Urban Vancouver

Beckham in Vancouver, as the LA Galaxy and Whitecaps share honours in a nil nil tie

By rightantler on November 7, 2007 - 11:56pm

As a spectacle, it was a fantastic occasion. A beautiful city, a 48,000 strong crowd and a Star attraction ... the stage was set. The stage was set ... for a positively dreadful advert for soccer in Canada. Let's be fair to the White Caps, it wasn't about them. They played in front of the biggest crowd of their lives on a surface that from a distance looked very odd indeed.

The highlights or should I say lowlights started with the girl fluffing the Canadian National Anthem causing a collective intake of breath!I've heard countless national anthems, some of them truly dreadful but never before has a single fluffed the lines.A penalty won by the White Caps, celebrated by the players and then missed! That's enough about the First Half. Curiously both teams were ready for the Second Half, but the officials were still drinking their second cup of tea. Instead of 'Spot the Ball' we had 'Spot the Referee' !!! The play was better in this half, with Beckham showing he was in a class, if not a different school, to everyone else. We had a streaker (male), the sadly inevitable 'Mexican' wave, and an ongoing dispute between the crowd and the security staff who wanted every ball that went into the crowd returned. They even announced it over the PA along with the odd marriage proposal and a few dozen substitutions.

Beckham went off with after 65 mins A few near misses late on before the whistle went and we all headed home. A very enjoyable evening, with the boy Beckham living up to his part of the bargain. The game sadly was no real advert for the game in this backwater of professional Soccer, but then maybe I expected to much?

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