While it appears the issue of getting a men’s soccer team here at State has been brutally savaged, left to die and forgotten about, aspiring hooligans such as myself need not fear.Rather than wasting precious body warmth on the futile venture of creating a team, why not just adopt one?
Pick an existing team, follow its results and support it with as much feverish devotion as any other MSU sporting institution.
That way, State’s footie faithful can get their fill of The Beautiful (Communist) Game without actually associating the Bulldog name with it (thereby compromising the university’s patriotism).
This is an unprecedented opportunity for college athletics.
MSU already has a large soccer fan base (my count puts the figure at a healthy eight), and the rest of the student body will undoubtedly be caught up in the ensuing frenzy surrounding the adopted team.
With luck, MSU can establish a healthy new tradition of hooliganism, the true mark of team spirit that is only possible through the passion generated by soccer.
Banging a cowbell is already just one step away from total anarchy, anyway.
But what team to choose? Ideally, it should be an institution that closely resembles our own.
This immediately rules out any team from non-English-speaking countries, leaving the MLS, the Australian A-league and all the British leagues. Australia should be immediately discarded, as, well, it’s Australia, and the MLS should also be tossed on the grounds that David Beckham is a foppish, overexposed fashionista. Sure, his 97.9-mph goal against Chelsea in 1997 is the hardest ever recorded, but this fact is well negated by his keen fashion sense and pop-star wife.
It would be too easy and a tad pretentious to pick any of the traditional powerhouses not yet discounted, which rules out the likes of Manchester United, Celtic, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. These teams are very much Ivy League, much too snobbish for our university.
What MSU needs is a more modest, accessible football club, a “people’s club” for the “people’s university.” In light of this, the soon-to-be-convened Adopt an Obscure Soccer Team for Mississippi State Committee (AOSTMSC) should consider Everton Football Club.
Everton F.C. hails from Liverpool, England, and is currently in sixth place in the illustrious English Premier League.
It may lack the wealth and esteem of the top clubs, but it more than makes up for this with its large fan base and undying heart and pluck.
The club shares with MSU and the phonograph a founding date of 1878 and has a similarly rich history. Also, its unofficial slogan of “the people’s club” mirrors State’s “people’s university” moniker, names that come from the institutions’ appeal to the common folk, the underdogs, the great vibrant mass of general humanity.
Even more, its heated rivalry with the snobby, elitist Reds of Liverpool F.C. is comparable to State’s own blood feud with Ole Miss.
MSU lacks a men’s soccer team. Everton lacks a mascot. A solution for this should not require much reflective chin scratching.
Only one step is required: On every game day, the entire student body, clad in blue and heavily dosed on Chang Beer (Everton’s sponsors), riots around campus singing anti-Liverpudlian chants.
The soccer void can then be filled, and the Everton Bulldogs can appreciate their new nickname.
Simple.
Sean Patrick Armstrong is a junior communications major. He covers tennis for The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].