Orange Legionnaire

We took a break this week from banner making since we didn't have a game on Saturday. We'll start back up with more banners next week on Tuesday, May 25th at 6:30 p.m. The address of the place where we are making the banners is at 4123 N. Linda Dr. in Bellbrook, Ohio. We'll have beer and maybe some pizza. Mapquest it from your location!

I'm going out to get a practice report now. But, I'll have details of the next banner making session which will either be Thursday night or next Tuesday night later on in the day, along with other bullet points. Cheers

We now have four large banners. I'll be posting some pictures of the two stick banners I'm making tomorrow. Were also looking into buying some flags for the Cleveland Internationals game the following week. WE WILL BE IN THE VISITORS SIDE IN THE CORNER AT BELLBROOK'S MIAMI VALLEY SOUTH STADIUM THIS SATURDAY TO CHEER ON OUR BOYS AGAINST THE CINCINNATI KINGS. PLEASE JOIN US, AS WE TRY TO BUILD AN AWESOME ATMOSPHERE.

Also we may meet at McIntosh's down the road a couple of hours before the 7:30 kickoff to grab some pints together. I'll have more details tomorrow if that's going to happen.

**I'll also be posting a weekly podcast, with quotes from players, as a weekly preview to our games so watch out for that tomorrow night.

Just go to where the two Orange banners will be on the visiting side of Miami Valley South Stadium. It may or may not be roped off for supporters. The first two weeks we won't likely meet up beforehand at MacIntosh's or another bar because the games are on a Friday, we'll probably start meeting on Saturday's behorehand starting with the second game in May.

Here are some pictures of the banners we made tonight for The Orange Legion:

**The Orange Legion is having their first banner making session on Wednesday, April 28th at 6:30 p.m. The address of the place where we are making the banners is in the garage of a member at 4123 N. Linda Dr. in Bellbrook, Ohio. Mapquest it from your location.

We'll likely try to get a 12 pack of beer or two and some music. As this usually made it more enjoyable when we made these in Columbus.

**Everyone that shows up will need to pitch in $10 to $20 bucks if they can for supplies. I'll be throwing in at least $30 bucks. If you can't pitch in on supplies this time it is okay. But, please try to pitch in something. If we can get 10 to 15 guys to pitch in at least $10 bucks we should be able to make some good stuff.

**Once we get some money pooled together, some of us will go to Wal Mart to make the purchases (paint, paint brushes, drop clothes, and sheets).

**If anyone has a projector that we can borrow, please bring it. If not I'll try to get my hands on one by Wednesday. We could freehand some banners, but doing banners by projector is a lot faster and easier to achieve.

**I also made a facebook just for members that have sent me an email and are interested in being in the supporters group, click here to join.

**Also someone asked me about tickets for the section. The whole stadium is general admission. I'm going to talk to some of the people in the office about roping off an area for us starting with the Global United game. The area will be a small block to start off with and as the season goes on and we expand, we'll likely increase that block.

As we get more organized as a Supporters Group we'll talk to the front office about a ticket deal for us (or even about us selling our own tickets as the supporters in the Nordecke in Columbus do). Eventually, not sure about this year, we'll have specific tickets for our section. But, General Admission with a roped off section for us should do the trick for now.

**So, on Wednesday we'll likely make one medium sized banner with "Orange Legion" on it and some sort of design (like a Legionnaire on it). Then we will make at least one smaller banner and about 5 two sticks. That should be a good start for us this week and if we can achieve all of that in one night we'll be in good shape. Then we can look into making more things the week after for the Cincinnati Kings game.

**I'm also going to try to get a membership/about us page up on my website here sometime this week. I'll take pictures of us making banners, so after that I can add those pictures to this page, to hopefully entice others to join in our efforts.

**We also have some drums that we can likely paint orange as well on Wednesday.

**Any ideas? Thoughts? Chant ideas? Want to join up? Want to help with banners? Email us at theorangelegionnaire@live.com

Soccer is a sport of passion. Likewise, the game is not as good without passionate fans. Teams with passionate fans have stadiums that are like a festival, making the stadium colorful, making the stadium loud, and making the home field have it's own life. Even look at soccer in our country, the Supporters Groups that bring it (such as Columbus's Nordecke, Seattle's ECS, and Toronto's Red Patch Boys) get the most attention and are usually hard places to gain wins.

The Orange Legion will be setting up on the visiting side of Bellbrook High School's stadium. We need to make that a wall of orange with banners, smoke bombs, loud & boisterous chants- a party. We need to strive to the levels of the aforementioned MLS supporters and eventually try to even surpass those levels. How is this done? By sharing creativity and ideas. By being on the same team. By working on the same goals. By pooling resources and banner money between supporters. By being open to everyone's ideas.

Think of it this way.. If the Orange Legion wants to make a banner as huge as the "We Are Genoa" one above. Lets say this costs $600 bucks.. Well, if three guys pay for that then it's pricey for those supporters (otherwise known as the Ultra in Europe) but say you have a supporters group of 1,000 people and half of them pitch in $5 or $10 bucks on these sort of what the Europeans call tifo or tifosi. Then the sky is the limit.

Check out the forums on ultras-tifo.net to start brainstorming on ideas. Often times as an ultra and banner maker for the Columbus Crew's Nordecke as well, I would often times swap logos, words, or take ideas from two banners and merge them. I'm personally experienced in banner making and want to get some insane banners (tifo) going here with the Dayton Dutch Lions (below tifo I had a heavy hand in all of them for Columbus's Nordecke):





I even made some banners in my small apartment in Columbus:



If you want to join up with me and try to bring that passion to the Dayton Dutch Lions from the get go here. Please meet with me Sunday April 18th at 1 p.m. at the Pub in the Greene for the First Supporters Meeting. As I want to set up a banner making session somewhere in town the week leading up to Global United. We can share ideas on banners (try to find a warehouse like seen above in some of those pictures to make them). Also, all of us supporters can finally meet and at least share one pint.

Got an idea for a tifo or chant. Share it here on The Orange Legionnaire Forum in the upcoming weeks.

Cheers and hope to see some of you on Sunday.