California Dreamin
Approximately 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Ipswich lies a place called the United States of America. Some of you might be aware of it. It’s not somewhere you typically associate with ‘ultra culture’ or even the beautiful game itself. However, there have been signs that things are changing in that respect. James Montague’s brilliant book on ultras across the world, ‘1312’ dedicated a whole chapter to the time he spent in LA with an amalgamation of different groups linked to LAFC. In fact, search any MLS team and you will be able to find traces of at least one group demonstrating an ultra-style presence in stadiums across the US. We speak to one of the OGs.
Firstly, who are you and what are you going to talk to us about?
My name is Dan, born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. I Grew up with Steaua’s infamous Armata Ultra which I was a part of in my teenage years until my family moved to the United States. Once I arrived in California, I started to follow my local team, the San Jose Earthquakes, and have been the leader of the group since.
Apart from your good selves, who are the big players on the American ultra scene?
The guys in Montreal are the only ones in MLS that are ultras and are the only group we are friends with. Sadly, the scene overall is a joke, and being an ultra group is like swimming against the stream. You have random groups that call themselves ultras, hooligans, barras but they do it just because it sounds good to them. There is zero mentality or principles. Some have numbers and in certain pics they might look like an ultras group: they wave flags, they do occasional tifo displays, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Once you look a little bit deeper you will realize that they are proudly accepting/requesting money from their clubs for tifo, travel, sometimes their leaders are even on the payroll of the clubs, take pride in turning in their own “troublemakers”, rather than protecting each other, etc. They run these groups like businesses: make and sell merchandise with the group name/logo to everybody who is willing to pay, start all kinds of “non-profit organizations” that ironically bring them profit, etc. They all have the same 3-4 very generic chants, they are all obsessed with pushing the same personal agendas, mostly mainstream political ones, while selfishly using their clubs as vehicles for that. Supporting the club is not their priority, but rather seeking clout and profit for themselves. It’s pathetic. They seek “leadership” positions in those groups, to post on their bios on social media, some wear fucking badges or armbands with “capo” on them on game day. It’s a bunch of grown ups playing pretend like kids. I guess they didn’t get enough attention growing up, so now they are starving for attention and see these supporter groups they are part of as ways to get that attention. Laughable and sad at the same time.
In your 20 year biography doco ‘Heart of an Ultra’ it was staggering to hear your club president talk about the group in such positive, supportive terms. Is this kind of enlightened attitude towards the scene normal among American clubs? Or are you just the luckiest bastards alive?!
We do have a great relationship with our current president, Jared Shawlee. He started working for the club from a much lower position, then worked his way up. He saw our group throughout many years of our activity, and when you are in a lower position you see things in a different light than when you are a higher up and need to make all kinds of corporate decisions. He respects our independence. We always made it clear that we are not interested and will never accept money, all we want is to receive the respect that I believe we deserve for more than two decades of unconditional support for this club. Our president is genuinely a nice person, and above it all, he is fair. Whenever shit happens, we don’t run away from consequences. We are OK with bans and sanctions as long as the “punishment” fits the “crime”. With past presidents, that was not the case. They were doing what the league was telling them to do, and an independent, outspoken group like ours was always a target for MLS. They only want their “puppet groups” who do what they are being told, often that being the case because the club pays for their travel, tifo or even have their leaders on the payroll. Pretty disgusting stuff if you look at it from an ultra’s perspective.
How would you say the football ultra scene is perceived by wider American society? Does it register much in the country’s sporting conscience?
There is no ultra scene in the US. Outside of us and Montreal, the other groups play ultra-pretend, having zero ultra mentality or principles. Maybe, and hopefully, there are other groups who follow the ultra model in the lower leagues, but I am not aware of any at the moment. The soccer community here calls everybody they see waving a flag or displaying a tifo “ultras”, which is laughable. The whole “MLS scene” is laughable. Artificial, manufactured, or LARP-ing as we call it. People trying to do what they see in other countries, but ignoring the most important part of the ultras culture which is the mentality and principles, the foundation of it all.
America is politically very fraught right now. Do SJU address wider political issues in their actions/intend to do so in the future?
No, we take pride in not involving any politics in what we do as a group. Individually, our members are all over the political spectrum, but as SJU we will not bring in the shit that’s dividing us, focusing on what’s uniting us and that’s the love for our club. Politics is toxic and divisive. Many respectable ultras groups from Europe fell apart because they got too political. Here in the US, you have friendships even families being broken apart because different political views. We would never get involved in something that could destroy our unity as group. People are sick and tired of political toxicity. When they come to a game it’s like a refuge for them to do something they enjoy and forget about politicians who don’t really give a fuck about their voters anyways. Politics is a world of selfishness and greed, which is the complete opposite to what ultras in general, and our group in particular, take pride in.
