It’s been a hell of a weekend, but in the exactly opposite way I’d usually say “a hell of a weekend.”

I’m not saying anyone should live like I’ve lived. But in my life, “a hell of a weekend” could involve lost keys, or sleeping somewhere weird, or a call to bail out a friend, or a daughter’s boyfriend drama, or something more deeply strange … but generally, a voyage deep into the weird is not overboard with positivity, the world being the heavily-shadowed, fallen vale it is. But this weekend was both a hell of a weekend, and something truly beautiful: Our hopes, distilled, given and so given back to us; their good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

In the last 48 hours the Northern Guard have danced and sang, sang and shouted, and all around us was love. We’ve partied through the deluge – our love unrequited – then, scarred but smarter, summoned all our bone thugs and whatever harmonies they offered to come good, finally, in our Waterloo, Lansing. After a stumbling, harrowing start, this edition of the Rogue & Gold are now just a result away from winning the conference outright, raising the possibility that, instead of scouring the internet for streams to watch the playoffs, we could be hosting them.

It’s important to remember, from the euphoric (albeit tenuous) perch on which we now find ourselves, where this club was less than two months ago. City had opened the NPSL season like the first act of a horror movie: Two draws against lesser clubs and a road loss to Ann Arbor had every warning klaxon sounding and every warning beacon flaring – we were in trouble, isolated, wounded, pursued by a feeling that we’d already blown it before we even knew everyone’s name.

And yet here we are, back where we thought we should be from the start, after all this sturm und drang. Nine is a row and counting, an incandescent conga-line of Victory dancing right up the mountainside, and the peak now in sight. It’s important to remember where we were before we were here, because we’ll be there again. Someday. Not today, though.

Transcendence

One of the persistent criticisms of the Guard is that we’re not sufficiently wired into the game, that we’re some kind of sideshow wholly independent of the soccer on offer. And, frankly, there’s times where I can see that criticism landing, usually through the happenstance of a really involving chant crossing over a smoke-shrouded something happening on the field.

Then came Friday night, with its dearth of actual soccer, to serve as that criticism’s ultimate refutation: For 90 minutes after the lightning, Northern Guard stood and sang, chanted and danced in an effort to get the boys back on the field in a mood to dominate – and within minutes of the announced postponement, the songs were over, the stands emptying, even though the rain had slackened.

Without the ceremony of gametime at its center, we’re raising a cone of emotional energy to do … what, now? Thankfully we had Alex Wright and his new fiancee (now wife!) to focus our delight upon, but the rest of the monsoon was devoted to the unspoken business of letting the boys know that, like us freaks in the stands, they needed to keep their game-faces on as long as there was any chance of handing Ann Arbor ass-whipping.

It was a remarkable demonstration of group will. The ferocity of the heavier waves of the downpour was astonishing, our songs accompanied by both the static crackle of water-on-water and the basso thrumming of millions of large droplets of water slamming into thousands of human beings. The world contracts to the people one can see, the rest greyed out like they’re being rendered on an outdated video card. We sang on; the drums kept pounding, but the capos became disembodied voices when the rain hit hardest. Every flicker of lightning brought low groans into the music.

Time swiveled and shifted. We’d been here forever and always would be. We’ve been here five seconds and already feel at home. Everyone’s always welcome because everyone’s already here, one becomes by simply showing up and everyone eventually shows up, so everyone becomes us eventually. No one likes us, except us, which means everyone. We hate everyone else, who is no one else, because everyone becomes us eventually.

Part of the price one pays for that bit of transcendence is ‘difficult sight-lines,’ which translates into singing while squinting through smoke and a thicket of hand-made flags to try to see the actual football. So, no, we don’t always see the big goal, or the hard foul, or what have you. And that means that sometimes we’re caught reacting to things a little slowly – but it’s not because we’re not paying attention. It’s that we understand we have a responsibility above and beyond simply observing the football – we’re the chorus of fallen souls, reminding the living players to press on, press on for City, whatever the score, whatever the weather, whatever whenever forever. And because of that, we simply had to do what we did Friday night.

