You’d rather die

By: Tom | September 14th, 2007

Before tomorrow’s tailgate and key match-up with the New York New Jersey Metro Red Star Bulls completely erases my memory of the previous game, I feel I should share my roadtrip memories from Columbus as I promised to do so earlier this week. Well over 200 Fire fans made the trip, despite the torrential rain that caused a long pause in the first half for everyone’s safety.

Most of them, though, came from Chicago. I, on the other hand, left Manhattan early that morning (where I’d spent the week) with my girlfriend, and we drove the five hundred miles through some pretty bad rain. It looked like we had it timed perfectly: we were 30 minutes from the stadium just before six, kick-off being at 7.30, meaning we’d have a good hour to stretch our legs and hit up the Section 8 tailgate.

And then traffic on the Interstate stopped dead. Immobile vehicles stretched to the horizon ahead in the flat plains of Ohio, lightning and thunder cracking all around, torrential rain pouring. We inched forward. It took well over an hour before I broke five miles an hour. The game had already begun: I resorted to checking the score on my Blackberry. I’d driven ten hours only to be stuck in traffic just fifteen miles from the stadium. My blood pressure must have been through the roof.

Finally the traffic cleared, and I embarked on something approaching a Grand Theft Auto style driving rampage to the stadium. Miraculously, when we got there, only twenty minutes had ticked by. We were drenched already by the time we found the 200 Section 8 fans present, guided by their remarkable noise.

And just as this seems to be turning into a happy tale, I realised the thumping in my head was not coming from the Section 8 drums, but from one of the periodically insane migraine’s I get. These pretty much incapacitate me usually, and leave me curled in a sorry little ball, as any movement or sound has the effect of bringing me close to passing out. I need a lot of painkillers, and fast. But I had none.

I tried to focus on the game, and even attempted to join in the chants. I lasted until the rain break, my head pounding, feeling very dizzy, soaked to the bone, and gradually realising that Section 8’s noise — wonderful as it was — was going to make me lose consciousness pretty soon.

My girlfriend went scurrying off to the medical tent during the rain break to try and obtain pain relief tablets. They at first said they couldn’t issue them except for an “emergency”, and then admitted they just didn’t actually have any. My girlfriend returned: at this point, I was shivering, unable to talk, and doing my best to stay focused as the game was resuming.

Apparently, the level of my shaking and obvious physical discomfort had become too much for her, as she now begged me to leave the stadium for shelter and pain relief. I pathetically shook my head, and then realised she was crying about it all, apparently concerned for my wellbeing. I mumbled some words to the effect that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t die. She responded by saying “But I know you’d rather die than leave a soccer game early.” I’m not entirely sure that’s an epitaph I’d like, but I still refused to leave, trying to seem less like a comatose vegetable in order to cheer her up.

She gave me her rain jacket (boy, that made me feel manly), which helped with the shivering problem, and we had moved a safer distance from Section 8’s drums and chants, which were now just a dizzying but inspirational soundtrack to a tightly fought and tense game. It pained me to be unable to even utter a cheer when Paolo Wanchope scored the winning goal in the second half, but it eased the thumping pain in my head just for a second.