Nordecke Tifo

10/6/09: Crewture CCTV- 2009 Review of Tifo And Smoke

2009-10-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

10/4/09: Columbus Til I Die Scarf Tifo vs. Seattle

2009-10-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

Only highlight of the night to be honest. These pictures of the tifo were snapped by Sam Fahmi, bigger pictures can be found here:

9/24/09: Cruz Azul Tifo

2009-10-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

Video of all the two sticks:

8/15/09: Smoke Bombs on Steriods Tifo

2009-08-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

A picture from preperations and practicing with high quality smoke bombs before the TFC game a few weeks ago:

I'll try to dig up the video of this.

And from the game against TFC, some great photos of the banners and smoke bombs by the Ultra:

7/25/09: Bruno Likes..

2009-07-31T23:05:00.001-07:00

The poopensack FC.

7/25/09: "Better Off Dead Than Red" Tifo Pictures

2009-07-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Description: Since all of our rivals are red(DC, Chicago, and TFC) it made sense to make this crowd banner for the TFC game and all other times that we play our rivals.

7/20/09: Reinforcements Tifo

2009-07-19T22:42:00.001-07:00

Description: The Crew were missing 6 players for the Real Salt Lake game, so Friday this was made after throwing around some ideas. We wanted to come up with our own original idea instead of taking 25% from some European ultras group. For this one we went with "Reinforcements Have Arrived" representing the supporters in the corner. We decided to add some girls in the banner because there are some pretty girls in the Nordecke, and we thought a bikini would catch some eyes as well. The ladies are carrying a sword and a gun respectively. And, we have the Ultra looking guy as a representation of the guys in the section. Just thought it was a cool idea for a small tifo for this week.

7/11/09: Chicago Away Smoke Bomb Display

2009-07-16T13:48:00.001-07:00

Our smoke bomb display in Chicago 7/11/09:

7/7/09: New Tifo Shots

2009-07-06T23:14:00.001-07:00

5/17/09: Forza Crew Done Better

2009-05-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

4/26/09: "Forza Crew" Display

2009-05-01T14:00:00.001-07:00

I'm going to give this another go off of the concourse against Kansas City because it wasn't pulled tightly enough which didn't lead to a great display. For the money and time spent on it by about 10 guys and by how good it looks spread out deserves one more go against Kansas City.

4/11/09: Colorado Game Small Display

2009-04-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

My banner from yesterday with the balloons around it. Not sure if it was displayed fully and the balloons were not done exactly how I had in mind. But, the balloons are a very cheap idea so I'll try them again. I'll post pictures from it in the stands when they come out, should be a delay since it's Easter.

Inspiration:

1. I'm not into comics. But, I ran across this picture in google images. And, instead of Captain America. It's Captain Frankie.
2. Sort of got it from the comic book idea the Crew is running with.
3. Everyone calls Frankie, Super Frank anyways with the one chant.

We will do something bigger with the bye for Chicago. I'll probably make this into a railing banner now.

3/29/09: Two Stick Tifo

2009-04-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

3/28/09: Pre-Work For Two Stick Display

2009-04-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

3/19/09: Plan For Opening Day

2009-03-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

Throw up about 75 two sticks on the walk out. And, 5 large crowd banners at some point in the game.

I have made 10 two sticks so far. I plan to make another 20 next week as I have spring break. So, I'll have 30, plus I'm making a large banner
Thoma has 27, so will likely have 30 or so plus his large Warzycha banner.
Big Al will have around 19, plus two large crowd banners.
Morgan is making 1.
Plus, there seems to be some other people making them as well.

Should be Massive.

Love Big Al's idea here from Bigsoccer:
[QUOTE=bigal614;17229420]i have 7 looks like looks like i will have 19 and 2 banners come game time maybe more depends how many of my friends are in town for spring break
i am also working on an assortment of 20-ft crowd banners of the different players holding the cup:

My reply:
That's going to be right nasty. Keep up the solid work. I plan to have one or two large crowd banners as well. And, Thoma's. Nobody is going to be talking much about TFC fans on opening day. :-)

3/19/09: More Two Poles

2009-03-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

From Big Al:

From Morgan:

From Thoma:

My "Wiernosc" One Completed (Polish for "loyalty"):

A little shoutout to my families Krakow heritage and because of Warzycha.

