philly for the fans. Andy was involved, not only because of his passion for the sport, but his taking my rough idea for a logo, and returning an initial draft, that then other members in the community added to, and polishing it was critical in our development. Ethan suggested the name Sons of Ben and despite being a displaced Philadelphian in Florida (at the time, now in Utah) got it absolutely right.

Dave brought a younger energy and after spending time at on the terraces at Craven Cottage in his teens and in the stands at MLS games since the league started, an idea of the gameday atmosphere we wanted to create. The first face to face meeting occurred over lunch at McGillin’s in Center City Philadelphia. I shared what I had learned from the prospective investors and we discussed ways to grow the group.

Why have I gotten so involved in soccer? I think that baseball and football are more McFan sports, to borrow a Steven Wells description. Fans for all of the “Big Four” sports have seat holders that have been entrenched for decades and are used to being told when to cheer. Of course there are minor exceptions, but most fans are simply consumers and don’t feel married to the team the way that soccer supporters do. I don’t think any sport can compete with standing and singing for 90 minutes, supporting your team, changing the cheers to match the game and mood. Not meekly chanting “Charge!” or reserving all your energy to chant “De – fense”.

Back in 2006, it was rumored that the Kansas City Wizards were considering selling to a group of Philadelphia investors. It was more than a rumor as long time Chiefs and Wizards owner Lamar Hunt had discussed the prospect of owning a soccer team during an NFL Hall of Fame Board Meeting with a local businessman. That story continued with a real estate investment company, Milestone, getting involved in the project and, after Sons of Ben formed, I began reaching out to them to see how we could help. That plan would have had us playing in Glassboro, NJ. In March 2007, we had our first event at a Kixx game. We had 100 people that had signed up as members at that point, and we managed to convince about 30 to make it out that day. Somehow that event started a perfect storm of media. 

Lifelong football fan and famous music critic Steven Wells (shown above) was writing for the Philadelphia Weekly, as well as contracting with The Guardian. He caught wind of our growing group of fans and came to the Kixx game. He interviewed members and observed and turned the event into a full page story in May 2007’s FourFourTwo. The Kixx game that day was being nationally televised, the first game in Versus’ new indoor package, and by halftime they had noticed us chanting, waving flags, throwing streamers. They decided to do a live spot with us at half time.

Unbeknownst to us, as he boarded a plane in Milan, Nick Sakiewicz was flipping through the latest FourFourTwo and saw our story. He later told us that he quickly related that to the league. Also, for the first time, MLS Futbolito was coming to Philadelphia. Since we had no team to host the event, the Sons of Ben reached out to the league and offered to host to help us reach adult soccer players and fans. While we didn’t end up hosting, we did volunteer at the event with more than 40 members and were posted next to the sign in table and continued to grow our membership.

Later in June we went to a Red Bulls game with about 25 members. Our chants of Philadelphia, some songs, and flags not only stood out during what turned out to be a great game between Kansas and the Red Bulls, but it caught the eye of a Sports Illustrated writer who happened to be at the game. He contacted us the following Monday and we were “Fans of the Week” in the next edition of the magazine. So in three months, we had already appeared in the biggest soccer magazine in the world and the biggest sports magazine in America. By the time the fall rolled around, we had been featured on the cover of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Delco Times and we were gaining momentum.

We used the core group of SoB’s to petition for state and county assistance with the stadium, which was the targeted for Chester by the potential ownership group containing Jay Sugarman, The Buccini Pollin group, Jim Nevels, and several others. In October, the county agreed to fund $30 million provided that the state also participated in the project. We were honored to be invited to the news conference in Delaware County announcing the funding and made an impact with SoB signs, scarves, and members attending. The name Sons of Ben just fit. Once we heard it, we knew it was a good strong name that not only honored Ben Franklin, an adopted son of the city, but also spoke to the reputation of Philadelphia fans, SOBs. Other suggestions included a name which paid homage to our Veterans Stadium past, 700 and The Penn, to honor William Penn and have a jailhouse type allusion.

We chose the colors of the city flag, because we needed to be more than black and white. What better way to show your city pride than by branding yourself with those colors? We hoped the team would choose something in the same family as the colors of Philadelphia especially after over two years of wearing them We were very happy that the team chose to include our preferred light blue in the team logo but we always reserved the right to change colors if the team chose a different set of colors. After all, we are here to support the team, not to be our own show. With the team including light blue in their colors, and in subsequent conversations with the front office encouraging it, the Sons of Ben will be continuing to wear it with pride of our city and our history. I don’t think we’ve been media savvy, it’s just a big part of the stream of articles and tv appearances was a perfect storm, simply working hard enough behind the scenes to create a buzz amongst soccer fans carried over into the press.

