Skip to main content
Seattle wept. The Timbers won the league.
But the first to spearhead a book on the Portland Timbers' Major League Soccer Cup win over Ohio's Columbus Crew—soccer website Prost Amerika's Cup Bound and Crowned (Cider Press Review, 136 pages, $29.95)—is not only not a Timbers fan, but a former Seattle soccer journalist from Scotland named Steve Clare.
He says he's not a fan of Seattle either.
"I've never been an MLS partisan," says Clare, editor of both the book and website. "As soon as I decided to become a writer, I made that decision." His hometown rooting interest remains Partick Thistle, a team he says stands apart from a lot of the sociopolitical mess that often defines soccer where he's from.
"I come from Glasgow," he says, "which has one of the most vicious rivalries on the planet, with politics and religion thrown in." Portland and Seattle's rivalry, by comparison, is tame—fun between Cascadian siblings.
The writers Clare brought aboard for Cup Bound are all Timbers fans, mostly Oregon natives alongside Argentine Diego Diaz and Irishman Niall McCusker. "It's a lot easier to train a fan to be a journalist," Clare says, "than to train a journalist to be a fan."
The result is a sometimes keeningly sentimental book—which glosses diplomatically over some outright fan hostility toward coach Caleb Porter's early-season conservatism. It has the feeling of a narrated family album, with that troublesome bout of cancer expressed only in triumphant hindsight. But the photography is often extraordinary, culled from a year's worth of coverage.
The book shares Timbers boosters' tendency to put as much focus on themselves as on the team, including the saga of bringing former chain-saw-wielding mascot "Timber Jim" Serrill (along with the Timbers' pet log) to Columbus for the big game, plus a tear-stricken wedding in the championship-game parking lot. "How many soccer books can you say have a wedding in them?" says Clare.
In some ways Cup Bound's structure makes it perfect for the bathroom wicker basket—a series of short, discrete narratives each focusing on one aspect of the season. Although, it's hard not to imagine the Timbers Army bleary-eyed on the toilet while reading.
But for those not in the family, some of book's juiciest parts hark back to 2012—when team owner Merritt Paulson and fans were at each others' throats over the firing of coach John Spencer in favor of interim coach Gavin Wilkinson. Writer Kristen Gehrke's spittle is almost visible on the page when she describes Paulson calling fans "idiots" and "morons."
But the spit and blood are mostly tucked away, in favor of the sweat and especially the misty tears.
GO: Timber Jim and the Prost Amerika crew will appear at Powell's Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651, on Tuesday, Feb. 23. 6 pm. Free. For other Portland events throughout the week—including two at Bazi Bierbrasserie on February 19 and 20—check the events page here.
Willamette Week