Galaxy Game Faced With Rowdy Crowd, Man With A Chainsaw

Soccer fans in England can be a rowdy bunch, especially when their favorite football teams are winning, losing or in a tie, but hand it to some rowdy American’s to upstage even the craziest antics of European football.

Galaxy star David Beckham was caught off guard when he saw a fan with a chainsaw, noting:

“That’s one I’ve never seen before.”

The Galaxy (12-2-9) visited Jeld-Wen Field on Wednesday night to take on the Portland Timbers (6-10-4) and not only was the crowd acting rowdy, the team had a lumberjack who would cut off large slabs of wood when the Timbers scored a goal or won the game.

Beckham continued:

“This is what you want to play in front of,” adding, “You want to play in front of fans like this that are passionate about the sport, about the game and their own team — and, hopefully, it’ll give us an extra lift.”

According to ESPN:

The addition of these teams, especially in the Pacific Northwest, has brought a different flavor to America’s top soccer league, new traditions and demographics — and it’s not something new up here. The Timbers date to 1975, in the old North American Soccer League, and the current franchise was restored a decade ago, playing its trade before the Timbers Army in second-tier leagues before arriving in MLS with a distinct culture, built-in rivalries (none more heated than that with the Seattle Sounders) and the backing of a city that has little in the way of big-time pro sports.

Apparently the team is very successful with a waiting list of 2,000 people to attend games.

The Galaxy’s left back Todd Dunivant says of the Timbers fans:

“They’re always loud, always going crazy,” and “They’re screaming at you when you get off the bus. You know you’re in a hostile place. … Those are the games you want to play in. That’s how the level’s going to be raised throughout the league. If you have fans seeing this, it forces everyone else to kind of step up their game a little bit.”

Chainsaws, rowdy fans, if you can’t make it to Europe for a Manchester United game the Timbers might be your best chance at experiencing the passion of soccer fans without leaving the country.