So quick bright things come to confusion.  – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 1

Photo by Tony Long (@tony_long17), all rights reserved

Friday: Detroit City 3 (Dargent 30, Lawson 78, Otim 82), Grand Rapids FC 1 (Timmer 28)

Sunday: Indiana FC 1 (Ahmed-Shaibu 9), Detroit City FC 3 (Lawson 7, Goodman 49, own goal 63)

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The Northern Guard Supporters and Detroit City Football Club have developed a delicate symbiosis with each other: NGS bring passion and spectacle, our creativity and rage channelled into something invisible yet palpable, a rare alchemy in a mundane world. The Club exists in that mundane space, enacting the contests and bottling that alchemical product for sale worldwide; like all rare things, its value climbs as word of it spreads. The weekend was a potent reminder of both the power of this symbiosis and of its tenuous nature.

Friday saw more (many more) than five thousand folks turn out for an American semi-professional team mired near the bottom of the table, saw the thousands-strong supporters group again create a cauldron of cheerful smoky menace. But if all that is familiar – and it is, incredibly; it is very familiar indeed – then so, increasingly, is the kind of thing that happened on Sunday. And it’s Sunday’s events that should remind us to cherish, and zealously guard, the incredible symbiosis of passion and freedom we enjoy.

In summary: The game down in HoosierTown was played in a very small facility, one obviously not used to travelling support (or, really, any support at all). As NGS began working its way through its song list, apparently the guy who owns the place and possibly the team became very agitated about profanity, eventually issuing an ultimatum that the next bit of profanity would result in removal of all of NGS. Threatened by the naughty words of fellow adults, he threatened to call the police. Someone called a member of NGS a ‘jagoff’ over the PA system, if that gives you some idea. It was a mess.

This, increasingly, is what away days are like for the Rouge Rovers – we are presented with an ever-growing list of ‘don’ts,’ a list that usually ends with the magical phrase ‘terms subject to change without notice.’ This is the thing to understand about our fallen world: When something says ‘subject to change,’ it sure don’t mean by you or by us. It means by They, by Them. By the Owners. And the changes they make almost always make the alchemy more difficult, if not entirely impossible.

They’ll say “Hey we’re all for channeled tribal passion but maybe with clean, non-tribal-passion language hehhhhhh?” like that makes sense, and you swoon a bit because you don’t want to explain the complex historical and cultural reasoning behind the swearing and the deaths-head get-ups and everything else that outsiders demand justification for, since this cornfield Mussolini is just going to go, “Ayuh, and there’s children here, too” and then your head will explode rather than argue any longer with a guy who doesn’t really give even half a fuck about what you’re saying, because he’s the Owner, goddamit; he told you to do something and that means you do it.

That’s where it gets tricky, because Do we? Do we really? All of this happens in about 15 seconds of real time, generally – some dude we’ve been mocking suddenly stands up and declares a bunch of things verboten.. And yeah, fuck that guy, yeaaaaah, but also we have to exist in the world somehow, and all of us have lives outside of transforming into a foul-mouthed columns of smoke. But how do we react? Do we explode in defiance, KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKERS!, and up the ante, daring them to kick us out, singing “DO YOU HEAR THESE ASSHOLES SING? WE DON’T HEAR A FUCKIN’ THING!” in defiance, just light the fuse and watch the whole damned thing burn, fuck you fuck you fuck yooooooouuuuuuuuu … do we?

Next road game, it will be some other proto-fascist’s chance to make up rules ex tempore then threaten to use local muscle to enforce them. They do this, I think, not for any real concern over ‘the children’ above and beyond a general allegiance to a mealy-mouthed ‘unspoken code of conduct,’ but because they perceive Northern Guard’s posture, words and iconography to be exactly what they are: Dominance challenges. And because they confuse our behavior – which is focussed on supporting our guys’ sense of well-being and undermining their foes’ – with a dominance challenge in the real world, we must anticipate a whole spectrum of power displays, outbursts, or demonstrations of privilege. Because whatever we are in NGS, we’re surely not the Owners.

This is a thing we haven’t settled, entirely, I think. Our leadership has done an incredible job of defusing even the most ham-handed security buffoons and preventing drunk, committed supporters from following their ids into some kind of Green Street Hooligan fantasy. But in a situation like Sunday in Indiana – where an owner who issued no tickets could point to no listing of rules being broken, and yet NGS modified chants and dropped amplification to get along – the halftime performance of the Hokey-Pokey and a quick game of Duck-Duck-Goose were the perfect antidote. We’ll go along to get along, NGS said, but you don’t own even the tiniest bit of us. I love the MC5, too, but Bugs Bunny was a better anarchist.