I'm going to try to get a projector off of my mom since she is a school nurse and work on these all next week during my spring break. Plan to hopefully do 20 more on top of my 10 and do a large crowd banner as well. Should have 70 two sticks at least, I think.

And, one last one from Thoma:

And some other ones from me:

3/2/09: New Thoma Two Stick Gems

2009-03-02T19:43:00.000-08:00

1/26/09: Nordecke Offseason Tifo Video

2009-01-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

1/26/09: Thoma Two Stick Tutorial From December

2009-01-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

Thoma has been making alot of two sticks in the offseason. I asked Thoma how he goes about mass producing these and he provided a nice tutorial here. Enjoy and please share your artwork here. I'm going to try to make at least 10-15 myself, hopefully we have over 100 for opening day to hold up as a demonstration on opening day in the Nordecke.

1. Piece of Fabric
Two stick Flags can be any size (as seen with the Wanted McBride one). So far, I've preferred to make them 4ft 9 inches once complete. The cloth seen here starts out at 4ft10 tall x 3ft8in wide.

* Notice the creases on the edges as this is key.

2. Make Creases
I like to get my folds in place before I start the sewing process. First, I will fold and iron creases to keep those in place (top and bottom about one inch, and the sides 2 inches).

3. First Fold Over
Self explained in the photo. The first folds are the longer sides.

4. Top/Bottom Folds
Fold the top and bottom of the flag over the side folds

5. Pre-Pole Cuts
As seen in the photos cut a little off on all four corners (futher away from the edge)

6. The Overlap

Cut this!

Overlap pole ends with top and bottom ends

The penciled part shows how much the pole ends have overlapped the top/bottom ends

7. Sew the Ends

Notice the overlapped top/bottom ends will be sewn over. I've done this asin attempts to keep that top and bottom end strong enough.

This photo shows the top end. Arrows show how the patterns are sewn. Obviously the top edge is sewn.

Um, please don't sew the bottom edge corners! The poles are slotted in here. This has happened to me once, rookie mistake. Please not that the bottom fold IS sewn like the top fold. When sewing, pay attention.

Finished sewing and ready to get busy!

Be creative, do your best, it doesn't have to be perfect, remember it's all about your show of support for Columbus.

Mistakes + Practice = Learning

1/19/09: USA Tifo Along With Some Old School Tifo

2009-01-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

One Thoma made for USA vs. Mexico, I'm going to spend next Saturday working on a couple banners and two sticks as well:

Old School Pics:
And I only have been in the TIFO(banner making) game since the start of this year, Thoma has been in it for quite a while, these old school pics are pretty sweet, glad the rest of us caught up:
2000

Thoma being a luminary before his time as it seems from the above section that it was missing the Nordecke's rowdiness a wee little bit. :-)
2008

some more old school pics as Thoma was inspired in the late 90's by watching Serie A games and their fans.

1/16/2009: USA Tifo

2009-01-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Thoma is hard at work on some sort of banner for USA vs. Mexico:

I may work on a two stick or two for USA vs. Mexico as well, since it's a long weekend. Feel free to join in and send me your work to post.

1/9/2009: Some New Ones

2009-01-08T22:42:00.000-08:00

AS Roma logo plus a stick figure version of an awesome pic to the left, ends up like this:

Some new Big Al ones:

1/7/09: Combining Images For Creativity

2009-01-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

I just typed in Ultras for a couple different ideas and came across the first two images. Then ran across the Athletico Madrid logo idea to put like a slit in the logo. Then before I heard about the Soul Crew, and always thought it would make a good thing for a banner like this:

1/7/09: One More From Me Tonight

2009-01-07T19:11:00.001-08:00

I think I'm starting to get a handle on the free hand, :-) :

1/7/09: More Thoma Two Sticks

2009-01-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

1/7/09: Flare Guy Two Stick

2009-01-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

Made my second two stick today, flare guy is a little better than my first, getting there:

Lol, Vincent Van Hooligan?

