If I am not mistaken, you’re a New York Red Bulls fan and a follower of the casual scene. In Spain, people who follow the casual scene are usually part of the ultra group of their team as well. Are you part of an independent casual firm or do you belong to the Garden State Ultras? Also, how many casuals are currently following the Red Bulls? In a broader sense, do casuals in the U.S. form independent firms or do they tend to stick around other supporter’s associations? Would it be correct to define the casual scene in the U.S. simply as an aesthetic trend that takes place within football terraces, a fashion adopted by fans as it happened, and happens, in Europe?
You are correct, I am a fan of the New York Red Bulls. I am a member of the Garden State Ultras, and we operate more or less independently from the Red Bulls organization. Our group was formed as an independent supporter’s group in 2005 but since have gained “official” recognition by the team’s front office (although they don’t really like us too much). Despite all of this, we have no connection with the team in such a way that many newer teams and groups have, which I’ll talk more about later. For the most part, the majority of people who could be considered casuals or hooligans or anything like that are members of supporters’ groups, usually smaller and more passionate ultra-style groups. There are no firms in the US in the traditional English sense of the term (more on that later). Most of the larger groups affiliated with each team are not made up of casuals, and there are also a lot of groups made up of Latin American fans who adopt a Latin barra brava style but don’t dress in a casual style since that style is not particularly popular in Latin America. Here in New York, in GSU, there are maybe about 20-30 of us who are casual, and there are over 100 total members in the Garden State Ultras (although on a typical weekend we usually only see 50-75 of our members out). I would say that casuals in America have come about largely for the same reasons you’ve ascribed; it is a fashion style that we have adopted for similar reasons that Europeans adopted it. I think the biggest difference between American casuals and European casuals, however, is the weather. Our leagues play through the summer, and since the casual style was created by people in England, where it’s a lot colder than it is over here, we’ve had to change our style a little bit.
When did your interest in the casual scene start? And how? Is there a specific moment, or episode, that stands out in your memory?
I’ve been interested in football since I first began playing it when I was about 5 years old and I remember watching the Red Bulls (who were then the MetroStars) on TV when I was young, and my interest grew from there. I think I found out about casuals online, but I don’t remember an exact moment when I learned about it. I do remember learning more about the style itself, which took me a bit of experience to figure out. I started going out to football matches when I was about 17 in 2010, joined the Ultras a couple years later, and at that point I remember only knowing that casuals wore expensive clothes, but I didn’t know what kinds of clothes they were. After I few weeks of looking at everyone else, I understood the Adidas and nice shirts thing.
Regarding violence, in Europe we’ve got this impression that in the U.S. there’s not much of it. Is this impression correct? Moreover, is there a strong rivalry between supporters from different teams? Could you give a few examples? And when violence occurs, how do you react? You stick with the ultras or you act independently?
You’re right that there isn’t a whole lot of violence over here. This is mostly due to football culture being so new as well as travel in the United States being so difficult and expensive. We lack the kind of train service that you enjoy in Europe, and since so many of the teams are spread out over long distances, most of the time we don’t come into contact with fans of other teams. On top of that, a lot of stadiums aren’t built in urban areas, making it very difficult to just run into opposing fans. I’m lucky enough to live in the Northeastern United States, which is the oldest and most densely populated part of the country, so there are multiple rival teams within a realistic distance for us to have an away trip (Philadelphia, DC United, New York City, New England, Montreal, Toronto, and even Columbus, Atlanta, and Orlando are relatively close). These closer fixtures have turned violent in the past, and likely will continue to do so in the future. A video from 2015 appeared online showing a fight between my own group and a firm affiliated with New York City. This video has been viewed by many people and ridiculed by many in Europe (although I don’t think that’s fair, because the video hardly shows everything that happened).
When violence does happen, Garden State Ultras act as the de facto firm for the Red Bulls. Although not every member of the group is really looking for violence, enough of our members are expected to stand together if we have to. Many teams in the US and Canada have a group that operates this way. Like I said, there are no real firms, but there are many groups like ours which will become the firm when it is necessary. Besides New York City, we’ve had violent run-ins with our oldest rival DC United, Columbus, Montreal, and San Jose firms in the past, but much of that happened years ago. I know that New York City and Chicago have had fights, and Toronto and Montreal had a fight last year. I don’t know of much violence occurring out west. I don’t think there really is any out there. Overall, the biggest risk of violence each weekend comes from those single fans who somehow get tickets on the supporters’ terrace and don’t understand why we aren’t sitting quietly watching the game. At least 3 or 4 times a season we end up in some altercation with people who decide to get aggressive instead of having fun with us. It happened twice last week, and once led to one of our guys being banned for life.
