Traveling fans give Real boost

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- As the match between Real Salt Lake and the Colorado Rapids kicked off at Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night, a section packed with red-clad supporters could be heard throughout the stadium, singing and cheering their team while it fought for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Members of several of RSL's supporters groups, as well as fans who just enjoy the team, loaded a bus in faint glow of the early morning to endure the daylong bus ride to Denver to do their part in helping RSL make history.

The group of nearly 60 dedicated fans who rode the bus were added upon by several who found their own way to Colorado for the match, increasing the RSL fan presence to more than double that of the bus capacity.

And although they may have been outnumbered by the nearly 15,000 Rapids fans, the band of Real supporters could be heard clearly during the course of the match.

"RSL fans have been known to be the really, really loyal to us," said Yura Movsisyan, whose 90th-minute goal gave RSL a 1-1 draw and its first-ever playoff spot. "They stuck with us through thick and thin, and I think we rewarded them today -- with everything that has been going on the past four years -- we rewarded them today with a playoff berth."

Starting in the team's inaugural season, Real Salt Lake and a group of their supporters collaborated to arrange a road trip for RSL fans who wanted to witness and take part in the presentation of the Rocky Mountain Cup -- the trophy given to the regional winner of the season series against Colorado. The initial trip was well attended and now, three years later, the trip has become somewhat of a tradition.

"The Rocky Mountain Cup represents the rivalry," said Ethan Gomberg, an RSL supporter and one of the bus trip organizers. "Whoever wins the cup wins something, and this year it means RSL is going to the playoffs!"

At the beginning of the season Merrill Page remembered conversations that RSL general manager Garth Lagerway had with fans, where he felt it was important to for the fans to come on the road and have a presence in the stands while RSL plays away from home.

It was these memories, and the regret that he didn't join the road trip last year, that motivated Page to get the ball rolling on this year's trip.

"I just started asking people to give me names and phone numbers so that we could send them on to the team and say, 'Hey, we've got these many people that want to go,'" said Page.

With little advertising the bus quickly reached about half-capacity. Once word spread that a bus was being organized, with the help of the local news outlets mentioning the trip in their coverage of the team, every seat on the bus was snatched up. The response was so positive that a second bus was talked about, but not enough deposits were made to actually pay for it.

"At a certain point, Ethan called me and told me that he talked to some of the writers of the [Salt Lake Tribune] and the [Deseret] News," said Page. "They put a blurb of it in the paper and then that bus was full. It looked like people wanted a second bus. Unfortunately, we didn't get quite enough to fill a second bus."

In cooperation with the Rapids, who donated enough tickets to Real to cover the first busload of fans, RSL was able to offer the trip at only the cost of bus fare.

For Page, it was the personal drive to travel with the team he supports that made the trip worth all the work.

"I just didn't want to miss it," said Page. "I really wanted to go! I didn't know what kind of game it was going to be when we started the ball rolling. ... I didn't know it was going to be a game where it was going to come down to the last five minutes, as to how our season was going to go."

As to why the bus had such a good response, and filled to capacity, Page feels it's the rivalry with the Rapids that lead to the turnout.

"I think the bus would have filed up with that," Page said of the regional rivalry. "There were a lot more people that came over to our section by the time the game was over. There were probably 100 to 200 more than what we came with on the bus."