Beginning Saturday, the Portland Timbers will begin selling a limited edition printed journal "Seven Stories" that collects the seven articles that appeared throughout the 2015 season as part of a special collaboration with Howler Magazine. Utilizing a talented stable of national soccer writers and fantastic illustrators, the book is available exclusively at the adidas Timbers Team Store at Providence Park for $12.
Read on to learn more about it in this Editor's Letter from the journal:
Soccer City, USA.
That’s the name we gave ourselves back in the 1975. Maybe it’s a remnant of the city's old frontier ethic, our way of laying claim to a new outpost of sport in America. That was during the years of the North American Soccer League, and truthfully, the name recalls elements of the earnest branding that was a hallmark of the era. The very term “soccer,” though British in origin, was used in opposition to “football,” which had better name recognition both globally and among our fellow countrymen, who mostly used it to mean that other game.
Nowadays, nobody in Portland would argue that soccer is strange, and the rest of the country appears to be catching on. The Timbers no longer make Portland unique by the simple fact of the team’s existence. It is now the history, the traditions, the people, and the places that give Portland soccer a character that is different from anything else you’ll find, whether you look in the United States or further afield.
It’s that special Portland soccer culture that we examine through the seven stories collected in this book. Throughout the 2015 season, the Timbers worked with Howler Magazine to explore Rose City soccer. We examined the many lives of Providence Park; compared the performative aspects of Portland on gameday to works of public art; recalled the barren years, when a wacky mascot melee was, sadly, the most exciting thing on the field; collected memories of one man—Clive Charles—who shaped a good number of Portland’s (and America’s) soccer sons and daughters; saw the city through the eyes of one of those adopted daughters, Nadine Angerer; and caught up with two players, Jack Jewsbury and Darlington Nagbe, who represent the modern Timbers’ solid foundation and verdant future. And then, well, then we went on another journey and won the MLS Cup.
The 2015 season marked 40 years since the NASL Timbers were founded, and the fifth since the club joined MLS. It was also the year of the club’s first championship in either league. Soccer City, USA, has never been a stronger community, and yet it’s still on the frontier, pushing soccer culture forward to new horizons.
BRIAN COSTELLO
Director of Digital Media / Editor-in-Chief
Portland Timbers / Thorns FC
GEORGE QURAISHI
Founder & Editor
Howler Magazine
