More than 32,000 turned out to see Fenway’s first football since 1968 and the pitch seemed to suit the old park just fine.
Rick Copland was there then. He spent the season with the Boston Beacons as a ball boy and he was there when Pele and his Santos club were brought to the Hub for a match at the Fens.
NESN producer Steve Garabedian introduced me to Copland Wednesday night. The football aficionado had his family out in full force for the event and I could see and hear the joy by simply speaking with him. He remembered the pitch being at a different angle in 1968 and raved about the crowd in 2010.
"A Celtic crowd for sure," he told me.
But Copland wasn’t the only one fired up for football’s return. NESN photographer John Martin and I walked around the ballpark to get glimpses of the game from a variety of angles. Everywhere we went, we heard cheers and saw smiles. Families, couples and groups of friends — no matter who you were with or where you were sitting, everyone was caught up in the experience.
It was a great match. Scoreless until the second half, Celtic grabbed the lead — much to the delight of the crowd. But Sporting was not to be outdone; they tied it at one. That’s how it would end — in the books anyway. The crowd bellowed and wailed through a series of penalty kicks which made Celtic the owner of Fenway’s Football Challenge trophy.
I didn’t know what I would think of soccer — er, football — under the ballpark’s lights. I don’t claim to be an avid fan of the game, but there is no questioning its passionate fanbase. I still remember a Manchester United crowd boarding a train in Barcelona, revved up and ready for a match and that was more than a decade ago. What I wasn’t sure of is how that fanbase, and all of its energy, would transfer to Boston.
But that’s exactly what it did. Along with the Celtic and Sporting teams in rolled the enthusiasm for football – and Fenway was the perfect place to house it.