1/7/09: Big Al Gets In The Mix Of The Off Season Two Sticks

2009-01-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

Nice work here by Big Al. He is probably going to make the whole first team as two sticks, along with some other images:

Kevin is also getting in the mix with at least six two sticks:
I had my Mom sew up six two-stick flags while I was home for the holidays. I can't remember the dimensions off the top of my head but they are similar to Thoma's. We also used the JoAnn's broadcloth but first sewed two pieces together to make the flag thicker.

Also. I have a projector here at my office that Myshap purchased for the group and everyone is welcome to use it. If anyone would like to use the projector send me a PM and we can schedule some time in the evening or on a weekend.

Hopefully some of us can get together for some painting/beer drinking parties like we had for the Eastern Conference in this offseason. But, good work guys.

12/1/08-1/5/09: The 100-200 Two Sticks Plan For 2009

2009-01-04T23:35:00.000-08:00

Some of us are looking to do at least over 100 two sticks for the opening walk out for the Crew in 2009. I'm also going to make an absolutely huge banner about the team for the first or second home game. Either after half of the first home game or at walk out of the second home game, not sure yet. But, it will be of this size:

Here is just a small sample of Thoma's and the start of my efforts so far, please join up and make some two sticks. Here's a Thoma demo on how. I don't think any of us plan to post many more of these to ruin the surprise element, the point of posting some of these is to just generate interest and get more people to follow Thoma's two stick lead. Can you imagine the smiles on the team if they had us holding up over 100 two sticks during their walk out in 09?:

My not as good first effort on 1/4/09 is below. The point is whether your a professional like Thoma or a novice like me, the more two sticks for 2009 the better our displays will be. So join up and help out.

I have enough fabric to make 10 of these ones of this size. There about the size of the McBride playoff one in the post below.

The one I plan to make tomorrow I actually have a plan for, usually I just let the spirit move me with the TIFO's and start painting and spray painting with a faint idea of a plan. :-). Also would help if I could get my hands on a projector like Thoma, probably will by my next round of ones of smaller size. Anyways, here's my first attempt at a two stick, I'm a little rusty:

Still once it's in standing form, it has Crew on it and will do the trick in filling up space, just like the other 30 or so I plan on making.

11/13/08: Eastern Conference Semifinal- Best Tifo Attempt In 2008

2009-01-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

In a sign of things to come, our best crowd demonstration tifo occured in our last game of 2008. All the banners were constructed in under 4 days as we had our first home playoff game the previous Saturday and this game the next Thursday.

The banner work came together with Thoma making his own individual large banner, I made two large banners, Kevin and Danza made a smaller but badass banner, and Anthony made a nice two stick mocking former Crew player McBride.

1. Thoma's "Clean Up Our City, Throw Away The Trash Banner."

2. Anthony's McBride Wanted For Treason Banner

3. Kevin and Danza's "Good Night, Red White" Banner with a karate kid kicking the Fire logo

4. My Glory To Columbus Banner. Complete with my best replica of the MLS Cup (yes I'm a cocky bastard, over two weeks before we won it with two games left.)

5. Together with the Crew jersey, finished product:

Bringing this all together was quite the laugh. I was totally waxed but I knew if I didn't get on the field to coordinate this TIFO it wasn't going to happen because no one else was stepping up and no one else knew the whole plan and everyone involved. So, after fighting my way through the crowd, I got the security guard to let me on the field. Then I had to go about working on getting 2,000 drunk people to hold up these banners at the same time. And, we did it twice. Trust me it was alot of hard work and my personal proudest moment as I didn't know I had the balls to just jump on the field and get everyone to raise up the banners for such an important game.

Here is my Glory To Columbus one afterwards, I didn't take a good pic of it beforehand. It looked much better before the crowd banner became wrinkled and a beer mop:

And, me trying to be all ultra-istic with it:

Anyways, the first design was even more elaborate then this but I'm glad we scaled back with the short ammount of time. The first one was to have all these banners and give everyone in the crowd around the banners a yellow piece of cardboard to hold up around the banners. But, on short notice we figured this would be too complicated.