America is a big place. Do you boys get on the road much? I remember seeing a core of you giving it large at a Leagues Cup game in Mexico last season!
We travel as much as we can. All our rivalries are mandatory, and other than that we travel mostly when we play West Coast teams, but if we have a playoff game on the East Coast, we go there as well. However, last time we had a playoff game there was 2010 hahah. We usually don’t make the playoffs, let alone play someone from the opposite division, as they call it here.
For our readers, can you tell us who Chris Wondolowski is and why he’s such a legend among the San Jose faithful?
Chris Wondolowski is the league’s all time top scorer. From strictly a soccer point of view that’s very respectable. However, the guy became a legend for us because of who he is as a person. He dedicated most of his career to our club, when he could have played somewhere else for more money and for trophies. You don’t see players like this anymore, in a soccer world where all revolves around money. He was a locker room leader, the nicest guy who turned into a lion on the field. Even when he decided to retire and had to play one more game, he gave everybody in the club and us a very short notice, because he didn’t want that attention. A very atypical player, and an amazing human being. He always loved and respected our group and will forever be one of us.
He also famously joined the ultras on occasion and led some chants, of course. Don’t see that happening in many other leagues around the world!
Can you describe some of your most noteworthy tifos/actions?
We have done a lot of tifo displays. One of my favourites was the “300” tifo from the inauguration of our current stadium. We did a few memorable ones to honour the US Independence Day when we traditionally play Galaxy at Stanford stadium, a stadium much bigger than others. We recently made another “first” at MLS level, which was a vertical cutout of our logo with actual smoke coming from the smoke bombs that he was holding. We also did a lot of what we call “diss tifo”. We were the first one to do tifo that made fun of our opponents, and as expected the other fan bases here were clueless, crying about their feelings being hurt, asking the league to ban us for it and telling us that we don’t care for our team because we do tifo against the opponent. Again, the vast majority of the fans here have no clue about the culture. Every tifo holds a place in my heart. We don’t do tifo just to say we did tifo. Paint big, colourful banners so we can look good on social media, like you see all over MLS nowadays. We put a lot of thought in it, and every tifo we did had all kinds of symbolism and meaning behind it. There are also a ton of memorable message banners we made, to support our team, or also to make fun of our opponents. Of course, being clueless about the fact that message banners were an integral part of the European support scene for decades, MLS fans are complaining about those, having no clue what they are. Again, it’s a clown show. Regarding tifo, I love the process of making those displays. Coming up with our own money and materials, painting 14-16 hours in the heat or on a cold night, cracking jokes with your brothers, running into issues and finding solutions, it’s all a beautiful process that unites our members and creates amazing memories.
Am I right in thinking that punk legends Rancid are from San Jose? How often do you draw upon American popular culture for your tifos/merch, if at all?
Yes, Lars from Rancid is a big Quakes fan. He was part of our group at our old stadium. Very nice guy, he loves the Quakes and he understands the culture. We try to stay away from being inspired by the pop culture. I mean, maybe a diss banner here and there, like the one we made for Galaxy at the last game: “LA Galaxy: more losses than P Diddy has baby oil bottles”, but usually we like to use original ideas. We keep things more underground, more old school.
Class! We’ll listen out for a chant to the tune of Timebomb then. What is the biggest challenge you face as a group? What are your goals going forward?
Biggest challenge is by far the recruiting pool for our group. We have certain standards, and we want the people who join our group to meet those standards. That is a big part of the reason we don’t have the numbers that other MLS groups have. We don’t offer free shit to attract all kinds of members out there, even if they are just standing bodies. We want quality people. Since this is the US, and not Europe, most people have no clue about ultras mentality, but there are a small number of good people willing to learn about it. Also, the league is very corporate, very plastic especially when it comes to fans. So putting together an authentic ultra group, has always been like swimming against the current. But it’s been almost 23 years and we are still swimming. The current didn’t drown us, but made us stronger instead.
Finally, what does the future hold for American football and American ultras?
The league is growing, and it turns more and more corporate every year. That’s not going to help with a possible growth of the ultras culture here, and I also don’t feel like the new generation of kids finds the ultras culture very appealing. I really hope, I am wrong and the kids will create their own movement, but we will see.
