By any measure, Earnie Stewart has ushered in a new era in his first year as Sporting Director of Philadelphia Union. Last Saturday night, the Sons of Ben supporters group let him know how much they appreciated his efforts on behalf of their beloved Boys in Blue with a tribute tifo. Earnie reached out internally, to find out who he should thank. That led us to SoB President Bill Gusler, who in turn shared that fellow member Ryan Bross was the one behind this extraordinary work of soccer art.

Then this morning, we received an email from Ryan which we wanted to share. The following, in his own words, Ryan Bross explains the motivation and the inspiration behind 'Earnie on his Throne'.

I was on a long drive at the beginning of the season, like week one or two, and listening to some music. I started coming up with several ideas for tifo that I wanted to do this year. (Some haven't been finished/used yet.) One was a Game of Thrones tifo inspired by a song about Game of Thrones called "Dragon Blood" by MC Lars. I was thinking there might be a chant in there and started thinking about a tifo using the words "we've got Union Blood" from a line from the song. I have never watched the show nor read the books but I knew there were three dragons and wanted to re-imagine them as snakes to represent groups dealing with the Union. To tie it all together and drive home that it was a GoT reference, I wanted to include the Iron Throne. As the season continued it was obvious what a big influence Earnie's presence and guidance have done for the team. So it seemed right that he should be the one sitting on the Iron Throne.

That's when SKC's supporters had their own GoT tifo, and one that got a lot of attention from the league. They had used a pulley system to raise the tifo and at this point in the season we (SoB and Union) were seriously looking into having our own poles and pulley installed in the River End. I looked at the schedule and decided that if we got the poles installed in time I would carry out the Union/GoT tifo at our game against SKC.



The way the timing working out, I was left with one day to prep (paint over the back of the Build a Bonfire tifo), a day of planning and mocking up the design, and a day and a half for painting. In the planning process I asked for the input of friends that are familiar with the series. There were a couple versions I had on Friday morning, one was using an image I found of Robert Downey Jr on the throne, kind of as a joke. That turned out to be a favorite. Paul, a capo, said "because it shows he's such a badass, he just walks into westerns and is like, 'this is mine.'". The way he was sitting in the chair reminded me of the way Earnie will sit while watching the game (when he's not standing behind the goal with (Chris) Albright watching the clock in stoppage time). I set up Friday afternoon, sketched out some guidelines, and started to get paint down about 24 hours before the start of the match. I got the majority of Earnie down and left around 10:30. I got down to the SoB Lot around 9 on Saturday (game day) and got back to work. I worked through the tailgate and got some help to fill in the last bit of the background, finishing around 4:30. We rolled it up and got it in Mark's cart around 5 and went in for set up.

For what it means like what Paul said with Earnie sitting there like "this is mine", he came to the team, got everyone on the same page, helped get the missing pieces, and are making a statement to the league or "this is ours". I like creating the tifo for the team for a few reasons. I just really like making things and really like the Union, so it makes sense that taking time to make things to show support for my team would be something I would be interested in. I enjoy seeing and hearing how the players and other supporters like the tifo. At the player meet and greet at the start of the season Ray Gaddis asked if I had anything planned and when I started to describe the first tifo he stopped me because he wanted to be surprised on game day. Some of our best received tifo are the ones that make a special reference to or are inspired by some form of pop culture because they are going to fans of that, who this is their favorite tifo and they will share it with others, including those that aren't familiar with the Union. -Ryan Bross