Paul Daugherty

pdaugherty@enquirer.com

Into The Bailey of the beast we go, feeling bad for not knowing the words to the songs they’re singing, feeling naked for not wearing the orange and blue of FC Cincinnati and feeling generally inadequate for not being swept up in the futbol fever infecting our city.

Uh, Doc? The Bailey?

It’s the name the team gave Sections 132-135 in the north end zone at Nippert Stadium, reserved for “the supporters’’, FCC’s most enamored fans. They’re the ones drenched in team colors, flying flags, chanting songs, unleashing smoke bombs after goals and generally behaving like card-carrying Euro-fans.

In medieval times, “the bailey’’ was the part of a castle where they kept the weapons. At least that’s how FC Cincinnati President and General Manager Jeff Berding explains it. In Cincinnati, it’s where the diehards let loose and provide the pluck for the rest of the patrons. That would include the United Soccer League-record 23,375 who showed up Saturday on a crummy-weather day, to watch the local side beat the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, 1-0. (Or “one-nil’’, as we soccer fans call it.)

FC Cincinnati ownership already has won its biggest game, even before its rookie season has ended. The futbol team has seized the local sporting buzz. It is firmly established as the next Next. Is anything more important in an era of micro-attention spans?

Something is happening. Something is definitely going on. The team that has now played exactly four home games in its entire existence is drawing as many people as the Reds do for weeknight games. In just a few months, going to FCC games has become the thing to do around here. No one is exactly sure how that happened, or how long it might last. But if you sit in The Bailey awhile, the answer becomes more obvious.

Take Timo Breitenstein. He’s 29 and originally from just outside Frankfurt, Germany, where he was passionate enough about a local pro side, he traveled internationally with the team.

He came to Cincinnati to work in 2009 and met a young lady. They fell in love and got married, then lived in Munich until last March, when they returned to Cincinnati to live. Timo was ecstatic when he heard that soccer was returning to Cincinnati. There was a market hungry for a decent pro soccer team, playing in a legitimate stadium, with solid financial backing. That hunger looked like Timo Breitenstein.

When Berding was seeking pubs to partner with the team, and “supporters’’ to provide the core of the fan base, Timo was on board. He’s vice president of Die Innenstadt – German for “the inner city’’ – one of two major supporter groups that inhabit The Bailey on game days. The other is The Pride.

The two groups are nearly indistinguishable. The Pride has its pregame party at the Brass Tap on Calhoun Avenue in Clifton, before “marching’’ to Nippert, flags launched. Die Innenstadt hangs at Mecklenburg Gardens. The difference between the two clubs, beyond that? Not much.

Their commonality tells us some about why the pro soccer phenomenon might actually survive here this time. Take a look at The Bailey: It’s filled with fresh, 20-something faces, some painted in orange and blue. It’s energetic: Fans stand the entire game. They sing, they pound drums and wave flags. Soccer is participatory for its fans, in a way football and basketball are not, and baseball never will be.

An FC Cincinnati game has moved quickly from Curiosity to Event. It’s a happening. Bengals games are that way, too, but millennials like Timo Breitenstein are just as drawn to soccer as to the NFL. As Timo put it, “I love the Reds, I love the NFL. But this is a totally different experience than any other sports in the U.S. right now. Fans are jumping and cheering the whole time.

“You hear everywhere in the city, people talking about how they took their kids and had a good time at the FC Cincinnati game. I just think it’s (soccer’s) time.’’

Some 100 members of Die Innenstadt spent a few hours pounding good cheer at Mecklenburg Gardens Saturday, before marching to the stadium, singing, team flags creased by the stiff breeze.

“We’ll be coming, we’ll be coming, we’ll be coming down the road.

“When you hear that cry of Cincy-‘til-I die! We’ll be coming down the road.’’

It’s not poetry. But it’s music to the ears of soccer fans around here. And to those willing to be converted. The Bailey isn’t just a corral for the faithful. It’s the face of a movement.

Another record crowd turns out to watch FC Cincy win