The Oakland Coliseum – Providing Away Matches Since 2008

By: Sean | June 16th, 2008

I have been reading a lot the past couple days on how crappy the Coliseum was on Saturday. And this is not just one aspect, but many. Security, parking, entering the stadium, beer lines, gift shop, too far away from the field, etc. Personally, the only aspect of it that directly affected me was the gift shop, as I waited 25 minutes to get my Father’s Day present (Oh yeah – Happy Belated Father’s Day everyone!). One point I have not seen been mentioned at all is this: Frank Yallop has, on multiple occasions, come out and said that the team has not felt comfortable playing there. Granted, he didn’t go on a huge tirade, but we all know that Frank chooses his words very carefully, and for him to come out and say this more than once is very noteworthy.

After practicing all week at Buck Shaw, the team then has to travel up to Oakland, play the game, then go back to practicing at Buck Shaw the next week. Add to this the fact that the games chosen to play in Oakland (Chicago, Los Angeles) are more likely to attract neutral supporters/supporters of just one player (Blanco/Beckham), and any trace of “home field advantage” has been all but thrown away. And here is our Catch 22 – we play in a different venue to attract more fans to support Earthquakes soccer, but those fans are treated to the team getting beat 3-0. And if you are going to tell me that the team would not have played any better at Buck Shaw, with 10,500 people chomping at the bit to yell/scream/curse/hate on the Galaxy and Beckham, well, I’m not sure what to tell you.

So at what point do you make a change in the venue schedule, or do you? I’m not sure how much Lew Wolff cares about our “home” games not really being as such, because he just drew 40,000 fans, instead of 10,000. But he should care. Not because of the fans not liking the stadium, but because his coaches and players don’t. You would think you would want to put your team in the best possible position to win. Or not.

One more note on the Oakland thing; being at the game, I knew I didn’t like the atmosphere in general, but I could not figure out why. The scores of clueless fans at the game for a particular player, the distance from the field (and the monolith stadium in general), the efforts of The Wave, the cheering for In-n-Out Burgers, the P.A. announcer telling the stadium to “get loud!!!”, the mortgaging of home-field advantage to make some extra dollars off the big name players…. And then I finally figured it out.

I was at a NASL match. To call it a “match” is an undeserved compliment. It was less a match than it was a spectacle. And one that should be looked at with a careful eye by the Quakes front office, because if you don’t think we are going to drop another L on August 3rd against the Galaxy, well, you’ve got another thing coming. The worst part about that August 3rd match is that all of the Beckman lovers have gotten their fix, so they aren’t going to throw $50 for a ticket. Its also a noon start time, in August, which will make a lot of people stay home. So now you are looking at closer to 20,000 people, and for what? So that ~~Bill Lumbergh~~ Lew Wolff’s stock will go up. A quarter of a point.