The casual scene worldwide has been influenced by films, Internet forums and websites, etc. Which, in your opinion, are the main influences for the American casuals? I was wondering if casuals in the U.S. have a strong connection with their British counterparts due to the language, culture, family ties across the pond, etc, or if it really doesn’t matter. Do you know of any relationship or friendship between casuals in America and hooligans from other countries? In particular, do you or any of your friends have any contact with foreign firms?
Obviously we have been influenced by the internet, and all of us have seen movies like Green Street and The Football Factory, but we try to do things our own way. Most of us in New York, and many in other parts of the country, have a history in the punk rock and hardcore scenes, and I think punk rock’s culture of doing things yourself and being on the outside of society has led many of us into the casual scene because casuals, by definition, seek to differentiate themselves from average football fans, just as in the punk scene we are different from other people. Fred Perry shirts have always been popular in the hardcore scene, so we wear a lot of those. We have a lot of skinheads in the club (none of whom are racist or right-wing, however), and so that style is common too. Those of us who aren’t casual or skinhead tend to dress plainly, owing to the common mentality among American men that it is somehow unmanly to spend much money on clothes. I’ve found that these people will never understand casual culture, but they’re becoming the minority. As a club we don’t have much of a connection to Europe. A few of us have family and friends in the UK, but I don’t have any family ties to England (my family comes from Ireland). In fact, a lot of Europeans and English people really don’t show us a lot of respect. I think they find the concept of Americans watching football to be silly. That being said, for every one person in Europe who laughs at us, there are 2 people who like what we try to do. The person who originally formed the Garden State Ultras was born in Portugal, but to my knowledge he didn’t use that to form a connection to any Portuguese ultras. The current co-presidents of the club each come from Croatian backgrounds and would like to form a partnership with Croatian ultras, but that has not become official right now, so we really can’t say much about it. We do have a partnership with Toronto FC’s ultra group, the Inebriatti, despite the fact that they play in the same league, but this is our only partnership.
I know that there is a casual scene in the New York area, but I was also wondering if there are proper casuals in other teams such as Toronto, Philadelphia or the ones in the Northwest of the U.S. In short: could you tell me which teams host casual firms or subgroups within ultra groups—if any?
Besides us, New York City has some casuals (the firm we’ve fought against, most of whom are banned), as do Toronto, Montreal, Orlando, and second division sides like New York Cosmos and Jacksonville. I know of at least one guy in Los Angeles who dresses casual and a few guys in Seattle, but neither team are known for having casuals in any large capacity. Vancouver has a group called the Casuals, but I don’t think they really understand what that means (except I did see one guy in a stone island jacket the last time they were out here). For the moment, it seems to be an East Coast thing. Not every team on the east coast has a casual mentality though. Philadelphia, for instance, lacks any kind of casual, ultra, or hooligan association. In the ultras scene over here, Philly is considered a joke. When I mentioned earlier that GSU was formed independently, I said that we don’t have a connection to the team’s front office. This used to be standard, beginning when New York’s first and largest supporters group, the Empire Supporters Club, formed in 1995, a year prior to Major League Soccer beginning play. In the years that followed, the league discovered that having loud, passionate fans is something that other American sports can’t offer, so they’ve begun to use the supporters as advertisement for the experience of seeing the game live (which I hate, but that’s another topic). As a result, many newer teams in the league find it necessary to form supporters groups before they even sign players to professional contracts, and this leads to groups like Philadelphia’s Sons of Ben, Seattle’s Emerald City Supporters, and Portland’s Timbers Army who are basically team-controlled, all-encompassing groups. In Philly, for instance, everyone on the terraces is a member of the Sons of Ben, to the extent that membership in that group hardly means anything. They aren’t casuals, they aren’t ultras, they aren’t hooligans. They’re a bunch of middle class white kids who will never fight (but that doesn’t mean I won’t steal scarves and flags from them). The common stereotype of football fans here in America, among other Americans, is that they are socially awkward young men who never watched or played sports growing up who began watching football because it’s different from American sports, and as a result they understand neither culture. This is the impression I get of most fans of teams like Philly, Seattle, Portland, and New England. Overall though, Orlando is coming up and so are Toronto. Montreal and DC United have lost their willingness to fight over the past few years, New York City has had more groups forming who may one day become real casuals, Chicago has a group called Sector Latino that have been involved in some stuff lately but I don’t think they’re casual. With Los Angeles FC coming in to challenge LA Galaxy, maybe something will heat up over there. I know Columbus has had some kind of hooligan presence in the past but I haven’t gotten a good look at them for a few years so I can’t tell you much about them.
I guess I’ll conclude by saying that there aren’t many casuals in the United States, but we’re growing the subculture. It can only go up from here. Thank you for letting me answer your questions. If you have any more questions, or if you need clarification, just let me know.
Interviewer: Mr Quely
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