 

Our officers meet once a week to discuss everything from tshirt design to charitable giving. We went to events, bars, and games to talk about bringing MLS to Philadelphia. We would still be talking about it being nice to have unless it was for a committed group of investors and state and local politicians who made it happen. It was strange to talk to people and get them to buy in to our belief that an MLS team would be ours if we reached critical mass.

Steven Wells compared us to South Seas Cargo Cultists (below) who would build runways in hopes that the planes present during World War II would miraculously reappear and bring wealth to the island. The difference in this case was that we got the plane to land.

I was at home about three weeks before the eventual announcement, I called the other officers, swore them to secrecy, then called a scarf company, swore them to secrecy, and started production of the scarves that we wore to and presented to the owners at the announcement. The Sons of Ben, as a group, unofficially heard two days before the official announcement at an event we set up with the ownership group.

Over 250 people crowded into The Dark Horse in Old City Philadelphia and when Nick said “If you happen to come down to The Wharf Building in Chester at around 2 o clock on Thursday, you wouldn’t be wasting your time”, we could all finally celebrate.

When we finally heard that we were getting the team, it was as big as winning a championship for us.

Remember, Philadelphia as a city/region and it sports fans were unaccustomed to anything going their way. It was a combination of elation and relief. 

The original design of the stadium in Chester was spectacular and while we would love to have full roof, we certainly understand the reasons why we won’t when the stadium opens.

We feel like our members have been considered in the design. We have our own section, next to our own entrance which is next to our tailgate area.

While Philadelphia sports fans have been accustomed to a singular destination for sports since 1971, I firmly believe that the ease of access to this location will help deflect some of the initial criticisms of the Chester site. I feel like the city is on the verge of a renaissance and the stadium and accompanying development, including the on and off ramps right to the stadium site will quicken that.

The leadership of Mayor Wendell Butler, Sen. Dominic Pileggi, Economic Development guru Dave Sciocchetti, Representative Thaddeus Kirkland and others are paying great dividends for the residents of Chester and for local soccer fans.

The stadium is 10 minutes south of the airport, right off of the Blue Route which connects the western suburbs to Philadelphia, and convenient to local transportation, both bus and train. Personally, I am 15 minutes from the stadium.

What do we have planned for next year? You know, this is the toughest to answer. We admire the long time supporters groups from DC, NY, Chicago and think that the rest of the fans owe them gratitude for paving the way. New groups in Toronto and Seattle have continued that tradition and I think that is what we hope to do. To support our team in and out of the stadium every game home and away. We have tried to create songs that our unique to the league and in some cases taken traditional Philadelphian songs and incorporated them.

The local media has been incredible. All three major papers, the Inquirer, the Daily News, and the Delco Times have contacted us frequently. Less frequently now that they have the team to talk to, but for a group of fans to have been quoted and consulted so much was very cool. They are eagerly anticipating the uniform unveiling and the team finally getting players.

Sons of Ben have grown from 1,000 members at the end of year one to 5,500 members now. Our membership structure is about to change and we will be differentiating between paid members and email recipients.

We benefitted from a perfect storm of media attention, dedicated, well-moneyed investors, and forward thinking politicians. But would the climate have been so receptive for public investment had we not been around? Hard to say. The key is work hard and have fun.

After the county and city got on board in October, I wanted the group to get involved in the community as quickly as possible. Chester has earned it’s reputation as the city’s fortunes headed south after the manufacturing bust. It is impoverished in many places and some residents feel hopeless to change their situation. I called Mayor Butler and asked where we could best impact the community. He offered the idea of a center less than a mile from the stadium site called The Bernardine Center. It provides a helping hand to low-income Chester area residents by distributing emergency and supplemental food and supplies. It also offers educational, spiritual and advocacy programs to help clients build better lives for themselves, their families and communities. We have run a Help Kick Hunger drive in time for the holidays for the past two years and will hopefully double our donation size for the second year in a row this year. We will be including more charities in the future including a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser.

I think given the apathy toward the Sixers, I would like to see the Union become the fourth sport in this town. From all perspectives, the media has handled soccer very fairly so far in Philadelphia. Philly is passionate sports town who loves the Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers in that order. It is my goal to have us become part of that conversation. It is up to everyone involved with the team, from the front office to the fans, to make the Union relevant to every Philadelphian.

Images via BryanJames, AmericanAtom, NASLJerseys, Guim, Getty, Flickr, Dangorman16, Dangorman16, MLSPhilly2010