With some trepidation, I stepped into the carriage and grabbed onto a handrail. Not a single seat was available at peak transit time so I had to politely stand among Manhattan’s finest. One of the Big Apple’s scarier boroughs lay at the end of the line, but as the doors closed and the wagon jutted forward, it wasn’t the wild characters heading back to the Bronx that were giving me the heebie-jeebies. I was apprehensive of who or what might be waiting for me at the first ever live Football (read: soccer) game I was about to attend in the World’s greatest city.

I wasn’t worried about hooliganism. This blogger has interviewed knuckle-draggers and lump-thumpers from Melbourne to Málaga and back again, and while hubris always comes at a price, I really was not worried about being beat up that night. And in spite of the wild reputation of the New York subway system, neither was I concerned about what could have gone down in transit. No, what worried me were the opinions and behaviours I expected to encounter in the crowd at that evening’s Football (again, read: soccer) game. If you’re a European Football fan, you’ll get what I mean. If you are American, I’m going to have to explain how Old-Worlders view the nascent MLS fan culture.

among the young Football (again, read: soccer) fans waiting for me at a female match representing the most leftist borough in a consistently blue-voting state a month before election day in the world’s most important democracy.

Spoiler alert: it’s a bit of a meme. Popular Football culture Youtube channels and Instagram accounts often take footage and short videos of the “ultras” from teams like Real Salt Like, Houston Dynamo or Colorado Rapids and compare them to the fierce home crowds in Belgrade, Berlin and Bilbao. They do this to emphasise the lack of authenticity and longevity of MLS fan groups who have deliberately copied the more visual elements of European fan culture without the pedigree and tradition that makes gives them credibility. A case in point is the cringey Seattle Sounders “capo” (a man who would lose a boxing match against a drunk sloth) whose exploits we have all enjoyed on our smartphone screens at one time or another.

But the MLS fan scene has been polluted by bipartisan politics. Fans of a younger franchise Austin FC recently went viral thanks to a colourful tifo sporting the message “don’t mess with trans Texans”, a clear endorsement of one of the more divisive elements of conventional dogma that informs left-wing attitudes in the States. Now, of course some people who watch MLS games will be more conservatively minded and vote Republican. But I think it is a safe assumption to say that the bulk of Republican voters favour the more “American” sports, in particular NFL, Baseball and NASCAR. And as each side of the political spectrum has to fully embrace that which the other is not, the young, metropolitan, progressive types looking for a sport to enjoy have gravitated towards soccer because their perceived political foes favour other sporting codes. Football’s pop association with the working classes certainly helps in this regard.

And this was the primary reason for my trepidation – weeks ahead of the biggest election in the world, in a consistently blue state, at a women’s sports event for a team named after one of the most leftist boroughs on the planet, I braced myself for contact with a legion of blue-haired liberals who I expected to quiz me on my preferred pronouns, demand that I check my privilege and look down their pierced noses at another straight white man attending a professional women’s Football game just to gawk at the flesh on show and catcall. Happy am I to say that my preconceptions were entirely unwarranted. I guess you should always have more faith in your fellow human beings than the journalists do.

The young lady who scanned by QR code could not have been nicer about the bottle of water I was bringing into the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium, and the two gentlemen working the merchandise stall were very appreciative of a Brit spending an evening with their team. I contemplated buying a home Brooklyn FC replica shirt (the thin brown vertical stripes on an otherwise solid dark background resembling a Baseball jersey) but I settled with a souvenir scarf instead – something that would turn out to be a smart move as the temperature approached zero. I entered the ground from the south east corner and picked a spot high in the single unsheltered grandstand as the Brooklyn FC ladies pinged balls to each other while their visiting counterparts from Carolina Ascent worked through some light cardio drills.

The United Soccer League is a relatively new national Football system featuring multiple tiers of male and female competitions. The USL Super League is its highest stratum of female competition and that night marked the 7th game of the season for the outfit from New York’s coolest borough. Brooklyn FC is a young team and forms part of North Sixth Group’s Football portfolio – a privately owned marketing and sales agency founded by Italian-American Matt Rizzetta operating on a similar strategy to City Football Group or Red Bull GmbH – albeit on a far smaller scale (Campobasso FC and Dagenham and Redbridge FC also belong to the group). Brooklyn FC’s kit supplier Diaza also belongs to the North Sixth Group, and in media appearances Rizzetta has been keen to express his view of Brooklyn as an upcoming centre for the next generation of soccer talent along with the predictable lip service to “community” and “tradition” that we expect from venture capitalists involving themselves in Football. Quite how a company running a team called Brooklyn playing their home games in Manhattan games on a the Columbia University campus can lecture anyone about community is beyond me, but alas there are teething problems with any new venture.

Such a young team of course cannot count on a giant fan base. Approximately 250 fans lined the tribune as the cold raindrops splashed my face. Most appeared to be Columbia alumni but some families were present, and many wore Brooklyn FC merch. The single chant of “Let’s Go! Brooklyn” was prosaic to say the least, but as the ball whizzed up and down the pitch, the atmosphere among the crowd was very electric. Heck, even a modest amount of away fans had made the midweek trip up from Carolina. Not a single player took a knee as the national anthem began, but instead joined the spectators in quiet reverence. Not knowing if I was technically committing treason to Mother Britain, I also stood to attention for a song written during the American War of Independence.

And the game was outstanding. 2 key physiological characteristics define female Football (in contrast to the male equivalent); sprint-speed from a standing position and of course brute physical strength. The first consequence is that professional female Footballers seldom play the long ball forward. Carolina Ascent FC started the game very well, playing out from the back with their keeper and back 4 absorbing and neutralising the early attacks from the local side. New Yorkers are known for their aggression and NYC’s only professional female team was full of it that night, chasing down the Southerners and harassing constantly. But Ascent remained calm and found a deserved first goal on the 22nd minute with a break down the right wing before a looping cross was slotted clinically into the bottom right corner.

The second consequence of these physical differences is that, if anything, a greater premium is placed on technical skill in the women’s game. Because long balls are rarer, there is less imperative for a team to spread out across the entire pitch in anticipation of a loose ball hoofed into open space. A greater concentration of players in your immediate vicinity makes the gaps available to an attacking team far narrower during moments of open play. These conditions naturally select for greater technical skill as the margins of error when a player passes or dribbles become far finer. This made for a fantastic match to watch for the neutral (or for the tourist). The Brooklyn FC and Carolina Ascent ladies read play and man-marked (sorry; force of habit) very effectively, and the Brooklyn FC men’s side who are due to begin competition in 2025 would do well to take note. But the third general characteristic of the female game is sadly a greater tendency to produce unsatisfying and unsightly goal-mouth-scrambles. As the players do not spread out across the pitch as much as male players do, female Footballers have a tendency to move “as a block” together with the ball, and in front of goal this can get messy. Brooklyn FC had an attempt cleared off the line in such unpretty circumstances in the 27th minute.

Yet as the night got somehow colder, the home crowd eventually got what they were hoping for. A 54th minute short corner was taken quickly before a looping ball into the box was met by Pandruso who cleanly stuck a head onto it. As the gathering of fans rejoiced, the Brooklyn ladies all stood to attention in front of Pandruso who mimed firing an arrow at her team who all collapsed in a heap on the floor. I couldn’t help but smile at their antics.

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