Consider the Raccoon
This short piece is another entry to the category Ephemera—mostly things that don't yet fully fit into a story but are still worth sharing.
Philadelphia Union
Green Is the Color would like to congratulate the Philadelphia Union, who officially became the newest members of the Soccerwatcher Club on May 15, 2024.
On that night, in the 21st minute of the Union’s match against NYCFC, Raquinho Raccoon, as Major League Soccer has him rostered, logged an MLS record 161 on-field seconds—the most by a raccoon in MLS history.
Subaru Park is not the first MLS stadium to feature the US’s native member of genus procyon. MLS’s Mammal of Matchday 14 has some notable predecessors, and I’d like to recognize a couple of them here, while we also celebrate our own OG raccoon: Soccerwatcher.
Real Salt Lake
There was no on-field action for the raccoon that fell through the ceiling in the press box during a rain delay of the 2023 Leagues Cup Round of 32 match between Real Salt Lake and Club León. The match in Sandy, Utah ended up postponed, and the raccoon—who just missed getting some of that delicious press-box popcorn—wasn’t even the only of its ilk among that day’s attendees.
D.C. United
D.C. United’s Ronnie the Raccoon goes back a few years in MLS and includes a good amount of banter between United and New York Red Bulls. In addition to bringing the two clubs’ supporters groups (somewhat) together, Ronnie was fully embraced by United in a 2022 April Fool’s Day announcement, and he was the feature of a 2016 Ronnie Raccoon promotion.
Portland Timbers
It’s so good to have more members in the Club that we don’t even mind that 2016 MLS article misidentifying RFK (1961) as the oldest then-active stadium in MLS, a designation that more accurately goes to our very own Providence Park (née Multnomah Stadium) which traces its roots as a formal stadium to 1926.
In fact, 1844 Southwest Morrison Street is also home to the original raccoon to participate in professional soccer in the US: Soccerwatcher, whose NASL on-field time far surpasses Raquinho’s 161-second MLS high-water mark.
The mascot—as popular as he was occasionally divisive—patrolled the Portland sidelines, indoors and out, over the last two years of the NASL Timbers tenure and was most notably played by Bobby Brooks, who, in 1982, was let go by the club because, as club spokesperson John Polis said in the Oregon Journal, “We simply had too many complaints over some of his antics.” Brooks, as Soccerwatcher, was big in Beaverton where Ms. Marsha Glass of SW Barnes Road had his back, as expressed in her letter to the Oregon Journal:
[Note to the Green Is the Color Editorial Team: Add Bobby Brooks to the To-Find list with Stan Olson].
The show in 1982—and Soccerwatcher and the NASL Timbers—however, went on without Brooks, and thanks to fine folks at McDonalds, children 12 and under could be a part of it by filling out the form on the back of this brochure and sending in a check or money order for $5.
That modest amount—even by 1982 standards—included a membership card for reduced ($2/ticket!) admission, a player autograph, and the Soccerwatcher Club newsletter.
Discussions about the merits of raccoons on soccer fields and fast food sponsorships in sports aside, I’ll take the bounty that is the McDonald’s Soccerwatcher Club t-shirt over the free McChicken sandwich offered as a result of the Timbers win the same night as Raquinho’s 2024 MLS debut across the country.
I come to that position from an admitted place of bias. I had one of those Soccerwatcher shirts when I was a kid—my remaining first-hand memory of the 1982 Portland Timbers season. And since the strength of nostalgia pulls Gen X-ers like me and the Timbers so strongly, in a raccoon-related-to-soccer coincidence, I took a journey this year into the tertiary markets of social media to recover a beloved raccoon Rosebud recognizable to 40 somethings who grew up with this team.
The mission, which was a success just this month, led me to what I think may have been the only remaining original Soccerwatcher Club shirt on the semi-open market:
In all fairness, I didn’t need to chase nostalgia the way Philadelphia Union Head Sports Turf Manager Mark Mello pursued Raquinho with a garbage can. All this time, I’ve been perfectly content with my contemporary Soccer Watcher Kaiju from Richard Miller at Calyx.
Miller’s version is, after all, everything we get when we walk into Providence Park now: the best of what’s been bringing us to the Timbers over time, over generations, but in a contemporary form—a perfect nod to the past that also embraces the creativity and passion we all bring now, something we can actively participate in and share with those around us—like tales of raccoons in soccer stadiums.
#RCTID