Hello, Portland!
Tonight, after nearly 2 decades, live music returns to 1844 SW Morrison Street, when Foo Fighters headline as part of their Everything or Nothing At All tour.
But while Timbers fans’ home away from home has seen acts from Elvis to David Bowie over the years, Green Is the Color recognizes only one rock superstar to have played Civic Stadium in the proper way: Rod Stewart.
On March 9, 1990, Timbers owner Art Dixon arranged for The L.A. Exiles to travel north for an exhibition match with the Portland Timbers to benefit the Oregon chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, with the former Brentford FC trialist Stewart lined up at right back for the visitors.
That match is not just a curious rock-and-roll/soccer crossover. It’s a day of notable Timbers trivia, as the home team’s 71st-minute goal came from player/coach John Bain, making him the only person to score a goal for a professional soccer team in Portland in three different decades, a notoriety that still holds and likely will until Diego Chará opens his 2030 MLS goal-scoring account.
(Giving slight hope to this possibility is yesterday’s post-transfer-window press conference, when GM Ned Grabavoy promised “the heartbeat of this club” Diego Chará’s presence next season. “We will have [him] back with us one way or another next year, and going forward that’s extremely important to the club, it’s extremely important to myself and to Phil.” Here’s to hoping that’s a lifetime deal.)
And in a 7-degrees-of-Christiano-Ronaldo connection, another defender featured on the 1990 Exiles’ team sheet was Garry Cook—one-time Manchester City F.C. CEO, one-time Brand Jordan head, and current CEO of the Saudi Professional League and his boyhood club Birmingham City F.C.
All tangents aside, the night belonged to the Exiles and their famous right back, Rod Stewart.
“They were a pretty solid team,” Timbers Ring-of-Honor member John Bain told me of the Exiles, a side from Los Angeles comprised mainly of ex-professionals. “They deserved to beat us,” he added. “They were very experienced, and I remember they were difficult to break down because they just knew the game.”
Bain recalled the Exiles playing what most British-influenced teams would have played in 1990: a 4-4-2. “He knew how to play as a fullback,” Bain said of Stewart. “He didn’t really get exposed because of his teammates around him. He was OK on the ball. He was a solid player. I was surprised.”
Stewart left the match, according to The Oregonian's report of the day, “with 24 minutes to play and headed for the showers,” which means he missed Bain pulling the home side within one before the Exiles would add a third. “He didn’t stick around to get a final score,” the article reads, “his limousine departed Civic Stadium with about 10 minutes remaining.”
Part of the reason for Stewart’s premature departure could be attributed to the heavy rain that also kept plenty of fans away. The reported 4,372 who, according to The Oregonian, “braved a cold, rainy night” still left a surplus of the souvenir t-shirts the team hoped to sell as part of the fundraising for the Oregon MS Society. According to Bain, there’s still plenty of “Soccer Rocker” shirts out there, leftover from the night.
Despite rain and result, the night was a success, and, for Bain, it ended as perfect as it could: two players talking football. The teams met up at after-match sponsor Champions. “Rod sat there, and I sat there and chatted with him for about 30 minutes,” Bain recalled. “And all he wanted to talk about was football. And the game, and how he played, and Scotland.” Sounds like a typical post-match conversation any of us may have had. But this one just happened to involve two atypical people: One our Ring-of-Honor member and the other a musical superstar. “He’s a brilliant performer,” Bain added, “but his first love is football. He was just like one of the boys after the game, just having a beer with everybody else.”
Tonight’s concert should be an exciting twist in the usual Providence Park calendar when Foo Fighters, Pretenders, and Alex G start off a new/old era in our favorite place. As much as I’d like to see Dave Grohl and Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde in a crossbar challenge (my money’d be on Hynde) I know it will look a bit different with a stage and field-covering seating than it does on match day. I just plan on enjoying the show—and plotting how to find one of the leftover Rocker Soccer t-shirts from that 1990 match.
#RCTID