What’s Your Crew Blud?

Normally American sports teams either have awesomely stupid or stupidly awesome names. For every Marlins there’s an Avalanches, and for every Steelers there’s a Raptors. A Columbus, Ohio based MLS team have however just side-stepped the whole issue however by going for the blandly alliterative: Columbus Crew. If there was a Massachusetts Mandem, Pittsburgh Posse or Tennessee Thugs then we could probably laugh it off, but as is, it’s a bit rubbish.

West Ham’s faithful hooligan firm, the ICF, however clearly found that it registered on their radar. You see, the Hammers are over on the other side of the pond at the moment to play the undoubtedly underwhelming MLS All-Stars later this week, but decided to first cut their teeth against the Columbus based Crew. West Ham won easily, but the real highlight was a 100-man brawl that erupted in the stands. Presumably MLS teams don’t have firms, but the ICF, clearly spurred on by the team’s suggestive name, worked their way up to the infamous north-east corner of the ground where the Crew’s stronghold reportedly is.

A couple of prison shanks and Molotov cocktails later and 30 Hammers fans had been arrested, and presumably subject to America’s not-exactly-enlightened view of justice. When asked for a comment, manager Alan Curbishley quite amusingly offered only this soundbite:

“We took the MLS game because we wanted to come to America. We wanted to show people what we’re about.”

I honestly couldn’t have written a better joke myself Alan so thanks for that.

Nice one to The Spoiler for the top awesome photo.