The 1998 Season

Note: 1998 was the second season that I wrote down thoughts the entire year. Therefore, the 1998 season summary will come in multiple additions to my blog. Today's 1998 entry will be Off-Season thoughts.

Off-Season

Ownership

I open my eyes, blinking at the bedroom’s unexpected brightness, then lazily reach out to place one hand in a patch of sunlight spilling onto the bed from a gap between the blinds. Dust motes drift across the shaft of light, appearing for all the world to be conjured into, and out of, existence.

It evokes a childhood memory of contentment. I feel utterly refreshed, and utterly disinclined to give up my present state of comfort. I don’t know why I’ve slept so late, and I don’t care. I spread my fingers on the sun-warmed sheet, a dog curled on either side of me, smell the coffee my wife is brewing, and think about drifting back to sleep.

Something’s troubling me, though. A dream? A nightmare? I pause and try to dredge up some trace of it, without much hope; unless I’m catapulted awake by a nightmare, my dreams tend to be evanescent. And yet- I leap out of bed, crouch down on the carpet, fists to my eyes, face against my knees, lips moving soundlessly. The shock of realization is a palpable thing: The Vikings for sale. The Vikings sold. The sale disputed. An overwrought process to determine ownership. All reminiscent of a hammer blow to the thumb and tinged with the very same mixture of surprise, anger, humiliation, and idiot bewilderment.

I rock back and forth, on the verge of laughter, trying to keep my mind blank, waiting for the panic to subside. And eventually, it does, laced by one simple, perfectly coherent thought: Paul Tagliabue has ruled in favor of Tom Clancy.

The View From Britain

The team’s supporters had taken over the city, flight after flight descending from blue skies to disgorge their raucous cargo. Hotels were so overcrowded that one even rented out its sauna as a bedroom while home owners advertised rooms for rent.

The urban hymns of the finest fans could be heard down every avenue and alley. The neat streets around the stadium resounded to the team’s chants. The stadium itself was decked largely in the color of its visiting majority. A scenario for the Viking Underground Reunion at the home and season opener?

Actually, the town was Stockholm, Sweden. The team was Chelsea. The game was soccer and the event was the Cup Winners’ Cup versus VfB Stuttgart, Germany. It was a magical night, a rhapsody in blue with the final technical flaws forgotten amid the majesty of Gianfranco Zola’s 71st-minute strike and the ecstatic celebrations it produced. As the blue and white Chelsea masses chorused their delight while swaying on the terraces, the players and coaching staff embarked on some sustained revelry at the final whistle.

So what in the world does this have to do with the Viking’s upcoming season, you ask? It’s an interesting story, really. And you’ll come out of it more confident about the Viking’s chances of winning the Super Bowl than ever before.

I had been on holiday in Great Britain with my wife for almost two weeks. Starved for any kind of sport to follow, I began to watch two different things in earnest late at night: snooker and soccer. Snooker is a pool game of intricate skill, foresight, and steady nerves, but boring as hell to my wife. Soccer, a childhood favorite, had lost my interest as I became older, but I had always greatly admired the dedication of the fans (hooligans excepted). And it captured my wife’s imagination as well. Soccer it was then.

We had begun to follow Chelsea’s plight through the Cup Winners’ Cup matches. They had a Cris Carter-type player in Zola: a player who hogs the limelight and pouts when he’s not in it. Against VfB Stuttgart after nine months of grappling forlornly for his best form and watching while others on the Chelsea side took the plaudits, Zola finally stole back his place in the sun when he provided a glorious climax to his team’s trophy-laden season.

Chelsea also has a Brad Johnson-type leader in Dennis Wise, the captain whose bright outlook kept his team resolutely positive, even when the Germans intermittently punctured their tempo. Against the Germans, Wise proved an influential figure, tackling stoutly and often propelling his team-mates forwards.

And Chelsea showed they love their fans, much like the Vikings. They made this crystal clear after the game, when Gianluca Vialli, Chelsea’s player-manager, broke away from the team’s on-field post-game celebration and began celebrating on his own, leaping up and down, punching the air, a man intoxicated by the roaring fans. Then the team all joined hands and ran towards their fans, diving full length en masse, medals gleaming around their necks while the Cup bounced in their midst. It was line-dancing gone mad.

The day before I had met three fellow Viking fans, Mike Salmon, Geoff Reader, and Ian Manning, in the small town of St. Albans, England. They have all been to home Viking games; Geoff even has season tickets. I discussed the merits of soccer versus American football and the relationship with their fans. I told the English three that I loved soccer’s fans but found the 1-0 scores quite boring and maybe the fans did too, thus their raucous behavior. They needed to be organized and loud otherwise they would fall asleep.

I further postulated that American football fans are so into observing the game’s eccentricities that the best they can do is occasionally start the wave, which is usually the result of a boring game. I pointed out that just a few days earlier a soccer team’s fans had become so disgusted with their tournament play that all 45,000 people in the stands rose and turned their backs on coach and team. You couldn’t get 45,000 people at the Dome to even stand together let alone do an organized chorus move, I said. I was abruptly cut off from any more pints. The alcohol, I was told, was making me lose my senses.

At the fourth pub in eight hours, Mike (Limey Vike) then gave me his vision of the upcoming Viking season which I mentioned previously in this column: that the destiny of Arsenal, his soccer team, and the Vikings are inexplicably linked. Earlier in the year, Arsenal was given no chance to repeat as the division winners, needing to win something on the order of eight of its last nine games. They did. And the team went on to win the domestic double, only the second to do that this century. Limey Vike feels the Vikings will win the NFC and the Super Bowl this year based on the success of Arsenal.

Not to be outdone, Geoff shot back that there is no correlation between Arsenal and the Vikings simply because Arsenals name can be shortened to "Arse." A better correlation, Geoff believes, is with his team, Leicester City, because there is a surprise board room shuffle going on at the moment, and their best coach in a long time may be about to walk! That’s when Ian and I cut Mike and Geoff off from any more pints, moving to lemonade instead.

So the Viking season may be predestined by the success of the British soccer team of your choice: Chelsea, Arsenal, or Leicester. Anyway you look at it, it correlates to one hell of a successful year for, not America’s Team, but the World’s Team. And the celebration will most likely be what my wife and I observed coming back from a curry after the Chelsea win.

We were waiting for our next west-bound train on the London Underground. An east-bound train rolled into the station. On board a half-dozen cars was a sea of Chelsea blue jerseys shouting the Chelsea victory chant in unison. And each car was bouncing so violently I feared they would jump the track. The train moved on into the next tunnel; the chanting fans still heard over the roar of our approaching train.

"God", I said to my wife, "just once in my life I hope to experience that kind of joy." And this will be the year.

1998 Significant Off-Season Events

The first-ever Viking Underground Reunion continues to take shape. The ticket order has been placed for the block of seats. I will receive the exact location in late July and distribute the game tickets at the VU events leading up to the game.

Brad Johnson visited VU’s Purple Thoughts in May, chatting live with regulars for over an hour.

The Viking Underground Tailgate Recipe section first appeared in May. This new section has received a lot of attention with the Hot Viking Cider recipe being mentioned recently in Beckett’s magazine and my own appearance in the John Madden Tail Gate Cook Book.

Posted by maasx003 at November 3, 2004 07:48 AM