Riverhound Night: Soccer, Liquor, and Steel Army | Art + Entertainment | Pittsburgh

I was greeted with hot dogs, cornholes, and gero shots.

So the tailgate before the game Steel army, A fan group of the city’s professional soccer team, the Pittsburgh Riverhound SC. With the COVID-19 restrictions lifted in time for the summer, I headed to Station Square’s Highmark Stadium on recent Game Day to get the full experience of joining Pittsburgh’s major “non-major” sports team. I did.

And let me tell you, you can’t get the full experience of Hound without the Steel Army. The group’s fandom, which began in 2008 with a semi-improvised meeting of enthusiastic football fans at the Pipers Pub on the South Side, really exploded with the opening of the Himark Stadium in 2013. A serious part of the local sports conversation.

Club president Maria Petrillo, who led the steel army throughout all these times, who provided me with Jell-O shots very kindly, earlier this year, partly because of many of the founders. In recent years, members have been spending a lot of time on the group. Applying for the Steel Army is a daunting task. Members perform with the team as well as the tailgate. During a match, we often sing chants on the stands to gather fans, bring in instruments and noise makers, and go out to away games in groups.

But the current group isn’t worried about slowing interest. In fact, even after the pandemic, the number of young people participating in soccer in Pittsburgh is increasing, and we plan to increase the number of members this year as well. Pittsburgh is on the road to the River Hound.

This can be clearly seen at the River Hound’s tailgate. At Riverhound’s tailgate, people in their twenties grill and play cornholes, but the entire group of children dribbles the ball in a circle. The tournament is about connecting before the match and having a good time, but the members always try to keep something big in mind.Their current initiative is a pride razor, people promise an amount to donate for each River Hound goal scored in June, and all the money Persad Center, A local outpatient counseling center for LGBTQ patients.

Knowing that the Army’s true antiques would come out after the game started, I headed into the stadium and searched for the best seats. After all, this is almost always the case. The highmark built along the river does not have the infamous skyline of PNC Park, but it is not far away. With only 5,000 seats, there is no bad view.

But the team has plans for more changes that want to make it even better.

“We want to provide professional football to our fans, but we also want to provide a great Game Day experience,” says team president Vic Gregovits. “From my seat, to be honest, everything I can control at the end of the day is Game day experience. ”

Gregovits, a native Pittsburgh har who took over the team in April, says he’s upgrading the stadium to include riverside seating along the field and two different types of suites that overlook action from above.

Personally, as I walked down the front door, I found the perfect place to see the first part of the game standing from the patio-type area just behind the goal. Later four chicken fingers and beer, and I enjoy the action within 15 feet of the opponent’s goalkeeper.

The more I watched the team warm up and the fans slowly coming in, the more I realized the unique experience that this level of sport could offer. Want to hang out at the seat where you bought your ticket and get a great view of the whole game? No thank you. Want to stand in the free space and see the complexity of the goalkeeper up close and personal, as I did? Done.

Of course, you can also buy a ticket to sit in the Steel Army section. Most of them filed in the stadium minutes before kickoff, maximizing the tailgate experience. Get ready to be noisy. The biggest contribution that a group makes to a team is the in-game atmosphere that the team provides.

“You go to other sports, and it’s the stadium and PA system that provide a lot of energy,” says Brokaw. “Here, we are creating it in a real way.”

It’s obvious from 1 minute. You may be accustomed to other sports that follow the decline and flow of the game in terms of stadium energy levels. It’s not football, it’s not a river hound. The Steel Army makes you feel their presence from start to finish. Vuvuzela, chants, drums, you name it. Brokaw says some of these chants are at the point where they have passed multiple levels of the Steel Army fandom.

“Harrisburg hasn’t been in the league for a few years, but I sometimes hear people say,’We hate Harrisburg,’ just because they’ve been there for years,” he says. In this case, the Miami goalkeeper whose surname is Sparrow Pirates of the Caribbean-Themed thorns.

After Riverhound’s forward Albert Dicwa called back an offside goal in the first minute, Riverhound enthusiastically scored a beautiful goal for Forward Russell Saiselone. Shortly thereafter, as I was taking notes from the perch behind the goal, I was approached by two fans without being shy to start the conversation.

“Scout, what are you?” One of them asked without prior referral.

“Well, use this as your headline,” he replied after telling him that I was writing about my experience of going to a Riverhound match. “Local Inzer says Riverhound is kicking his ass!”

And it’s like the way in the game. It’s constantly lively, surprisingly intense, and has a lot of fun. I saw a man about to be thrown out because he hit all the objects he found yelling “I want a goal!”. Then he said, “What should I support?” When a guard approaches him. I had a wonderful view of the city. And I saw some really high quality football.

Riverhound didn’t actually kick their ass as the breakdown led to a goal that tied the game at the end of the first half. The game remained the same, and some controversial no-calls near the end of the game excited the home spectators, but eventually led to a one-on-one draw.

In a city where sports team results can drive all sections of the economy, there will be something suitable for ending shortly after the match begins. No one left a winner here, but everyone still felt it was much better for Saturday to leave.