10/26/08- 11/8/08: Playoff Run

2009-01-04T22:49:00.000-08:00

Guillermo=John Rambo:

Guillermo came over to check out this sign at the end of the game(there is a good pic of this somewhere but can't find it, when I do I'll post it here):

Trophy now a part of Nordecke:

A little crowd one:

Brad falls to corporate sponsorship:

A poser the next week right next to Flava Flav:

8/23/08: The Best Picture of The Year Becomes Artwork

2009-01-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

June 29, 2008 vs. Colorado Rapids:

August 23, 2008 vs. Real Salt Lake:
Becomes artwork and banner that is on the wall in HSH's bar Ruby Tuesday's:

Go downstairs at Ruby's and you can see it hanging up.

7/5/08: Chicago Game Tifo

2009-01-04T22:10:00.000-08:00

Our earliest attempt this season at anything crowd organized, this came a week and a half before my Nordecke Massive Banner(first post on this page). As you can see we still had alot of work to do in this department.

Security looking at us like what the hell is that? :-)

A little gem in the bottom left of this pic. Crewnity, sort of like Ohio native Dave Chappelle's famous Rick James skit that talks about "Unity."

Heat led to some interesting styles in the stands as well:

CLC stands for "Chaos League Columbus", these guys are crazier then HSH and always are looking for a little laugh with away fans. Luckily for lack of chaos they only have about 5-10 members:

4/29/08-10/1/08: Artists Unknown

2009-01-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the less fancy works are the best works:
An ode to the Galaxy's fracturing playoff hopes.

The story behind these pics are New England got trounced by Joe Public(yes a real team name that hails from the less talented Trindad and Tobago league) 4-0 earlier in the week leading to the Revolution's early exit from CONCACAF. The fake machete's are in honor of Matt Reis who commented that in the Revolution's first meeting earlier in the season with the Crew at Crew stadium, that the Crew fans were not only throwing batteries and all sorts of stuff, but mise well have been throwing machetes or something of the sort. The Crew went on to beat New England as well by a mark of 4-0 that night.

From the same match, We Shall Not Be Moved Banner. In honor of the song, "We Shall Not Be Moved... Not by the Revs, the Fire, or United... We shall not be moved.":

Creative hat for that game:

One more banner from that game:

One from the earlier week against Real Salt Lake in honor of New Zealand and Columbus great Duncan Oughton. St. Dunc has been with Columbus since about the turn of the decade and has well over 100 caps with the Crew. Although his playing time was sparse in 2008, the fans still love him:

Some body tifo from the same match:

Some HSH artwork:

Fans Against Racism Banner(Columbus-Chicago), done up by Chicago fans in a joint effort by both groups to say no to racism in American football. Both groups exchanged the banners twice during the season.

Above: Myself and some of my group picking it up in Peoria, Illnois at the Open Cup

In Columbus

The good old days before streamers were banned:

An effort outside the Nordecke:

9/16/08-10/25/08: Thoma Revs Up Production

2009-01-04T21:40:00.001-08:00

A couple more gems from Thoma:

The Massive one in the below pic is his as well, not sure if Guillermo's tyke is looking at the crowd or at the Massive yellow blob:

And, this one being held up by Thoma and some unhired help

8/16/08: Some Midseason Gems

2009-01-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Before my massive first attempt at a banner(I figure you either have to go big or go home), Thoma had been making some nice banners for months and Kevin(Vice Pres of CSU and the guy that introduced me to Happy Greek and Claddagh's) made these gems.

From Kevin:

From Thoma:

7/13/08-7/18/08: Nordecke Tifo Banner For Kansas City At Home

2009-01-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

My first baby

Was meant to show the togetherness of the section. Includes my best try of the Columbus skyline with the name of the section above the skyline, then includes groups of people leaving the city for the perspective groups of the section. Our groups are LTA(La Turbina Amarilla), HSH(Hudson Street Hooligans), and CSU(Columbus Supporters Union). Below that it says Junto Desde 2008(means together since 2008, wanted to use some spanish for La Turbina) and Massive Forever. Massive is a catch phrase, fun term for Crew fans. Usually said in a joking way for years especially between 2005-2007 when our on the field product was a massive dogpile of suck.

At this point we had a long way to go as I'm not even sure if the crowd unfurled it correctly all the way. :-) But, I used it again later in the season to the desired effect.