Category Archives: TIMBERS!

It’s That Time Again

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Pamela

Yesterday was our first match of the season. Ticket partner and I planned to go early so we could get our picture taken with The Cup but as soon as we ate our pizza, drank our beer and sat in the sunshine, we completely forgot about it.

It’s worth noting here that we arrive at the match ridiculously early. Why? I have no idea but that’s the way we do it.

My spouse was able to secure a ticket to the match and he wasn’t about to go sit in the seats so early so he wandered around the stadium checking out the other food and drink options and taking photos. He texts me a picture of him with The Cup.

Oh no! I wanted MY picture with The Cup. At this point it was 30 minutes before the match would start. If the stadium was a clock and we were sitting at 6, the Cup was at 2. But you can only go around to that part of the stadium the long way. AND the concourse was completely packed.

Luckily, ticket partner has to hurry through a lot of airports so he cut the trail and I hurried after him. When we made it to the line he said: I’m surprised you kept up.

But I was committed. I also needed the cardio.

So here it is. I look like the Pillsbury Do’h! Boy because I have so many layers on. Ticket partner looks like he’s about to go to the firing squad.

I was disappointed I couldn’t touch it. There were two police officers there so it didn’t seem worth the risk.

In other news, I bought a new phone holder for match days. Remember I wrote about my old phone holder and then I tried to make a new phone holder but failed. I couldn’t find a good one. I guess not many people want to wear their phone around their neck. I don’t love the one that I bought. It’s pretty flimsy.

The way the case is cut, it makes me press the side buttons when I don’t want to so I tried to take photos and instead changed the volume. Or I don’t know what I was doing. I think I have some movies and unplanned panorama shots. I got home with 216 pictures and most of them are awful.

We lucked out, it didn’t rain until the last 5 minutes but that rain wanted to make sure we noticed. It went from spitting to drizzle to droplets to gusting splash. I was glad for all those layers.

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PLAYOFFS!!!

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Pamela

This tifo is from our last western conference semi-final match at home. I had to think about that. I get confused between all the flavors of finals: quarter-finals (which we didn’t have – we had a knockout round), semi-finals, conference finals and then the Cup game. I hope that’s right. I’m too lazy to look at the bracket again.

Today is the western conference finals match (1st leg) and I will see the match after this posts.

I don’t know how to feel. I’ve had my heart broken so many times I hate to be too hopeful. But the guys have looked good this last bit so of course I’m hopeful.

I love how we start the pre-season in February all bundled up for matches. Then in July and August we’re in shorts and getting the top of our heads sunburned. And we finish out all bundled up again.

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Philadelphia Part 3 TIMBERS!

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Pamela

Here I am bonding with a cow outside the stadium. Looking at that t-shirt, I’m not sure this cow is in the right place.

The inspiration for this trip was to see the Portland Timbers play the Philadelphia Union.

In case any Timbers fans or MLS fans are here and thinking about visiting Philadelphia for a match: DO IT! We very highly recommend. I also recommended Montreal Away after our visit last year.

The only snafu was getting to the match because we didn’t want deal with a car rental and the stadium is out of town a bit.

Bob came up with the brilliant plan: Pub bus.

We were walking over to the pub and I saw a tour bus but when we got up there Bob said, it wasn’t the right address. We kept walking. We saw a school bus. Bob said: I think that’s it.

That was it.

Here’s where the what the heck with the liquor laws Philly goes to the next level. We had not one, but two, kegs on a school bus.

Pour them in the front. Pass them back!

Also, something went wrong so there was no food. I am generally very careful about drinking anything without eating. At my advanced age, this has become critical.

But when are you going to be on the Union Party Bus again?

It was really fun. I want to say I’d do it differently next time, but I probably wouldn’t.

The stadium is beautiful. It’s a great location. It has a wonderful tailgate scene which is something we don’t enjoy in Portland.

Here’s my team, going to the slaughter.

We lost 3-0 but I wasn’t devastated since we left a significant part of our A team at home and we had 2 guys starting in their first ever MLS match.

Also, GREAT fireworks show. I think someone said there was a problem the previous weekend so they saved them for this match.

My parting comments are: it was a great trip. I would love to go to Philadelphia again. It’s a great city to visit.

The project of mid-August as of today:

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Opening Night

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Pamela

Result: 0-0

Nope. I haven’t improved my camera situation. More of the unfocused and poorly exposed photos doctored with heavy-handed Photoshop that you’ve come to expect.

Our team is injured to the point of comedy, if it were funny that your team had so many broken people. But we got to see a few new faces and they did fine. First time out – not the prettiest match – but we’ll take it.

One exciting part was when the guys sitting in front of us got a stern talking to from security because one of them had too much to drink and was, let’s say, confrontational. They didn’t have to leave but loud guy shut up and then pouted while looking at his phone. They left 15 minutes early. Please stay home next time.

My stamina is still off and this hour we lost isn’t helping. Off to try to get the garden organized.

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The Post Of 1000 Sorrows

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Pamela

This cucumber that I harvested when I ripped the garden out last weekend represents the 2014 season of the Portland Timbers.

It’s green, it under-performed a tragic degree, but it tried. If nothing else, it gets credit for showing up. I will be back next year with all my hopes and dreams.

On September 27, shortly into a game against Toronto FC, our captain Will Johnson broke his leg. He’s number 4 above and that’s what he looks like with an unbroken leg. The other player is Futty Danso, who was on our team since we were a lower division team and well loved. He was traded earlier this season to Montreal. I’ve only cried about soccer 2 times. Once, in 2003 when Germany defeated the USA in Women’s World Cup at PGE Park. I was there. And second, when Futty was traded.

A few weeks later we played our final group match in the CCL and all we had to do was not lose by 2 or more goals.

