Eagles fans give opposite of a warm welcome
My experience in ‘The City of Brotherly Love’
February 2, 2018
With the Super Bowl here in our hometown of Minneapolis this weekend, our lives will undergo some changes for a few days. A few of these changes include messy traffic on any highway near Minneapolis or St. Paul will be a mess (more so than usual), additional events being put on downtown in honor of the Super Bowl, and we will have an estimated one million visitors.
Out of those one million visitors, many are sure to be fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, the NFC’s representative in the Super Bowl, who defeated my beloved Minnesota Vikings 38-7.
I was fortunate to make the trip out to Philly for that game, and my experience was unforgettable. In the days leading up to the game, I read a couple articles warning visiting Vikings fans about the rowdy hometown Eagles fans, but I disregarded them. My thought process was something like ‘well it can’t actually be that bad,’ however I was wrong.
I arrived in Philadelphia in the early afternoon, and along with my dad and uncle, walked around the city for a little while in our Vikings gear. While simply walking around downtown Philadelphia, we were met with unwelcoming looks and some trash talk from local Eagles fans. What caught me off guard was how it seemed like fans there were looking to make unwelcoming eye contact, whether that was passing by or from all the way across the street.
When it came time to travel to the stadium, we decided to take the subway from near our hotel to a stop near the stadium. Upon entering the subway station near our hotel, we were greeted with many boos and some vulgar language. We were the only Vikings fans, with only Eagles fans all around us. Once we boarded the subway, we were met with more boos, and after every stop, more Eagles fans would get on and we would get a new chorus of boos, one woman yelling ‘get off the subway.’
Our last stop was near the stadium. When we pulled in, we passed hundreds, probably thousands of Eagles fans that were waiting at the stop to get on after tailgating all afternoon. When the doors opened, a wall of Eagles fans faced us, and as we pushed through, we were subject to crazy booing and many bad insults I would prefer not to repeat in this column.
As we continued out of the subway station, the boos and insults continued as well as a vulgar chant. After we were officially out of the station, my uncle, dad, and I decided to take our jerseys and put them under our outer layer, because the treatment we were receiving from the home fans was not worth it.
Once we got to our seats in the stadium, we were able to show some of our Vikings gear, as the fans around us were nicer than those we had met on the way to the game. We enjoyed the first few minutes, and then witnessed one of the worst losses in Vikings history.
In attending a sporting event, regardless of where it is, a fan should never feel the need to take off their team’s gear because of opposing fans. Many Eagles fans were reckless, rude, unwelcoming and many other things. I know my dad, uncle and I were not the only ones who experienced this; I have seen other videos and stories about fans who were treated worse.
So now as Super Bowl weekend is upon us, I wonder how many Minnesota metro residents are renting their houses out to visiting fans. Out of those people, I wonder how many are renting to fans from Philadelphia. I hope that number is not very high, because if my experience is any indication of the way they act, they do not deserve any hospitality.
I understand not all of them are bad, and I understand they should not all be grouped together, however in some cases such as this, it is not wise to take that risk as a home-renter. I would hope Eagles fans can turn their act around and respect our city and the people living in it.
