First, these are my thoughts and opinions and mine alone. That goes for all spelling and grammar errors! I wanted to put this out there to publicly thank some people, lament not reaching out to others and just say a couple of thoughts/opinions.

So I have to say Saturday’s game at Nissan did not go as expected. I thought I had everything planned pretty well then about 12:30 my buddy Drew calls and says, “We have a small problem. The propane tank came off while I was on the interstate.” I said something not suitable for our many youth members and asked for further details. Somehow it wasn’t attached properly. Luckily, it didn’t kill anyone in the cars behind and the tank ended up in a median, but there was no way to fetch it. Drew, aka Drew the genius, went to Home Depot to get a fix. So he shows up at 1:10 with a new hose/regulator and propane tank. We light it and everything seems fine so we start to unload the cars and to setup tents, coolers etc. We check and the grill isn’t heating up. We try and adjust the valve, and light it again, but still no luck. So I had to drive home and get my grill. Luckily I got back in time for Theo to make burgers and dogs for everyone, but I was running around like a chicken with his head cutoff. Not what I was wanting or expecting. I was hoping to post to social media and go say hello to Jason with The Assembly and Newton, Kyle and Lacey of The Roadies. Not to mention other AO Nashville members I’ve known through the years. I also wanted to go checkout the Mill Creek Brewery Tailgate. Free Goalden Ale sounded great and Eastern Front was tailgating there too. Tailgating right beside free beer! Well played Eastern Front. There was Matt Manning who came into town with large group form the Murfreesboro Strikers. I wanted to talk to him. Professional listener and pug parent Chrissy Webb was another person on my list. Not to mention the long list of clubs that Nashville SC thanked on the scoreboard during the game. I was hoping they’d list the RSG too, but maybe next time. Of course I plan to accomplish all this and more in time, but it was opportunity missed for sure. That said, there were a lot of positives. Like all groups, Music City Supporters is filled with good people. Everyone was understanding given the situation. We got 5 new families to join. Could it have been more? Sure, but this whole process is teaching me many things including patience. I want to skip ahead 12 months so we are a bigger, more well oiled machine. It will allow us to do more things for our members and with other SG.

As for Nissan, the staff was tremendous that I had to deal with. The parking lot attendants were informative and polite. Maintenance people on carts came up to us and let us know if we just left our trash bags by a tree they would pick them up during the game. Getting in and out was easy. At least for my group of 5. One thing I would like to see for the July 7th match is recycling. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any in our area. If Nissan doesn’t do it, perhaps the other SG can get together on that. Not hard to bag up the hundreds of empty cans at taligates.

I leave match thoughts for others or other places. I thought the in stadium atmosphere was good (especially the last 20 minutes), but can always be better. The rally towels left in everyone’s seat looked good waving in the air, but reminded me of the Pittsburgh terrible towels which was odd. The SS was solid. I like how the Roadies and Assembly are keeping the core passionate group together. I tweeted during the match having a capo about row 15 is smart. It keeps everyone in the section on verse. I’ve been in AO sections before where the back of the section is a line or two off from the front. Technically, I was in the supporter’s section, but 125 (where I was) looked and sounded very different than 123. It’s going to take time for everything to grow. We need more season ticket holders and more SS fanatics. No doubt it is going to happen. I applaud the Roadies for partnering with Autism Tennessee for the April 7 match. These are the types of things I want our group doing in the future. We just have to get bigger first.

Lastly, in our member email I personally thanked many people whom without this group doesn’t exist. They know who they are and if they want to get more involved numerous people are a tweet or phone call away.