I bought a single ticket on Stubhub this afternoon for $9 (and then paid $10 in fees) and took Benjamin with me hoping that the information I had gathered about him being able to get in for free was accurate.
Benjamin and I left the house and were parked by about 4:30p but we had quite a hike from our parking lot to the stadium (and I’ve been having problems with my back this weekend and it froze up on the way so had to stop twice for a minute or so). I didn’t realize it but the stadium didn’t open it’s gates until one hour prior to kickoff so we went ahead and got into line.
The Dynamo have a pretty nice setup outside the stadium with lots of booths and bounce houses for kids. It was really interesting seeing the diversity of the crowd. It was pretty much split into three demographics – Latin Americans, suburban soccer parents with kids/team in tow, and 25-35 year olds. I was most surprised with the size of that third demographic, but then again that would be the one that I fit into.
Once we got inside we had an hour to kill before kickoff but I didn’t want to go sit down because our seat was in the direct sun. We walked around the stadium a little bit and I bought Benjamin a hot dog to eat because the last thing I wanted was one of his pre-dinner hunger meltdowns. After he ate we watched the Dynamo go through their warm-ups and then we headed to our seat with about 15 minutes to go until kickoff.
I refer to it as our “seat” because he was able to get in without a ticket but I was going to have to keep him on my lap. The closer to kick-off it became, the more our section filled in and I realized that this wasn’t going to work. We had someone on either side of us and there was no way he was going to sit on my lap for the next two hours still enough not to drive everyone around us crazy. So just before kickoff we got up and found a pair of handicap seats that weren’t being used that gave him a little area to play in and me a little relief from having to keep everyone around us unbothered.
On the pitch I thought that the game was much more exciting live than on TV. The speed seemed so much faster but it was a little more difficult for me to follow because we were so low and I’m used to having the TV aerial view.
The weather was incredible – it was mid-70s for most of the match and I think when we were walking out of the stadium it showed 69 degrees. The sun wasn’t too much of an issue because it went down behind the press box across from us pretty early on.
Benjamin was most interested in his chair. It had a spring loaded seat so every time he stood up it popped up. This got him through the first half. He sat on my lap for a good portion of the second half and was semi-attentive. He yelled “Go Go Go!” whenever I did and he really liked all the fans down in the end zone with the drums and horns.
I thought the atmosphere was great. I honestly had low expectations, thinking it would be something like a high school basketball game, but even without a full house everyone was into the game and the supporter groups (El Batallon and Texian Army) down in that endzone really livened things up.
It didn’t hurt that it was probably the most exciting Dynamo game of the young season. There were probably 8 or 9 legitimate chances for Dynamo goals, including one where the replay clearly showed the ball across the goal line but it was missed by the official. The game was won on an 86’ goal by Hunter Freeman.
After the game, which was around 8:15pm, Benjamin refused to take off his sunglasses, which he refused to wear up until that point. I decided to just roll with it.
On the way home I was trying to keep him awake as to avoid a nap just before bedtime so I kept talking to him and even put on some Metallica - because who can sleep through Metallica? At one point he said, “Dada, turn it up.” I shouted, “Alright!” and he then repeated me, “Alright!” I turned it down for a minute to ask him something and he told me “Turn it up.” So I obliged. I guess the saying, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” is true.
Back to back fun days with Dada.....or at least they were fun for Dada.
No comments:
Post a Comment