The actual football

Tweaks, not revolutions: The crazy thing about the entirely more-successful soccer on offer this weekend is how little changed it was from the previous approach – the pressing was still there, the quick transitions, the high line – just all moderated slightly, every edgy choice pulled slightly back toward the center. As a consequence, there were fewer stretches of dominance for Le Rouge, fewer periods during which the ball stayed pinned deep against the opponent’s goal. But the happy effects vastly outweighed the sad; the deeper positioning of the team overall meant the team’s cadre of very pacy attackers had more space behind to exploit, while the defense seemed to relax and play more expansively when not tasked with holding a terrifyingly high line.

There’s a great moment in Bull Durham where Kevin Costner’s wily old catcher tells Tim Robbins’ clueless wunderkind pitcher, “Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic.” I feel like Ben Pirmann finally stopped asking Detroit City to strike everybody out this weekend, and the democratic approach worked like a charm. More like this, please.

The attackers: I see that my man Andrew has anointed Shawn Lawson, and I’d like to just add my voice to those chanting prayers over Lawson as the oil soaks into his … game? I’m not sure how far I’m willing to go with this metaphor. Here’s what I see with Lawson: He’s a real striker, a guy who’s got a few tricks and whose every movement is trying to get at goal. He’s not combining for combining’s sake if there’s a shot to be had.

Combine Lawson’s quickness with the outside duo of Tyrone Mondi and Derrick Otim – each of whom has the speed to get behind and the skill to make a play once they’re back there – and this is an intimidating attack to play against. Expect to see anyone who’s scouted City to play deep and narrow and hope to bang one in on set pieces.

Plus ça change: Encouraging to see the more-vigorous rotation over the weekend result in quality minutes for a lot of guys. Louis Dargent showed he’s a real option in the back line, and the midfield didn’t immediately turn into a sinkhole filled with broken dreams in the absence of Dave Edwardson, which surprised this reporter just a smidge.

 

Tyler Moorman’s late goal gives City a win in a day devoted to the higher precepts of love, compassion and transcendence

As the players from Detroit City FC and Glentoran FC took the pitch Saturday night at Keyworth Stadium, the spectre of soccer’s history in Detroit – and the larger currents of history in which the visitors have been embroiled – seemed likely to loom over the actual football. As a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Glentoran’s summer sojourn as the Detroit Cougars, the buildup left unsaid the Glens’ traditions and history related to the Troubles in Ireland and the UK; as if in opposition, the first banner hung Saturday night in the Northern Guard supporters section was a mammoth antifa banner that fronted the drum section.

Then the football happened. The football, sometimes, teaches us things. Saturday, the football reminded us that – in a world that is decidedly fallen, in a time that is defined by so many sorrows – it’s okay to feel joy.

Tyler Moorman’s impassioned performance off the subs bench was the standout, creating a host of chances before finally banging home the game-winner in the 86th minute, but the real star was the power of the game of football to bind people to each other. Thirty minutes after Moorman’s goal sent Northern Guard into a writhing smoke-addled frenzy, Glentoran players and supporters were still trading songs with them. It sounds hackneyed to say ‘they left as friends’ until one experiences it.

Whatever the two clubs were or have been, they left as friends.

The football

• The lineup is still getting some juggling, but that’s not what generated the differences in City’s approach to this match. Le Rouge displayed a firmer grasp on the tempo of the match, creating chances out of movement and patient possession while playing a cannier defensive line. The result was a much less helter-skelter version of football, and one in which the relative quality of players like Cyrus Saydee and Tyrone Mondi can find fuller expression.
• Moorman hasn’t gotten many minutes for City yet this year, but it’s hard to believe that isn’t going to change going forward after his stirring cameo Saturday. Tyler may not dazzle with pace or trickery, but the palpable hunger he brought to the field was impossible to deny. He drew the (saved) penalty by winning a fight for the ball, then won the game by winning another fight for the ball and unleashing two nasty shots on goal, the second of which wound up in the side-netting.

The not-football

• There’s choices implicit in how we view those who’ve come before us. We’re making them all the time, making editorial choices about the past, emphasizing certain narratives, putting others in the shade; it’s an automatic process. We can’t help it. We remember Grandma saying awful things sometimes, remember it in the same way we remember the next-door neighbor who moved out in fifth grade – a startling reminder of just how much we don’t really remember, moment to moment. And we can forgive Grandma because we remember other things about her; we remember warm cookies from the oven, or other, kinder words from a different situation, and we take the awful words in context of a whole person we know. We can’t change the past, nor can we afford to ignore it. We can love Grandma while disdaining her opinion on this or that. But if we can’t see around yesterday’s grievances, what hope tomorrow?