Supporters
Grassroots support was instrumental in bringing top-tier women's professional soccer back to the Philadelphia area. The Philadelphia Independence masterfully cultivated relationships with Philadelphia-area girls' travel soccer teams, offering workshops all over the region with Independence players at reasonable costs, sending emails about games, inviting teams to have a formal relationship with the Independence, having local girls' teams on the field for the teams' introductions at every game, and having all players on the field for an extensive post-game autograph and conversation time after every game. It is unknown, however, if there was a formal grassroots support group for the Independence.
For men's soccer, this backing came in the form of a supporters' association known as the Sons of Ben, named for Founding Father and Philadelphia icon Benjamin Franklin, founded in January 2007. The Sons of Ben petitioned the men's Major League Soccer league to expand to the Philadelphia market until the official expansion announcement of the men's team, later named the Philadelphia Union, was made in January 2008.
Read more about this topic: Philadelphia Independence
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)