Hi all

Just wondered if any of you get your football fix by watching the Vancouver Whitecaps and if so, how good are they.

Now my own side is Stockport County in Div 1, so my guess is that this would be the same standard of football as the Whitecaps. Is that true or am I being wildly optimistic.

Also what the crowd size like or Is there a decent atmosphere.

It seems a shame that when I get there in a couple of weeks or so the season for the Whitecaps is coming to an end. Where as I am now chomping at the bit as the new season is about to start.

Come on you Hatters....

they play in what is effectively the 2nd Div of North American football, probably good league 2, average league 1 quality. They are joining the MLS in 2011 and will be playing at BC Place I believe but at present their ground is more like Northampton Town was when they played at the Cricket Ground.

Swangard Stadium is a combined athletics and soccer stadium so you have to watch over the running track if you are in the main (i.e. only) stand. Its capacity is only about 6,000 so it is often quite full.

There is quite a large section of the crowd that are recent arrivals who try to create a more European or South American flavour to the games so the atmosphere is improving. It is a while since I have been, but in the recent games I have seen on TV there seems to be a group of Brits that stand behind the goals and sing.

It is going to be strange to see the team play in the 60,000 seater BC place. They are going to have to drum up some more fans from somewhere.

hmm - I am going to see the BC lions next week!

Thats not a proper sport.............its a series of TV commercial's punctuated by fat blokes grunting for 20 secs.

I know - but hey its something to do with the kids -am going here next wseek too . . . http://members.shaw.ca/twilightdrivein/index.html

Like the idea of a drive in

Sounds like its going to be right up my street. Same standard even (Maybe) as Div 3 (No the old Div 3 when we used to understand it all). The crowd maybe roughly similar to that which I am used to also.

Cool...

The only issue is that the season is ending soon. Still I suppose I can go and watch either

1. The series of tv commercials with the fat bloke grunting every now and again.

2. The Ice Hockey stuff which I find actually quite exciting put can never see where the f..ing ball (err puck) is as its all a bit too fast

3. Resort to watching the pitiful online videos that my broke club can manage to botch together for a few quid which they put on their website and in bizarre fashion call this game footage.

4. Watch Man U when their games are on one of the gadzillion channels that you can get in Canada

Awsome, should be ok after all then

Cheers All

I think you mean Div 4!

If you look here you may well be able to stream your teams games live on the internet. Plus BBC now have the rights to the Football League and will have a highlights show on after MOTD. You can download it from the myriad of torrent sites.

Sportsnet & the Score show a live game on Saturday & Sunday respectively.........and Man U aren't often on there, I seem to remember Newcastle being on lots last season. If you want to part with $15 per month then you can watch loads of games on Setanta.

Brownstar


Great link that you put in here. Looks like you can get a lot of stuff.


Awsome

Pretty much anything is out there is you know where to look

The main difference you will notice is the pace. North American soccer is played at a more European than British pace.


You quickly get used to it. It is a great game.

. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Quite so.

Put your hand in your pocket and buy Setanta. Just cut out a couple of martinis a month and its paid for. Sorted.

I'm a Hull fan so i know what the standard is like at all four divisions in England and the Whitecaps would not cut it in our 4th division. The pace is very slow and tackling almost none existent. As someone already said its more like lower division Spanish/Italian football. It should improve once they move into the MLS and they can attract better quality players like the Seattle Sounders have just done.

The atmosphere is bizarre, they play games and have quizzes like "whats in the box?" .............whilst the game is going on!!!!! it truly is odd. I follow Toronto FC whenever I'm out here and the atmosphere is pretty good, due mainly to the large immigrant population all desperate for their fix of live football. Similar may happen in Vancouver when they make the step up.

Haaha reminds me...

We once had a box to see them as a friend of ours worked for Labatts. It was quite possibly one of the funniest half time show ive ever seen. They had police dogs doing tricks and they all basically decided they werent doing anything right, it was so funny. We got quite drunk and BC got stuffed by Calgary.

Im a Millwall fan and was quite impressed by the Whitcaps standard. Im joking... they are conference level at best.