I got 'em. I somehow managed to snag the ultimate season tickets for the inaugural season of Atlanta United. While I don't normally pray for such temporal things and am (almost!) ashamed to admit it, I did. I prayed for these exact tickets.
Now let me explain something about soccer to the non-soccer fans out there: soccer is everything to the serious fan. There are no casual fans in soccer. There are no take it or leave it attitudes about this game. The idea that someone could purposely miss their favorite team's match ... or God forbid, a World Cup qualifying match, much less an honest-to-God World Cup match ... is anathema. Heresy! Blasphemous! Draw and quarter such!
As Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly so famously quipped: "Football's [soccer] is not a matter of life and death ... it's more important than that."
And Shankly was spot on.
I'm a fan. Big Fan. Love MLS and in particular the Portland Timbers. I've been a Timbers fan since the 1970s when soccer was an experiment in the US. Not sure what it was but I just liked Portland Timbers. When MLS took the Timbers in 2011, I immediately adopted them as my team. I've been to Portland and Salt Lake City to watch them play. It's on my Bucket List to go to every MLS stadium. I've got two more trips this year planned: Denver and Dallas. Can't wait.
But back to Atlanta United.
2017 is when Atlanta United begins play. Since that is my hometown team, I have to support them. And since I'm such a huge soccer fan, I put my name on the Founders Club list in 2014 to get season tickets. Paid my Founding Club dues (waiting list money).
It was announced via email the club would begin calling everyone to order their tickets on February 8, 2016. I waited. I waited. And I waited. I thought for sure I would end up needing the Hubble Telescope to see any play at all. Finally I get my call a month later: 10 March, 2016. And Brock (my Atlanta United account rep) sang the sweetest words I've heard in my life: Why yes, Mr. Hale. Those seats are available. Would you like me to process that order to finalize it now?
And so I got my tickets. Two of them. Perfect tickets. As if I picked them out decades ago and Arthur Blank himself reserved them just for me.
Section 110. Row 1. Seats 9-10. That is front row. Dead center of mid-field line.
I'm on top of the world.
And Shankly was spot on.
I'm a fan. Big Fan. Love MLS and in particular the Portland Timbers. I've been a Timbers fan since the 1970s when soccer was an experiment in the US. Not sure what it was but I just liked Portland Timbers. When MLS took the Timbers in 2011, I immediately adopted them as my team. I've been to Portland and Salt Lake City to watch them play. It's on my Bucket List to go to every MLS stadium. I've got two more trips this year planned: Denver and Dallas. Can't wait.
But back to Atlanta United.
2017 is when Atlanta United begins play. Since that is my hometown team, I have to support them. And since I'm such a huge soccer fan, I put my name on the Founders Club list in 2014 to get season tickets. Paid my Founding Club dues (waiting list money).
It was announced via email the club would begin calling everyone to order their tickets on February 8, 2016. I waited. I waited. And I waited. I thought for sure I would end up needing the Hubble Telescope to see any play at all. Finally I get my call a month later: 10 March, 2016. And Brock (my Atlanta United account rep) sang the sweetest words I've heard in my life: Why yes, Mr. Hale. Those seats are available. Would you like me to process that order to finalize it now?
And so I got my tickets. Two of them. Perfect tickets. As if I picked them out decades ago and Arthur Blank himself reserved them just for me.
Section 110. Row 1. Seats 9-10. That is front row. Dead center of mid-field line.
I'm on top of the world.
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