[TravelHiker]

Anyone go to the game or to Kell's? What was your experience? I went with my sister, sitting in the upper level of the southeastern part of the stadium, facing the downtown skyline. My first visit to the stadium and I gotta say it's a bit of a pleasant surprise. The seats were quite comfortable, and there's more leg room than the 300-level seats at Safeco Field. I didn't care for the ramp system, however -- it took us over 30 minutes to get from our seats to 4th Avenue. I guess that's what happens when you have a sellout, something that'll take the Sea Chickens a while to get to. The atmosphere was great, but perhaps not quite a European soccer experience I'd hope to soak in. It was a lot more fun than the Team USA-El Salvador matchup prior to the World Cup last year. Anyways, I loved watching the Scottish band play their bagpipes and people dancing outside the stadium before gametime, I loved hearing the random group chants in the stadium, and especially enjoyed sitting in an area with British and Scottish fans around me -- good conversation and jabs. Quite a few of them were travelling as part of a tour package. Also great to see a lot of youth teams come out. I thought the first half was a good matchup despite the 3-0 blowout. Celtic dominated the playfield early on, but made a few too many mistakes, and Man U capitalized on their mistakes. Lots of good shots on goal, especially the second Man U goal. Celtic must have substituted half of their team at the beginning of the second half, and then the rest of the team throughout the half. You can tell the team didn't play with a lot of heart, and that was a little disappointing. At least they yielded only one goal, which I thought was a bit questionable, instead of three. Man U played brilliantly without Beckham throughout the game -- sure was disappointing not to see him, though. Ruud is an incredible striker, he sure lived up to his hype. A colorful (and drunk) Man U fan sitting in front of me couldn't sit quiet throughout the game, and after getting a little bored with the "quiet" American crowd, tried to rally the crowd with the Wave. He'd yell (insert your favorite British accent here), "C'mon ya wankers! (gesture in the air) Get up!!", and he'd alternate "wankers" with other colorful names for male and female body parts. It was so outrageous that it was funny -- never seen or heard any of that in my sports attendance experience. Needless to say, his girlfriend was a bit embarrassed. She left her seat and called him on his cell phone to express a bit of disgust, so he then excused himself after thanking the crowd. Made the second half a little bit exciting, at least. The players displayed a lot of style as they all clapped and waved to the crowds before and after the game. Very very cool. $6.50 for a plastic bottle of Bud Light! had to pass on it... There's rumors in the papers about a Liverpool-Real Madrid matchup coming to Seattle next summer. Stay tuned! TH

[polarbear]

I wonder if anyone else here went to Sounders games when they were part of the NASL and Pele was playing for the Cosmos?