We lost by 2 goals.

We managed to win our last game against Dallas, clean sheet but we were still 1 point shy of making it to the playoffs.

Shortly before the half our MVP and supporters’ player of the year Diego Valeri went down. He tore his ACL. He’s the guy on the left. That’s what he looks like with two good ACLs. The other player is Darlington Nagbe who scored his first goal of the season in the final match.

It has been a dark month for Timbers fans. Good bye 2014 season and good riddance.

I’ll be back in February with my plastic pants.

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Montreal Part 2 Match Day

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Pamela

To reiterate just in case some Timbers (or any MLS team) supporters find this by accident: Montreal is a great place to visit and totally worth going to an away match. Bob was walking around during the half and he said people were super friendly and asking him about Portland and how we were liking Montreal.

I came dangerously close to working on the pants of shame this afternoon but I thought I’d do another Montreal post, instead.

Since the Timbers joined MLS we have been wanting to use an away game as an excuse to visit a place we’ve never been but it seems like anytime there is a match in a place we want to go, it’s at a time we can’t travel. So when the schedule came out and we saw Montreal in July, we planned our whole summer around it.

The match was at Stade Saputo which is located at the Olympics site and very easy to get to on the Metro. But once we got there we got a little confused about where we were supposed to meet the other fans. We wandered around and there was mud involved and we found some Impact people and they said: your friends are over there.

And they were.

Originally the tickets were supposed to be emailed to us but then someone volunteered to hand them out but I guess he was coming from Boston or someplace that involved a border crossing and traffic and then wandering around until they found the same corner where people were already waiting.

You do not want to keep a group of Timbers fans in limbo. Fortunately it all worked out and we were let in and herded into our corner.

During the game there was a giant downpour. Insane downpour.

The seats at the top of the sections, like where we were, were protected but the rest of the seats were in full downpour.

Impact fans left their seats and came charging up to the protected areas, either finding new seats or standing in the aisles. I also saw lots of people going to buy big plastic ponchos.

A bunch of Impact fans ended up sitting with the Timbers Army. Later I saw an article that said that Impact Fans were leaving in droves. Not true. They have very loyal fans – they just didn’t want to sit in a deluge.

We won the match which was also fun since my beloved team is not winning at home much. Or winning. Loving a sports team is never easy.

This photo used without permission from Hannah. Great eyes to find us because I DVRd the match and watched it when we got home and I couldn’t find us. I bet Hannah has a nicer TV than we have. I think I’m about 3 years away from being able to donate my TV to a museum. It is that old. But I hate change and I like my caveman TV.

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ROSE CITY ‘TIL I DIE!

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Pamela

I didn’t want to leave that cranky pants post at the top while I was away.

Fan event tonight with the Portland Timbers!

Look, here I am with Norberto Paparato, Ben Zemanski, Jorge Villafaña, Michael Nanchoff and Darlington Nagbe (!). Aren’t I adorable clutching my Mom purse? That other guy is Billy.

And how about this one? squee!! Diego Chara #1 fouls in the league this season. Nagbe is the most fouled player. Our team is so balanced. And Steve Zakuani has never looked happier to be hanging out with the fans. (To be fair, this was at the end of the event.) And Billy again and home grown player Bryan Gallego.

Be good while I’m offline.

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FIFA WORLD CUP GAMES 63 and 64

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Pamela

Brazil v. Netherlands

This game wasn’t pleasant to watch. I had my phone and looked at twitter and youtube clips of kittens playing the piano before I realized I could be doing something else and I moved on. Ending up 3rd or 4th in the World isn’t bad from a big picture perspective but neither team had anything to celebrate.

Germany v. Argentina

Yay! My team won. About an hour after the match I was up to my elbows in everyday life stuff and I looked up and thought: we won!

Great game. No major controversies. Both teams played their hearts out. Great goal from Götze. The only bad part was having to watch sad Argentines suffer through the second place ceremony. I don’t know a better way of doing it but it seems mean to make a losing team stand around and watch the celebrating people lose their minds.

Phew. My team won. I am not familiar with this feeling. They won in 1990 which I saw. And Euro Cup in 1996 which I did not see. Could you even watch Euro cup games in this country in 1996?

When I talked to my Dad he said, “Whew, it’s over. We can take a break from soccer.”

HA HA Because the Timbers are in Seattle tonight. I have another game to get through. I really loved hearing Ian Darke pimp the game during the WC broadcast. “If you’ve enjoyed World Cup, you will enjoy Major League Soccer.”

You know it!

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Season Opener

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Pamela

I love the sound of the chainsaw at the match but I hate the sound when my neighbor does it.

Last night was the season opener and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed. At least they managed to tie it in the very last seconds of the game. Because I was thinking: I sat in the rain for 2 hours for this?

But it’s funny how high our expectations are after we did so well last season. We had a terrific time. It was great seeing Mick Hoban inducted into the Ring of Honor.

Lots of games left. I have faith the guys will get it together.

Ricketts (the guy with the towel around his shoulders) was paired with the teeniest kid. The cute was killing me when they walked out.

This is the best photo I got with the new third kits. I love these kits – especially the socks. I had talked myself out of buying a new jersey this season. It’s an expensive piece of clothing that I usually only wear to matches and for a huge part of the season it’s buried under several layers. But I’m going to have to get one of these. And a pair of socks.

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Yeah Baby!

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Pamela

Aren’t you glad you don’t have to warm-up for work with people watching and taking your picture? Love the goalie coach at the top of the pic.

Pre-season tournament. That’s Kalif and Kah on the right. I should have used my text and arrow making skills but huge time crunch tonight.

Opening night is March 8. (And note to Hannah and Lily for our MLS Hair Approval Committee: we need a meeting with Rauwshan [far left] stat!)

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