The original Breakers in the WUSA played at Nickerson Field, on Boston University’s campus. It’s the site of the old Boston Braves stadium and all the seats are on one side of the field. The next versions of the Breakers played in Harvard’s facilities, in the football stadium and soccer field and a public school field in Somerville. The new, old place is White Stadium in Franklin Park, which is in a state of disrepair. The City proposed $10.5 million to redesign some of the spaces. It’s also in an unsafe area, in the Dorchester, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods. On the plus side, it’s a few blocks from the Sam Adams brewery in Jamaica Plain.
2021-22-23-24 News Thread
- Thread starter jeffbear
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VinatieriDefinesClutch
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I'm excited to have a soccer team actually in Boston, but that location is less than ideal. The nearest T stop is over a mile away and driving to JP is always a nightmare.
My daughter went to grad school at Northeastern and lived in Quincy. There were times when 93 was slammed and she re-routed through JP. She always gripped the steering wheel a little tighter those days.
Yeah, and I guess a ground share with the NE Revolution wouldn't be great either since they play at Gillette. Having the average NWSL crowd (9900 currently) rattling around an NFL stadium is less than ideal. And that's been the problem with the big northeastern markets for NWSL in a nutshell. They don't have a ton of Class B facilities and land costs are so high that building new ones gets super expensive unless you're willing to commute to the exburbs. And the colleges just aren't set up to be great options either for the most part.
I know one thing ... they need to get it right pretty quickly. Getting the ground share with Red Bulls absolutely saved what's now the Gotham FC franchise in NYC after slumming around Rutgers and everywhere else in northern Jersey left Sky Blue basically dead in the water.
I know one thing ... they need to get it right pretty quickly. Getting the ground share with Red Bulls absolutely saved what's now the Gotham FC franchise in NYC after slumming around Rutgers and everywhere else in northern Jersey left Sky Blue basically dead in the water.
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VinatieriDefinesClutch
Active member
They'd have zero chance there. To get hyper Boston specific, JP is inconvenient for me cause I'm North of the Charles, but plenty of young families live in JP and Roslindale and it's still a well populated area unlike Foxborough which is slightly closer to Providence than to Boston. There's also a lot of suburbs south west of Boston with lots of young families who feel like an ideal demographic to go to games.
I'd be a little curious how the local community feels about this. JP is basically completely gentrified at this point and has long since lost that battle, but Roxbury is not completely gentrified even though they've been dealing withe more and more for the past decade or so. I'm curious if the Roxbury residents will see this as more gentrification or as improvement. This seems more aware of it's neighborhood importance than the plan to rebuild the stadium as part of the disastrous Boston olympic bid that fortunately the entire City came down hard against once we found out about it.
I'd be a little curious how the local community feels about this. JP is basically completely gentrified at this point and has long since lost that battle, but Roxbury is not completely gentrified even though they've been dealing withe more and more for the past decade or so. I'm curious if the Roxbury residents will see this as more gentrification or as improvement. This seems more aware of it's neighborhood importance than the plan to rebuild the stadium as part of the disastrous Boston olympic bid that fortunately the entire City came down hard against once we found out about it.
There aren’t a lot of options though, are there? Nickerson might be about the right size but with all the seats on 1 side, it’s less than ideal. Can’t beat the T access though. My daughter did her undergrad at BU and her freshman dorm overlooked Nickerson. Harvard’s soccer stadium is too small, the football stadium too big. Dilboy Stadium in Somerville is too small and only has a 100 yard field.
Apparently the local community HATES the plans that have been released. So ... there's that. Like I said, there were a lot of reasons that the Breakers failed but the stadium was a big part of it, and it doesn't sound like a lot of fresh ground was broken in the interim. I'm not getting lots of warm fuzzies about this one. Boston is tough, and not just for the reasons they're proud of.
Kraft has made noise about moving the Revs out of Gillette for at least 13 years, but something always comes up. The latest possibility is a site in Everett, across the river from Boston and adjacent to the Encore Casino.
VinatieriDefinesClutch
Active member
Nickerson is too small of capacity and it's also turf, though I don't know if that's a sticking point or not. The issue with building anything new in Boston is that it's a relatively small city area wise and the third most densely populated city in the US behind NYC and San Fran, so there really isn't a lot of space available. Roxbury is a historically black neighborhood, so I could see how they are understandably wary of any development projects that happen, because historically, none of them benefit the people that actually live there.
