In the Timbers Army, they'll often tell you that Tetris—a chant and dance in which TA members pogo back and forth much like the popular video game—is for closers.
What then could be a more fitting occasion for Tetris'ing than at a wedding celebration?
That's exactly what happened at the wedding of Timbers supporter and San Antonio, Texas resident Aaron Flynn when his father, himself a fan, told Aaron and his wife that they had a special tradition for the end of the wedding reception.
Suddenly, Aaron's father and several of his friends began singing the “Tetris” chant: “Portland Timbers, we adore you! Portland Timbers, for you we sing!”
“Then they started singing it and I was like, 'So sorry Chelsea,' because my wife's not a big soccer fan,” Flynn explained with a laugh.
“A lot of people stared at us. Everyone knows how much I love the Timbers. I have the Timbers sticker on my car, a license plate cover, the tattoo on my back; everyone knows, but they didn't expect that to be a part of the wedding.”
How Flynn became a Timbers supporter is interesting in its own right.
Flynn, part of the Lone Star Brigade Timbers Army Texas outpost, had never been to Portland or Oregon when he first watched a Timbers game back in 2009 on television. He may not have watched that particular game at all had it not been for one enterprising fan on the popular soccer message board site BigSoccer.com who told Flynn to give the then-USL side a chance.
The crowd and the atmosphere, like it has for thousands of other Timbers fans across the world, instantly hooked Flynn, who was then just an 18 year-old high school senior.
So in 2010, when the Timbers announced that they would move to MLS the following season, Flynn, who says he hates Dallas sports teams and who could never quite get into the Houston Dynamo, went all in on the Portland team.
“I was like, you know what? This is my team. I'm supporting this team,” he said.
He was there when the Timbers traveled during their inaugural MLS campaign to face FC Dallas and the Houston Dynamo in Texas. He taught himself the Timbers Army chants and always came to the match ready to cheer the full 90.
Since then, Flynn has been to as many Timbers away games as possible. He can often be found leading the cheers of the away supporters, whose ranks, he says, have grown dramatically since that first MLS season. Just this past year, Flynn recalls with astonishment seeing row after row of Timbers Lone Star Brigade supporters at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston.
“I was like, 'This is insane. This is crazy.' This is not what I'd expect from people in Texas.”
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Flynn, though, did manage to make it out to Providence Park to catch a Timbers match in 2012. He and a friend were there when the Timbers defeated the Colorado Rapids 1-0 in a nationally televised game that August.
Before the match, he remembers how stunned he was when he and his friend arrived to get their Timbers Army wristbands.
“We showed up like four hours before the gate opened and there were already 100 people in front of us. We just laughed to ourselves like, 'This is just to get into the section.'”
The two friends settled into some seats in Section 108—“We didn't want to look like tourists [in the North End],” says Flynn—and quickly assimilated into the Timbers Army crowd. Flynn even nearly knocked off his friend's glasses when the Timbers scored the game-winner.
“It was like a mecca being there [at Providence Park] and looking around,” Flynn said.
While Flynn hasn't yet had the chance to go back to Portland, he was at match in Frisco, Texas between FC Dallas and the Timbers this past summer, where he says he finished his honeymoon.
He’ll drive over four hours to be there on Sunday hanging up his banners and singing his heart out when the Timbers face Dallas in the second leg of the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Championship (2pm PT, ESPN).
“I love putting it all behind the boys,” he said. “Whatever I can do to help. I'm loud and I'm not afraid to get mad at people for not chanting.”
Except for his wife, of course.
