DETROIT – Dean "Padre" Simmer is a capo in the Northern Guard for the Detroit City FC.
"I stand on the ladder and lead chants, try to get everybody at full excitement level for the entire game," Simmer said.
I met up with Dean at a recent DCFC match in their new home in Hamtramck: Keyworth Stadium.
Watch a previous Uniquely Detroit on the stadium here.
Fans of the team recently raised almost $750,000 to renovate the stadium, which was originally built in the 40s. Supporters of the team also donated time by doing a lot of the work themselves.
You guys have the craziest fans in town, talk about the supporters section:
Were the side that's really full volume, singing songs on our feet, twirling scarves, a few people that are kind of on the smoke bomb team launching smoke bombs.
Our job as fans and supporters, is to throw everything we've got behind the team and give them that extra home-field advantage boost.
What is it like attending a DCFC match?
It's really unlike any other sporting experience. I'm a huge baseball fan, I go to six or eight tigers games every year. This is totally different. This is like full volume, 100%, couple thousand people on our side couple thousand people on the opposite side of the stands just rooting on the guys to victory.
What has it been like moving from your old home at Cass Tech to Keyworth in Hamtramck?
Cass was a great place to start the club, no doubt about it. Cass very much felt like a high school football field. The metal bleachers, the real narrow visitor side, that was the supporter section. Here it's like a 80, 85-year-old stadium that's got the old bones, the creakiness of the concrete and brick. There's like an ethos and an energy to the place. Like a Fenway park or a Wrigley Field, you just go in there and you there's a history there that's really cool.
It's fun to go to all of the local restaurants and March to the game. It's intense. It's like we took one more step into the fullness in the community and culture of the club when we moved from Cass to Keyworth.
Sum up the unique experience you get at Keyworth:
When you go into Keyworth, it's kind of intimate. It can seat about 7000 people, although "seat" is kind of ironic because In the supporter section we don't sit anyway. It's in the community. You're walking right through a residential and retail district to get to the stadium. And it just feels like you're really part of something special. You're kind of part of the story that so much bigger than you for the game. Just the screen and history, it's really awesome.
How does soccer fit into the sports landscape in Detroit?
I think the thing that keeps Detroit city unique in this for the landscape is because it's of that amateur, semi pro level in the players are paid they can be college guy, they don't lose their NCAA eligibility. There's guys from local universities like your U of M, Saginaw Valley that play here. Our coach is an assistant coach at Michigan State. It just feels like everybody's invested in this putting their time, their sweat equity in their money into this. There's this real true sense that we're all doing this thing together. Homegrown guys, guys who have grown up in the area playing soccer for 20 or 25 years can come try out make the team and play here.
It's radically different than going to a Tigers game or a Pistons game, but they can completely coexist and it's a ton of fun.
Can anyone be in the Northern Guard?
There's not really like a membership in the Northern Guard. If you want to be in the Northern Guard, you're in the Northern Guard. What you see around here is a whole lot of people who are really passionate about the club. The Northern Guard is honestly like a big crazy family. Everybody chooses to have one thing in common, you know when family you just show up and you've got that thing in common. So this everybody has that bind regardless of where they come from or what their life is like. So it's really awesome, there's just such a cool support group of each other and of the team. It's honestly like nothing else I've ever been a part of.
How special has it been to see yourselves grow and move into your new home?
It's like anything you help start. When you see it grow to the next level, there's just such a sense of pride in it. So knowing that in the first season and 2012 they were like a thousand people showing up at games and now we've got 4-5-6,000 people showing up at Keyworth in our own stadium. There's nothing like it.
I keep saying that, but I don't really know how else to put it there's just nothing quite like being part of the DCFC experience. Every person that I know that has come for the first time has come back again. And that I think is the measure of how everybody ends up feeling about this you know whether they're old or young hear about soccer, passionately or really don't know anything about soccer, live nearby or far away.
It's just the sense of like they come and they come away from this experience going, "that is the kind of sporting experience that I want to see again. I want to go to this rowdy soccer experience again and again and again."
Find out more about the Northern Guard here.
See the DCFC schedule and information about tickets.
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