Seven months after we first covered the club, we've caught up with the fans and staff of FMFC to hear their first-season stories...
In March this year, we ran a story on American third-tier club Forward Madison FC, who at the time were just two weeks away from their first-ever competitive match.
Now at the end of their season, we caught up with some of the fans and staff of the quirky club to discuss their inaugural campaign and the development of the club’s identity and the diversity of their active support, whilst forecasting the rollercoaster ride that Western United are similarly set to undergo in their first A-League season.
Forward Madison’s season began in late March, an away trip to Chattanooga. A 1-0 loss. It ended, however, with the team pulling together to sneak into the USL League One playoffs, though valiantly falling to eventual regular-season table leaders, North Texas SC, in the semi-final.
In between, the small club’s big heart earned it a global following and cultivated a home atmosphere that boasts the best fans in the league.
With their inaugural season having come to an end this past weekend, the team have very much exceeded every expectation of those who’ve witnessed the astounding progress it’s made since its inception.
According to Soccer Stadium Digest, Forward’s home matches typically attract a league-best crowd figure of just under 4300, more than double the competition-average of 1900, whilst having also become a behemoth of the league in the social media-sphere.
Deportes&Finenzas, who record the social media interactions of clubs around the world, report that Forward Madison are consistently, and comfortably, outperforming their USL League One rivals in the social media-sphere each month, in some instances recording more online interactions than the rest of the top five combined, as was the case on Twitter in July and on Instagram in August.
Jason Klein’s the talented individual who manages these social media accounts and his work constitutes a considerable part of Forward’s identity. Having cultivated a witty, ‘out-there’ online personality for the club’s social media pages, Jason’s efforts, alongside those of the club’s front office staff, have attracted a truly global following for their online accounts, including the likes of soccer media giants Mundial and Copa 90.
Asked what exactly he believes the key ingredients are to this attraction, Jason explains, “I think it starts with recognising who we are. We’re a third-division soccer club in the United States. We're not a Premier League team.
“We can go out there and afford to take risks. There's no reason for us to stay buttoned up and boring because what's the reward in doing that?”
With the club’s modest budget preventing him from attending away fixtures, Jason says he’s more than happy with the work-around he’s established:
“Usually what I'll do if I can is go out to a bar with the supporters and go and do my work from there, depending on how good the internet connection is.”
Jason works closely with the club’s Director of Fan Engagement and Digital Media, Kuba Krzyzostaniak, so that the digital content aligns with the various matchday promotions the club has become renowned for.
Kuba couldn’t agree more with Jason’s sentiment:
“I think it's just a case of staying true to our brand and our city. We take risks, sure, but for us it's just having fun and trying to be different. We’re trying to be unique and doing creative things that no-one else is doing.
“Just because we’re a third-division team we don't have to view ourselves as being lesser than any other club in the US.
Speaking on the club’s Behind the Feathers podcast, Director of Merchandising Chase Eagan explained that the matchday promotions which he works with Jason and Kuba to deliver are often put together “the week of. We’re doing these 3-4 days prior [to the matchday].”
The club’s first promotion came about in that exact manner, a handful of days from Forward’s mid-season clash with North Texas.
“We sort of came up with a silly idea that we were going to get some of our plastic flamingos and drill holes in them and wash them out so you could drink beer out of them,” Jason explains, chuckling, “We just put them up online and were sort of thinking, "Well, no-one's actually going to buy these things right?””
As it turned out, Jason’s humble perspective was quite wrong. The idea was a success.
Gaining immense popularity amongst stadium-goers and members, the ‘Fla-mug-o’ was born, and it would turn out to be the beginning of something grand.
With Kuba, Jason and Chase supported by a small team of front-office staff, the club’s commitment to quirky home matchday promotions only grew from there.
The ‘Bro Pack’ included local beer, shades and a Forward-branded tank-top for its fans to become ‘Basic Bros’.
‘International Watermelon Day’ saw countless team-signed watermelons given to fans, and the pulverising of a particular one which had been branded with the logo of their opposition on the day, FC Tucson.
Early September saw the club host an 80s wrestling-themed matchday where fans received a ‘MingoMania’ pack and got to meet former-wrestler ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan.
Andrew Schmidt – President of The Flock, Forward Madison’s main supporter group – described meeting the 80s icon, “The man has the biggest hands I've ever shaken in my entire life.”
When he’s not shaking the oversized hands of former pro wrestlers at matches, Andrew is passionately supporting in the stands with the rest of The Flock, the club’s beating heart on matchdays.
“We give people the license to support this club however they would like, and it makes it so that you have a group of people that curate that experience for eachother and for others like them,” he says.
Aligned with The Flock are numerous sub-supporter groups representing fans from diverse ethnic, geographic and cultural backgrounds. Andrew’s commitment to ensuring the equal treatment of these groups and supporters is irrefutable.
“You'd have to be living under a rock or with your head in the sand not to know that there's a problem and an ongoing issue with race in the US,” he says, “I think it's just hard-wired in humans to see differences in eachother as opposed to similarities.”
His passion is visible when he speaks about how The Flock comes together on game day to support the team.