Yeah, I saw at least one NWSL reporter speculating that the new franchise really just needs to find a place to tread water until Kraft gets a new facility built for the Revs. Here's the hitch with that thinking ... it supposes that Kraft actually gives a crap about the Revs and is thus willing to spend some serious money on them, and there's precious little evidence that this is the case. There has been noise, because noise is cheap.
Spain's RFEF and the women (most of whom were on active strike) called up to their Nations League matches have come to an understanding, which The Defector has framed thusly ... Spain fills national team roster by promising mass beheadings.
In short, all but two of the women called up for this international window have agreed to show up to play, but only after extracting promises that pretty much anyone closely associated with the old regime at RFEF would be either canned or not brought back from suspension ... depending on the specific situation. A new commission will be formed to fill out the administration moving forward, starting with active monitoring of the follow through on the personnel changes promised in meetings conducted Tuesday and Wednesday. General Secretary Andreu Camps will definitely be leaving, for starters and it doesn't sound like the players are much more fond of interim manager Montse Tome than they were of Vilda, so she's likely not long for her gig either. The players also wisely forced a written statement agreeing that none of the previous holdouts would be sanctioned or punished going forward.
So have the players won? Not yet, but they're definitely winning.
Oh ... link to one version of the story https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...boycott-after-being-promised-profound-changes
In short, all but two of the women called up for this international window have agreed to show up to play, but only after extracting promises that pretty much anyone closely associated with the old regime at RFEF would be either canned or not brought back from suspension ... depending on the specific situation. A new commission will be formed to fill out the administration moving forward, starting with active monitoring of the follow through on the personnel changes promised in meetings conducted Tuesday and Wednesday. General Secretary Andreu Camps will definitely be leaving, for starters and it doesn't sound like the players are much more fond of interim manager Montse Tome than they were of Vilda, so she's likely not long for her gig either. The players also wisely forced a written statement agreeing that none of the previous holdouts would be sanctioned or punished going forward.
So have the players won? Not yet, but they're definitely winning.
Oh ... link to one version of the story https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...boycott-after-being-promised-profound-changes
And the noise has been noising since before 2010.
New stadium could kick-start Revolution, Somerville
The Inner Belt, a sparsely used industrial district in a corner of East Somerville, is about as inviting as its name, cut off from surrounding neighborhoods by railroad tracks, elevated highways, and a massive maintenance facility for the MBTA’s commuter rail.
archive.boston.com
Crazy stuff in Amsterdam today. Ajax fans rioted as they were down 3-0 to Feyenoord in The Classic. The match was abandoned in the 56th minute and riot police on horseback had to be called out to disperse fans outside the stadium.
Montana
Champion
Derby was really well handled in North London today imo…..other than some shit Tottenham fans spray painting a gooners watering hole, and an Arsenal fan making a racist gesture towards Son, after his goal. Teams have usually been pretty great about singling those people out, tracking them down and banning them for life tho, which is great.
David Ornstein is reporting that the 2030 World Cup will be jointly hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain…and Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. All 6 countries will automatically qualify. CONMEBOL had submitted a bid for a continent-wide tournament in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the World Cup, but It was rejected. Uruguay was the 1930 champion, Argentina was the beaten finalist and Paraguay is where CONMEBOL’s headquarters are located, and it was the only confederation that existed at the time. Those 3 countries will play their opening group stage match at home, then fly to one of the host countries for the balance of the tournament.
Morocco had intended to to submit a solo bid but joined with Spain and Portugal in March. They had previously bid unsuccessfully 5 times. Portugal has also never hosted, having bid twice before, also in conjunction with Spain. They hosted the 2004 Euros. Spain last hosted the World Cup in 1982
Morocco had intended to to submit a solo bid but joined with Spain and Portugal in March. They had previously bid unsuccessfully 5 times. Portugal has also never hosted, having bid twice before, also in conjunction with Spain. They hosted the 2004 Euros. Spain last hosted the World Cup in 1982
At least the tournament is increasing to 48 countries starting in 2026, so the automatic qualifiers are affecting a smaller percentage than they would at a 32 team tournament.
Saudi Arabia supposedly already has the inside track for 2034 and they have enough money to build or upgrade enough stadiums to accommodate the group stage. But beyond that, it wouldn’t surprise me to see multiple country bids.
Multiple country bids make sense because it spreads the burden of hosting and getting enough compliant stadiums out (and yes, it's a burden) ... but they REALLY ought to draw the line at 3, and they should be contiguous.
I think adding the South American countries was a way to at least pay tribute to the 100th Anniversary. As for being contiguous, is flying from Rabat to Madrid any worse than flying from New York to Dallas? Or the far flung outposts within Brazil in 2014?