I'm feeling like starting an occasional series of pieces on what it's like in the Southside. I've been a full patch Southsider member since 2011, having been immediately drawn to them while attending Caps matches in 2009 and 2010. For the last three years, our season's tickets have been in the Southside, and my kids have grown up watching the Caps standing on their feet and singing. It occurred to me on the weekend that not everyone knows what it's like over there, what we do and why, and what it's like watching a match while singing, clapping, bouncing and giving our all to create "the best sporting atmosphere in Vancouver." So here is the first in a series.

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It's like Christmas morning. Waking up on a Cascadia match day, it seems like the sun is a little brighter, the air a little sweeter smelling, the anticipation absolutely electric.

And Portland are my favourite away rivals. This is largely down to the die-hard and good natured quality of their supporters which makes beating them sweet (although beating Seattle is sweeter for the converse reason). These guys bring their game every single time, and they pack our stadium and chant things like "Our House in the Middle of BC" which is it truthfully has been over the last four years of MLS play. This weeked we needed a win against them and we needed to do everything possible to ensure the certainty of that win. We are the Cascadia Cup holders. That is our trophy and this is our house.

So when I awoke to twitter messages and emails from the Southsiders board calling for a protest that incorporated 15 minutes of silence at the start of the match, I was gutted. The reason was marginal to most fans but important to us. The dispute stemmed from the club using a likeness of the Cascadia Cup on a commemorative scarf. The trademark on that image is held by the Cascadia Cup Council, a consortium of the Southsiders, the Timber's Army and the Emerald City Supporters who have had to defend it in the past from the MLS wanting to steal the trademark. I won't go into the details, which you can read here, but the upshot of it was that all the excitement and energy went out of me. I said to my son as we stepped on the Bowen Island ferry, that I was feeling worse Saturday morning than I did when we went out of the playoffs to Dallas last year.

We moped around downtown for a while running errands, and around noon, the message came in that the situation had been resolved, that the club would make a donation to Vancouver Street Soccer (and you should too!) and derby day could resume its regular scheduled programming.

Prematch at Belmont's was all about posing with the Cup and a march to BC Place to take our seats opposite the 750 members of the Timbers Army who were already in good voice. It's a feature of away travel to a rival that you come ready to give your all. I've always felt that the most intense support experiences are on the road. You are confined to a small section, escorted in early and not allowed to leave until later, and you have nothing to do for our hours but sing. The Timbers Army were in great form doing their scarf waving thing during their anthem and chanting "eh" at the end of each line of ours. Some took that as offensive, but I understand it as a kind of mark of respect. Opinions are divided in our ranks. Which always makes for an interesting debate.

I laughed as I watched all the Caps supporters who had seats below them plead for relocation. It is no fun to be co-located with away support like that.

This year the Southsiders, Rain City Brigade and the Curva Collective have made an effort to concentrate and coordinate the noise from our end, and, as I was away for the opener this was my first match in 253, having moved over from 251, with the drum in the stands and our capos on the pitch - including, for the last time, Kristian Aug, the scarf clad capo who is moving to Toronto next week ended his tenure on Saturday. We begin every match with Boundary Road, a unique Southsiders chant that honours our beginnings in the little bleacher section behind the goal at Swangard Stadium in 1999. Scarves up, all together, one full minute of that followed by the easy "clap clap clapclapclap clapclapclapclap Whitecaps!" bit. It's ritual now. Everyone can rely on it. Gives a chance to get everyone into the game.

Up in 253 we sometimes get folks buying tickets there that have no idea about the culture of the Southside. It's rambunctious and bawdy and loud, and we stand. Which made for a miserable first 20 minutes for a young lad behind me who'd come with his mum and sister and couldn't see over anyone. He missed Nico's goal, and wouldn't accept a trade from me to come stand by the aisle, so they eventually moved off to better vantage points. They were replaced in the second half by the most delightful Costa Rican couple. He in a Saprissa Jersey signed by Waston and waving a Ticos flag, she in a Whitecaps shirt and whistling ear piercing blasts. It's fantastic to see first -imers joining us in the spirit of what we are doing, and I felt like this was the first derby match where there were very few "tourists" in our section. "Tourists" are folks that come and stand with us for the spectacle, but are too inhibited to sing. It might be a fine outing for them, but when there are too many it actually deadens the feeling in the Southside, because chants don't get carried and it's hard to get anything going. Ironically, we seem to get more "tourists" during derby days than at other times. We might be louder, but in the past I have enjoyed the concentrated intensity of matches against lesser known opposition. This year, perhaps because we are more concentrated, I felt we didn't suffer that fate.

Having missed the opening, this match was going to be me getting to know my new neighbours. Right beside us is The Bearded One who gives his all, beer fuelled and intense (and he's a good singer). Right in front is The Tall One and his family, daughter and wife indulging him the way mine indulge me and in front of them are the Blue Trio - three guys who are basically clowns, carrying in in good natured and uninhibited banter, pushing edges, spilling beer, one of them popping up all around us to chat and steal my hat and have a laugh. Luckily The Tall One's teenage daughter, and my teenage kids, have a detached sense of irony about the whole thing. It may be that they are actually the mature ones in the section, combining laughing and eye rolling in equal measure.

We sang and chanted through the surprise of Nico's goal, and through the next 75 minutes of absorbed pressure, pausing only to gasp at Deybi Flores's rocket fuelled sprints and to wipe our brows at Portland's missed and squandred chances, and OOOOOsted's solid net minding.

And then Earnshaw. That was a goal out of nothing. and it was such a surprise that none of us expected it. Ousted launches the ball upfield, it bangs around the left side by Froese and Sam and then finds it's way to Flores, to Morales and, with the most astonishing luck, through to Earnshaw. We exploded in the Southside. You would be hard pressed to find anyone that actually saw his stunning celebration, as there was total delirium. I don't even remember the pass, so shocked was I that Earnshaw was actually in that position at all, ball at his feet, time on his hands.

Support is a serious business in the Southside. It matters in a funny kinds of way to those of us that give it up every week, and it matters to the players. There are few places left in this world where it is acceptable to carry on with this kind of buffoonery, to experience being a part of something, to sing in public in a 1000 voice choir, to cement a relationship with players rather than simply watching them play. You develop a kind of intimacy with co-creating the energy in the stadium, and know full well that that energy can turn games. Case in point: the spontaneous outburst from the whole crowd last year just before Waston scored against Dallas actually made a difference.

We do it because we love it and for no higher purpose really that supporting our team and having fun. But I have to say that the dopamine high after a win like that is what keeps me coming back. You can hear it on the concourse after the match, and you can see it etched in my smile two days later. Support is Always.