Home Opener a hit for Union

by Eric Schwartz

Tuesday June 29, 2010 

Home Opener a hit for Union thumbnail

With all of the World Cup action that is taking place fans may have overlooked what was a great moment this past weekend when the Philadelphia Union played their first home game in PPL Park.

The Union — which had struggled to just two wins in its first 10 games — used the home cooking to produce their best result of the season, a 3-1 win over Seattle.

Here is an assessment of the stadium and the day by our good friends at www.phillyuniontalk.com.

The stadium itself was a statement.  If you would have told me 5 years ago that there was going to be almost 20,000 people packed into a soccer-specific stadium on a Sunday in June, I would have told you to put down the pipe.  Yesterday the entire Union family made that pipe dream a reality.  I was impressed with the quality and dimensions of the pitch.  The Union have a proper-sized field, conducive to playing attractive football.  I can only speak for the sight lines from my seat, but my view of the game was very nice.  The seats were comfortable, and I did not feel like I was on top of my neighbors.  The Big Screen was good enough to watch replays of recent plays on, and when I ran to get a beer or go to the head there were plenty of flat screens to keep up on the action with.  The concessions seemed fine to me.  I mean, I got a soft pretzel.  It’s pretty hard to mess up a soft pretzel.

I will say that the cups of ice were nice considering how freaking hot it was, and the towels that were intended as rally towels were life savers as neck and head coolers.  Of course  I could point out some negatives (parking, size of concourses during half time, techno songs after goals), but that’s not what today is about.  Today is about thanking all those that made yesterday possible and celebrating the official arrival of soccer to the city of Brotherly Love.  I want to make this bloggers opinion on PPL clear: This is a wonderful place to watch a soccer match.

You can read the full article here.

In a time where soccer is gaining notoriety across the country it’s great to see that right here in Philadelphia the fan base is ready to give professional soccer a fair chance.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Home Opener a hit for Union”

  1. king ed on June 30th, 2010 8:23 pm

    yeah seems like a nice place…just try and get out of chester alive since its a god damn war zone down there

  2. Philadelphia Soccerfan on April 4th, 2011 12:55 pm

    Great start to the 2011 season, loss to Galaxy was rough but we were 25,000 strong.

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