“You know what? We look different, we act different, we come from different cultures and that's totally fine and okay and everyone has a place here. We make it so that those things aren't marginalised but celebrated instead.”
When arranging to speak with Andrew about The Flock, he offered without hesitation to invite the leaders of some of the diverse, Flock-aligned supporter groups to share their stories. Omar Anguiano is one such leader.
Omar founded ‘La Barra 608’ with his brother and a friend before Forward’s season had even begun, inspired by the club signing Latin American players like Paulo Jr. (Brazil), Danny Tenorio (Ecuador), Christian Diaz (Mexico) and Josiel Nuñez (Panama).
He references the packed stadiums, “crazy-ass fans” and insane Copa Libertadores Final between Boca Juniors and River Plate in 2018, and how those cultural images loosely shaped the identity he wanted for La Barra 608.
“We didn't wanna bring that kind of [hostile] environment but we wanted to bring that kind of energy; the sounds, the music they bring.”
La Barra 608 was one of the first ‘offshoot’ supporter groups from The Flock, and its immediate success inspired the creation of many others.
Kyle Carr is a co-founder of Featherstone Flamingos, a supporter group celebrating black culture.
He explains how the signings of black players inspired the group’s creation, and emphasised the importance of racial representation:
“The first signing for Madison was Don Smart, a Jamaican that lived in NY so having that kind of player and that kind of representation was something we wanted to happily push, so whether it was Don or other black players like Carter Manley, JC Banks, Brandon Eaton…
“It's just a chance to show the different parts of the United States and have younger fans be able to know that they can come to games and go and support. It's not just something for rich, white people. Anyone from any background can attend Forward Madison matches.”
Amidst the suffocation of active support within Australia, it was difficult not to enquire about how all these groups not only come together on matchday, but how they actively celebrate eachother’s differences whilst bringing deafening noise and vibrant colour to matchdays at Forward’s home stadium, Breese Stevens Field.
Omar offers an explanation:
“I think everyone comes in as a community. At games there's barely any ‘La Barra here, Featherstone here, the Flock here, Mingo Ladies here’.
“We're there supporting the same team. We wanna be all together.”
Off the pitch, the three leaders work with the club and other supporter groups to hold fundraising events and engage in charity initiatives.
“Our [overall fundraising] goal was $10K. I think we already had $7K after the first month,” Kyle says, “The fact we were already that close to our goal was incredible. We still had [fundraisers for] G-Safe (LGBTQ+ charity), we had mental health, we had domestic abuse, we had literacy for children.”
Andrew and Kyle also credit Omar for initiating a partnership with the Madison Police Department to deliver soccer clinics for primary and secondary school-aged children.
“The fact we’ve been doing all those charities in a wide variety and area, and how much we've been able to fundraise, I think that's my highlight in that regard,” Kyle finishes.
On the field, Forward fans endured a rollercoaster of a season.
After mixed results throughout the opening six rounds, the team went on to lose their next four games, leaving them at the foot of the USL League One table by the end of Round 10.
An extraordinary turnaround in form saw them take 20 points of a possible 27 from their next nine fixtures, drawing twice and losing only once to Lansing Ignite.
This, ironically, was followed by an anxiety-inducing stumble, winning only one of their next five games, and needing a near-perfect points collection from their final four games in order to finish in the top four and qualify for playoffs.
Crucial wins over Richmond Kickers and league-leaders North Texas SC put them into a promising position, only needing one win from their final two fixtures.
Held to a draw against FC Tucson, the team had to do it the hard way, travelling to a Lansing Ignite team who hadn’t lost in almost three months.
The game’s only goal came in the 43rd minute when Forward’s Carter Manley was put through on the right wing, making space to send in a slightly-overhit cross which was cut back to J.C Banks, who slotted the ball into the back of the net, sending the sizeable contingent of travelling Forward fans into hysteria.
Through to the playoffs in their inaugural season, there would unfortunately be no further pages written in the first chapter of the Forward fairytale, forced to come up against a strong North Texas SC outfit away from home in the semi-final and going down two goals to nil.
Reflecting on the team’s season, Jason recalls one of his fondest moments, the club’s very first game at home back in Round 4:
“All this work we'd done over months to build [towards that moment] and finally we had all these people coming out. It was in the middle of a snowstorm. All these crazy fans were singing for 90 minutes. It was just a culmination of a lot of effort and in another sense, the start of something that has grown bigger and bigger throughout the season.”
Whilst Forward’s historic inaugural season, in which they won the hearts of so many, may now be over, the A-League season has only just kicked off here, and Australia’s brand new team, Western United, have made a promising start to their first-ever campaign, coming away from Wellington with the 1-0 victory.
However, it’ll be United’s first home game will be the one to really stick with fans forever. Just like Jason describes, United’s home clash against Perth Glory this upcoming weekend will be its own culmination of behind-the-scenes efforts. Might United endure a similar rollercoaster season which ends in finals qualification?
In many ways, the first home game will signal the end of one chapter and the beginning of another; the end of the naming, branding and preparatory work to get the club off the ground, but the beginning of Western United, the A-League team.
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